Yesterday when leaving I saw a funny sight. I did not get a picture of it, but...
This Dodge Durango is a team from Toronto and Kingston areas, Canada.
Many vehicles will tow a trailer. Some of the same stuff you might see at an autox or Hot Rod Drag week. These guys have the capability and what I witnessed was them hooking up to a 20 ft toy hauler much like this:
I'm not sure if they are planning "no hotels" but very interesting what you could bring with you in such a beast.
The Dodge site says 8,700 lb towing capacity!
They were parked in the host hotel lot Saturday night with the trailer
They appear to be staying at the hotels, but while I'm sitting here trying to stay warm and dry, they're in their towable house.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
Using their own crapper and cooking hot soup!
It's been a relatively clean morning despite the conditions. But we have had the "BBQ GTR" wreck in turn 3, and now we're waiting for the M2 to get pulled in. Dunno how bad, but I heard tire squeel and crunch from the carousel to Canada corner from where i was standing at turn five.
Nope, I was wrong it was the corvette of long time lap dogs Matt and Pete that backed it in coming out of Canada corner.
Update 3... it was a corvette *and* an M2 that wrecked separately during the same run group. The vette coming out of Canada corner, and I still don't know where M2 went in... but it hit in the Pax side, blowing that side's air bags.
I was a bit worried there would be som attrition at RA in the rain. That does suck to hear though.
Has Seth gone out yet?
They paused the morning session to clear the two cars and decided to break for lunch. They then sent the last three groups and went immediately to the fast cars again. The result of all of this was I got to run in 99% dry and had a blast. The worst part was I was braking waaaaay early to feel it all out, but that's ok in the grand scheme of things. Right now timing shows me 50th for the morning, so I did take good advantage of my weather luck.
Tim is getting ready to run
Attrition has claimed 5% of the field, we're down 4 cars so far from our starting 75.
Flying Pig GTR lost Cyl #1 and swapped to the Big bad wolf but are out of overall contention due to the car change
Our Friends Jack and Jenna burned through 2 valve covers on their GTi and other issues as well... and towed back to PA yesterday
Booth Motors GTR went into the wall this AM and is borked badly... they got it running but it's like limp home running... nothing more... entire front clip is destroyed and they nackered the driver side of the car badly...
M2 pancaked suspension bits in their wall brush and had some airbags deploy... they may return but will did not compete this afternoon.
The corvette this morning will recieve a DNF as well but returned this afternoon and has already left for MN. Has damage but is overall not bad..
The brutality of this event has become apparent to me now.. I knew it was a game of endurance and attrition... but it's one thing to know... and another thing to witness..
To finish first, first you must finish.
It's maybe not quite thaaaaaat bleak. The GTR did laps with everything off the front save the passenger fender. Sounded great. The Corvette went out and ran this afternoon. The M2 is wrinkly and did leave on a flatbed, so I'm not sure about that one. There is a tremendous amount of perserverence in this event. Things that would make you pack up and go home for the weekend are dealt with using phones and wrenches and the help of fellow competitors.
Tomorrow is a big day, we run the Donnybrooke layout of Brainerd in the morning with what was once the fastest corner in America at the end of the mile long straight. We return to sanity with the SCCA comp course and them drag racing for as long as it takes after that. Only then do we start the 550 mile transit to Hastings.
I see that Robert Thorne's Honda S2000 was there at RA this morning replacing his GTR that was running on 5 cyls
Did he leave Nelson Ledges (Metro Cleveland, OH) drive home 6.5 hours to Metro Philly, PA and 6.5 hours back then drive 8.5 hours to Road America? That's 21 hrs. If you started that journey at 1:00 Sunday afternoon, you wouldn't get back to RA until 10 am.
If someone started trailering the car to him mid Sunday, say Noon, it would not arrive until 7pm. Then 8.5 more hours to RA would mean arriving at about 4am!!!! Then only arriving so you can run Exhibition Class... In the cold and rain.
Yeah, that's some unusual dedication.
I had spoke to Jenna and he father before I left Sunday. With their GTI dead from a melted valve cover they were getting a ride with Brock, in his minivan, to South Bend where they have their truck and trailer.
How convenient that everyond involved will be driving right past the starting point again.
They were then going to drive the truck/trailer back to Nelson and get the VW. From there the VW is going to the tuner in Pennsylvania where they will leave it.
I somewhat think they might try to rejoin at Bowling Green KY if it's fixable.
Hey sleepy,
I’m not sure how your IS is set up on that lens/camera - but in the canon zooms I used to set them up in mode “2” or something. Basically, it would focus on anything staying in frame- and ignore anything coming horizontally through the frame- basically perfect for capturing cars in a race track. It’s possible that you could have this possibility in your camera as well.
Robert and Chris said they drove straight through to get the Big Bad Wolf. Not sure of the logistics, but considering the cars fuel system is unchanged from last year, they still had to stop every 50 miles or so to fill the tank. They did mention that it has the Pro Solo alignment from a couple of weeks ago and that made it a bit darty going through construction zones in the middle of the night. Apparently that did a good job keeping the driver awake. And yes, none of this counts, they came back just to run for fun, they're out of the event from a scoring standpoint.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
Big bad wolf also started misfiring badly after the morning session and Chris Lewis was looking for help on social media for getting his corvette from Oklahoma to Hastings....
In reply to grover :
All it’s got is an “on/off” switch. I think mainly my panning skills are lacking, and I’m pushing my shutter speed too low (1/100th for up to 450mm equivalent). Also, I might be fighting the autofocus a bit. Part of the challenge of using a 5-ish year-old mirrorless system to do a DSLR’s job.
No long write up tonight, sleep is more important.
Pics from the morning session today. A bit hit-or-miss... maybe better tomorrow?
I’ll stop long enough to note this isn’t the vette that wrecked. But they did go wide in 3 (?) and went surfing part way through the kitty liter, and proceeded to five, where they blew a whole bunch of smoke under braking, took the runoff (also pit-in for us)... but trundled all the way around to the main straight before calling it for a DNF:
Mustang, a series...
Fortunately this Mustang driver realized that discretion was the better part of valor, and backed off... and handled this SS taking the apex away under braking with aplomb...
also, fwd ruled over “big meat rwd” when the rain ‘opened up’...
More patience being displayed by the trackhawk...
The vette that hit, but managed to run the afternoon during its first survey...
This G8 has been fighting brake pad selection. Here Duralast Golds are billowing some smoke, but still hauling the thing down. Carbotechs are on the way for Brainerd...
The traccord doing trackthings...
I know the “never track anything you can’t afford to write off” thing but damn. That’s why we play with cheap cars.
I feel like in an event like this, there's a huge difference in risk level between "I want to do this event" and "I want a shot at winning my class" in terms of how much risk you'll end up taking.
In reply to rslifkin :
Hagerty will sell you on-track insurance for the event. I'm not sure what the rates are...i suspect the price is going up.
I think you can see that in the results too, There are vipers contending for the top 10 and then there are viper ACR's that are barely staying ahead of the trackcord.
Much like endurance racing consistency usually pays off compared to occasional bursts of speed. Although the guys running at the very pointy edge tend to have both consistency and absurd outright pace. Seems there's equal parts skill and luck involved with landing a podium spot.
In reply to klodkrawler05 :
Yeah, and even SUV and Econo have a Duke-out fight on their hands this year!
Alright, let's snap some pics! 
