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24 HOURS AT
DAYTONA UPDATE:
Wednesday, January 27
Update
The first group of team members arrived
on Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. We got a glimpse of the detailed
Corvette. Check it out:
Today, was unload and
setup day. We setup the pit area,
transporter and hospitality and the garage. We worked on a lot of details both technical
and aesthetic on the car. We put
the car and the drivers equipment through
technical inspection and got everything signed off. The hospitality crew prepared amazing
food for the crew throughout the day, and they set the bar high for all
other teams. We had our first
photo session with the car and the complete combined crews. Joe K. went through all crew
assignments and reviewed responsibilities with the group. Tomorrow the team hits the track.
Thursday, January 28 Update
We got the car prepped and ready
to go first thing this morning.
While we were pushing back, we had a problem with the brakes. We went back into the garage for a
quick adjustment. Once on the
track, the problem came back on the first lap with Scott in the car and
the brakes basically locked up.
The tow driver hooked up to the car to pull us in and didn’t
acknowledge Scott’s signals that the brakes were locked. He took off to pull the car and with
the brakes locked, the tension tore the splitter and the nose part of the
way off the car. We had a complete
front prepped, so we replaced it all.
We still had multiple problems that we didn’t completely get
through until the next test session was almost over. Scott jumped back in and after a lap, reported that that the handling seemed even
better than on the test days. We
made a few more adjustments in preparation for the next session:
qualifying. Paul qualified the car
and got consistently better throughout the qualifying period. With about 4 minutes to go, Paul had
the Corvette in the pole position.
Other teams got faster also, especially the Mazda teams and 3 move
ahead us in the last couple of minutes of qualifying and by only a few
hundredths of a second. We finished
the qualifying round in P4, second row, outside. The final session was, for the most
part, split between Davy and John.
We did a little more tuning and shakedown, finishing with no major
problems.
Friday, January 29 Update
This morning, we completed
replacing all of the parts that had wear on them from practice and
qualifying with new race ready parts.
We didn’t go out for the practice session or the extended
qualifying session because we didn’t want to start wearing the car
out right before the race or risk damaging the car. We did go out on the final practice
session to make sure we had everything back in the car correctly and
everything was working fine. Paul
took the car out for the short session and was one of the fastest cars on
the track. We only have a few
minor things left and some final checks in the morning and then we are
ready for the big show.
Saturday, January 30 Update
Today was finally race day. The race started with full course
caution due to the rain. When we
were green, we had a couple of minor problems and obviously with the
rain, there were lots of cautions.
We had to take advantage of them due to some minor handling issues
but got that worked out. We were
penalized 20 seconds for pitting out of sequence during one of those
stops and that hurt us bit.
Obviously with so much time left, it was not elimination. When we got the handling worked out,
Paul was the fastest car out there for quite a few laps. He moved the car up through the pack
steadily and went from 21st to 14th in about 20 minutes. Paul got bumped by a DP car and went
into the grass with no damage but something clogged the radiator and with
engine temps rising fast, he came in for service and a driver
change. John jumped into the car
for the next stint and put up a few consistent laps but during a yellow
flag, he spun the car and damaged the right rear. Its 8:00 pm at this update and we are
in the garage working on the rear end, transmission and repairing other
damage from the spin. We are
working frantically to get the Corvette back out on the track.
After over an hour in the garage
we got the Corvette back on the track.
Scott took over and initially was making good progress and made up
a lap. However, he spun into the
wall, again impacting the rear end.
He came in and we took the car to the garage and in less than 10
minutes, were back out on the track.
Sunday, January 31 Update
Davy was took
over and running hard as the race entered Sunday. Well into Davy’s stint, he was
rear-ended in the International Horseshoe, causing additional damage to
the rear end. Davy completed his
stint in the car but the damage continued to take a toll until Paul took
over. After a short time, Paul
radioed in further problems in the rear of the car. We brought it into the garage but the
car had nothing left at that point, and could not be repaired in time to
reenter the race. We finished the
race 23rd.
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TeamMBR supports and endorses Texas
Heart Institute and sincerely requests and encourages
our fans to donate to this worthy cause through the donation link at Godstone Ranch Motorsports.
Godstone Ranch
Motorsports, a Texas
501(c) (3) non-profit corporation, will begin raising funds for the Texas
Heart Institute in Houston,
Texas as a result of our
desire to see motorsport contribute to our daily lives and be more than
just a sport. We want to use the allure of motor racing as a means to
support a charitable concern. 100% of the net proceeds will be donated to
Texas
Heart
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