After waiting another 4 months it was time to go back to Pacific Raceways and show it what we were really capable of… after a few last minute fixes to the car (whoops). Procrastination definitely got the best of us but with 3 weeks left we tackled the repairs on the Mini and made it as good as it better than it was when we first built it. We made all the repairs needed after the front end collision in the last race, replacing the front clip that held our new radiator since it was missing some pieces and the front crash bar, with one that had all its welds intact and was still straight. We also noticed some extremely uneven brake wear on the front so we worked through that issue flushing the brakes and getting replacement gaskets order in case we needed to rebuild it. Thankfully it was pretty simple and I was going to have help at the race with Billy showing up from Atlanta again to mechanic for us.
Test day went really smooth and we saw consistent/ even brake wear across all the front brake pads. No issues going through tech and bribed the judges with some homemade plum cobblers and limoncello, provided by another friend joining us for the first time at 24 Hours of Lemons. We also had our obstacle course ready to go with a drift cart in addition to the pedal cart. These got a lot of use through the race weekend by people of all ages in the paddock, including several judges. I felt like as a team we had worked through all the hurdles, done our homework, and now it was time to show that we could seriously compete on the track.
Saturday morning the weather tried to slow us down because it was raining most the night and was pouring just before the race started. Thankfully it cleared up for the most part and we had a pretty dry forecast for the rest of the weekend. As we started we charged hard through the pack of cars. I was able to immediately get a strong start thanks for our good comms and with our race strategy being executed so strong we actually ended up in 1st in B class momentarily before our first round of pit stops. We had a bit of a slow first stop but still came out 6th in class. We were much faster on the second stop and made a quick splash and go stop to finish out the day.
The one thing we were slightly ill prepared for was the fact that we had burnt through our brand new set of front brake pads by the end of racing Saturday. We had a couple of used sets and picked the ones with the most life left to start with on Sunday. We made a plan to bring the car in at the end of the second stint to inspect the brake pads and swap them out of needed.
I was first in the car on Sunday and I adjust my driving style to use less brakes and less fuel per lap to hopefully prevent issue later with eliminating the extra stop and necessity to swapping the brake pads. I still wanted to run quickly though so I was leaning heavy on the tires, which Lauren pointed out she could tell as soon as she hopped in the car for her stint after. Between Lauren and I we managed to minimize brake wear and maximize fuel efficiency so when our final driver hopped in he was able to drive the Mini all the way to the finish line.
Fun side story, all of us were on pins and needles until the very end because we were hoping to set a new high lap count at 400. For the last hour all of us were staring at the race track app just counting down the laps and time left, recalculating if it would be possible over and over again. We ended up taking the checkered flag at exactly 400 laps smashing our previous best total. Lauren and the other driver also set their new personal best laps beating their previous ones by multiple seconds. All that to say it was an extremely success race and I was overly proud of the team. We ended Sunday 4th (out of 20) in class and 8th (out of 50) overall with exactly 400 laps completed. We came home and sat around the fire the rest of the night reminiscing about how great the weekend went. I know it will be tough to top that but I think we can do it, next year. Hope to see you at the next one!
