Well, qualification went OK, but not as good as I had hoped. By the time I got in the car it was just getting dark. Not completely dark, but mostly dark. Dark enough that it got really dark really fast. But not fast enough to hide the spin I had on my out lap. Well, more like my out exit. Really like the very first time I turned the steering wheel even a little bit, I spun the car. Not a full spin, mind you. But enough to watch the apex pass by the nose of my car as I slid 90 degrees off the direction my car should have been pointed. Go Gary!

Seriously, cold tires on this thing are no joke. Not even a snicker. I “thought” about turning the wheel to the right in turn 3 and the ass stepped out. This was while I was on the radio to Marshall bitching about how bad it was driving on cold tires. While putt-putting around the outside of the corner letting cars go past. I was in full on counter steer mode at about 2/10ths, I kid you not. I vote for leaving the same set of rear tires on the car the entire 25 hour race.

Anyway, after about 2 full laps the tires stopped playing their little “I’m made of stone” game and started gripping the track. Which gave me enough speed to scare the shit out of myself in a different way. Let me start by stating that the Fwings are not made of glass. If they were made of glass, they would probably break, because they are producing pretty good downforce and glass just isn’t cut out for that kind of stress. Too brittle. They are made of carbon fiber and aluminum. Which makes them nice and strong for supporting the downforce. The bad thing about carbon fiber and aluminum is that you can’t see through them like you can see through glass. “See” where I’m going with this?

Turn 7, which is a left hand kink, wide open throttle, just a hint of a turn, is the scariest effing place on this track at night. Because the Fwings aren’t made of glass, so you can’t see those cool little reflectors that show where the edge of the track are. In the daytime it’s not so bad, because you can see other stuff, like…the track. But at night, you can’t see shit. Except for those little reflectors that our Fwings block.

Takes a little figuring out. By trial and error you have to find your turn in point and turn the wheel X amount. One of the times you do that, you actually hit the apex, even though you couldn’t see it. Now the trick is to do that every lap from then on. For 13 hours of driving at night. It’s exciting. It’s weird. It’s really scary!

So after about 5 laps I was able to put together something reasonably respectable. Well, on the lower end of respectable. I was constantly running into traffic at the worst times. Oh, I also learned that the Fwing can sometimes block out an entire car if you get it just the right way. Like when you hold up your thumb in front of you and block out that person you wish wasn’t there, same principle. Poof, the whole car is gone. I’m always a little relieved when it comes back. What if it didn’t? Trippy.

Anyway, if I wasn’t being held up by slower cars, I was being held up by yellow “flags”. They’re really yellow lights on the flag stations. So the yellow lights go on, everyone slows down. No passing for a corner or two without seeing any incidents an boom, laptime is in the shitter.

So the best laptime I was able to pull out was a 1:59.2. That’s good enough for 17th out of two hundr…..well, I don’t know…..seventy something cars. Anyway, with the no-see-um corners, the disappearing car tricks, moving chicanes and pretend yellow zones, there was a lot going on. I guess we did OK.

The guys are working on the car right now. Mike Warfield, the owner of GST Motorsports found a problem with the keep-alive for the alternator, so we won’t have to worry about the low voltage issue anymore. Marshall’s notepad of work for the night looks like a seven year old’s Christmas Wish List. It’s pages long. Oh, look at the time, I should be getting to sleep!

The race is tomorrow morning starting at 11am. I’m pretty sure I’m in for the first stint. I’ll post up an update once I’m out of the car at 1pm.

Goodnight!

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