Pictured: what running a well-sorted car with a well-coordinated team looks like. Half the battle is having a fast-enough car. The other half is making it easy to drive 9 hours straight.
Pictured: what running a well-sorted car with a well-coordinated team looks like. Half the battle is having a fast-enough car. The other half is making it easy to drive 9 hours straight.
Visibility in the FCP Mercedes is now at “I can’t see anything on the track.”
The team is putting together a Rag-On-A-Stick now.
Awwwwwwww yeah.
Day 1 is nearing the halfway point, and the track is finally starting to dry out. Ed is out in the Miata now, and I’m jumping in the FCP Euro Mercedes in an hour or so.
cool stuff, thanks for the updates! Good Luck out there!
Tom this is great. Thanks for this thread.
Just hopped out of the FCP Euro Mercedes. WOW!! What a well-sorted, easy-to-drive, fun car! I was keeping up with E46 M3s out there!
I got out with FCP Euro still leading class three, and Rob hopped back in. We’re down a lap and a position after that pit stop, but should make that up once the other team pits. I ran a fast lap of 1:45.661, making me the fastest driver so far today. I also had the only dry stint, so I’m expecting Rob to beat me shortly.
Over in our Miata’s pit, things went slightly less well. We’ve been pushing our stints longer and longer to try and stretch our fuel and save a pit stop, but Ed got the short end of the stick after running 55 minutes at race pace in the dry. He ran out of gas one corner before pit in, and had to be dragged to the pit behind the wrecker. We refilled the car and sent Wayne out, fighting to better our current position: 7th in the class, out of 12.
In reply to dean1484 :
No problem! It’s literally what we’re here for. 
Rob just turned a 1:44.837 in the Benz. Over in the Miata, Wayne is still trying to beat Ed’s fast lap of 148.109.
Tom just stopped for a splash of fuel and he’ll take it the rest of the way today. We’re under caution right now. Someone went off in turn 5.
That’s it for day one! The Miata finished sixth in class 1, and the Mercedes finished second in class 2. Tomorrow we race again, and start with 0 laps. We’ll see if we can do better then.
All done for the day time for a once-over.
Time for Mexican food!
11:00 pm update: I’m finally going to bed, after walking the paddock for a bit. I watched the Civic Si team swap a new engine in after a pebble snapped their timing belt on track, and also bumped into none other than Bill Caswell (pictured, left).
Time for bed! Driver’s meeting is at 6:30 am.
Good morning AER! Track goes hot in about 10 minutes.
Our Miata is ready! That Fit has a K24 in it, and it’s FAST.
About to start day 2 of racing. We’re gridded up in finishing order from yesterday.
Is FCP Euro the same as Rooster Hall Racing? Todd Brown and those guys were super helpful to me last season when I ran into some mechanical trouble.
Wayne just took the green flag, which immediately turned into a double yellow and then a red flag with safety vehicles on track.
Race is still red flagged.
And we’re back to yellow. Our Miata fueling window is now from 8:55 to 9:25 thanks to the red flag, so we’ll see what the caution flag gods hand us.
The FCP Euro Mercedes just pitted, taking on more fuel and completing the mandatory 3-minute pit stop for this portion of the race.
After that last round of pit stops, we’re leading class 1 and 19th overall. Second place in our class, a silver Miata, hasn’t pitted yet, either, so as long as we can keep our stop to 3 minutes we’ll be good to go.
So far so good!
The FCP Euro Mercedes is down to 8th in class, but I’m assuming it’s classmates haven’t pitted yet.
The Miata’s pit stop was a success. Exactly 3 minutes from RFID reader at pit in to RFID reader at pit out.
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