The season ender at Virginia International Raceway was a painfully long 6 hour race. The weekend didn’t really start off as we would have liked, we had 4 practice sessions that were all about an hour long. More time than usual to get the car right. The first practice session was done almost entirely by my co-driver, Scot Nicol, who had never been to VIR. He was learning the track the whole time and never really had the chance to push the car much. So I got in right at the end and the handling was horrendous. I did one lap, spun the car and brought it back to the garage to wait for the next session. Our second pratice session was the only one that went smooth. The handling was still not right, but better. I was 5th quickest in the session, and the fastest of the Acuras. But, then I got out pretty quick and let Scot do the rest of that session, the car started giving us fault codes. One of the warning lights came on for Scot so he brought it in to the pits. The team decided it wasn’t a big deal and said they would fix it later. So Scot went back out to get some more time in the car. For the 3rd session we went out and the fault code which they thought was fixed was not. The motor was not making horsepower like it usually did and felt very sluggish. I was very happy with the handling though. So, I let Scot get in and he was really starting to get comfortable with the car now. He was turning some decent lap times, not far off of mine.

The last session of the day was actually our only night-time practice. Our race was to go into the night, so we had one session to make sure our headlights were right and that the car was handling well in the cool. The big problem was that we now knew what the problem with the car was, we just couldn’t get it fixed in time for the final practice. So we just went out to see how the lights were and couldn’t do a decent lap time.

Now for qualifying, what a miserable experience that was. Qualifying is funny for us, they make everyone go out at the exact same time, you cannot wait in the pits for a gap or anything like that. You have 15 minutes to do as fast a lap as possible and that it is. So, our strategy is to start dead last and go about 30 miles per hour on the opening lap. Then just before the first people are coming around for their first timed lap I go and the theory is that there are not any other cars in front of us to hold us up, so I should get a clean fast lap. Well on my first timed lap I caught a very slow (dangerously slow) car through the fastest, hairiest part of the track. He was going quite a lot slower than I was, so I slowed down a lot to make sure I got by him safely. It totally screwed my lap, but I still had about 10 minutes left. Plenty of time to get another lap. So, I slowed up a bit for the rest of that lap, in order to not catch anyone else on the following lap, which I did not. BUT, the way my luck has been going, someone crashed in the middle of that next lap, and they stopped qualifying right there. So, I didn’t get to do one single fast lap. There I was in 20th position with a car that should have been fighting for the front row! We’ll just say that was not a happy moment for me.

Fast forward to the race…

I knew that we would really have to be careful with our brakes if we were going to make it 6 hours on one set of brake pads. This made me even madder, because I had to pass a lot of people without using my brakes much. The start went pretty well, and I gradually moved through the pack. Not as quick as I would have liked, because not being able to out brake people really hindered my passing ability. About 30 or so minutes in someone had wrecked and there was our first full course caution. I was going to need a few of these to bunch everyone back up, so I could move through the field. I don’t have a clue what position I was in at this point, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t really want to know, I had to just keep my head down, and pass as many people as possible without abusing the car. We went back to green and I kept moving up. About an hour and a half into the race my crew chief finally tells me that I’m in 5th or 6th (now I can’t remember) but that the Turner BMW was the next car in front of me. That was the car I was supposed to beat, because my teammate was fighting that car for the championship. I needed to get in front of that car. No, big deal he was a little ways ahead of me, but I was reeling him in slowly. Then as I’m heading into a very fast corner in which we slow from about 120 mph to 95 mph and make a fast left before dropping down a hill, I get what we call knock-back (where when you hit the brake petal the pads have been knocked back off the rotor, so the petal is much longer than usual) and I really wasn’t expecting it. So I sailed into the corner without scrubbing off enough speed and the car snaps sideways, I thought I was still ok, this kind of thing isn’t that big of a deal. I’m trying to save it when I suddenly run out of road a little bit and drop both rear wheels off, while my front wheel stay on the pavement. Even though it’s a front wheel drive car, and I’m on full power pulling the car back straight the dirt was too slick and it snapped the rear all the way around. Now I was going for a ride, I got the car slowed down enough where when I collected the tire wall with my left side, it was not a big hit at all. Very lucky. The other lucky thing was that the corner workers did not wait to see if my car was ok. They immediately called in a full-course caution. So this slowed everyone up, and allowed me to get the car back on track without loosing too many positions. It was not really an ideal time to pit, but due to the circumstances we decided to go ahead and come in, check out the car and put Scot in. Other than loosing our rear bumper, the car was in perfect health. No alignment issues or anything. A very narrow escape. Needless to say I was quite upset with myself for losing a few of the positions that I had worked so hard to make up, but it was impossible to tell just how much we had lost, because we were not out of sequence on the pit stops with most everyone else in the field. Scot at this point was in 16th place, but it was not a game of strategy for us. Our hand had been dealt, and in the end our different pit strategy would either help or hurt us. Only time would tell. So, as all the leaders made their next set of pit stops we didn’t have to, because we were out of sequence with them. So, Scot was in the lead for a while until he had to pit too. We decided to put Aaron Povoledo in the car now, so that I wouldn’t have to be in the car too long, and I would be fresh for the end of the race. So, Aaron drove around for a while and was leading when luck of all luck a caution came out with an hour and 40 minutes remaining. Our car will only go an hour and a half on a tank of gas, but we decided to take a gamble. So did most of the other leaders, which put us back on the same pit sequence as them. We were suddenly looking good for a win.

I’m leading the field as we circle behind the pace car waiting for the green flag. And I let the team know that our brakes are toast, there is no way they are going to make it to the end. Incidentally the other car already had a total brake failure and was not many many laps down. I thought we had saved our brakes enough so they would last, but turns out we had not. So, I head off trying to use the brakes as little as possible, and doing quite fine for about 20 minutes, then I start noticing a sever lack of braking power, and sparks flying from both front wheels whenever I hit the center petal. This is a sure sign of brake pads used up. I was not metal on metal with over an hour to go in the race. All I could do was keep circulating, hope for a caution so we could put new pads in, and see what happened. Driving a race car at over 130 mph with no brakes is not a terribly confidence inspiring experience, but none the less, I had not other option. Using the transmission to slow down the car all I could do was downshift as early as possible, with out blowing up the motor, to slow the car down. Then a huge red warning light on the dash popped up. Same one from practice, instantly the motor went into wimpy mode again. The problem was that the variable valve timing was not working at all. Fine, if it was tuned to not work. But the economy valve timing was the setting it was stuck on. So I’m getting great gas mileage, but severely down on power. I found that it was making more power if I shifted about 2500 rpm sort of red line. This was still very little power, but the motor would stop pulling altogether if I revved it all the way up. Anyway, I had to drive around for almost an hour with no brakes and no power. Very frustrating, the caution never came that we needed, but it wouldn’t have helped anyway, because I couldn’t keep up the pace with the motor like it was. I don’t know how the car actually made it to the finish line, but I was able to limp it around in pitch black (headlights were pointing in all the wrong directions) for that long and end up 7th. It was a disappointing finish, considering we easily could have been in 2nd (the car that won, had us covered, and I don’t think we had anything for those guys). So, the season started and finished with us leading a lot of laps, but in the end the car failed us both times. The Kensai Guys did a fabulous job, but when racing street cars, that are built for city and highway driving, for 6 hours, they are bound to have issues.

Now the search for a team that will have me for next year is on. I’m a free agent, and on the prowl for some sponsorship. I have talked to multiple teams for next year, but so far everyone wants a driver who is bringing a sponsor along with them. I just don’t know why every team isn’t knocking down my door with the absolutely horrendous luck I’ve endured this year (sarcasm). Hopefully this isn’t my last racing blog every, I’ll keep you updated.