The blurry thrash to 2nd
The last few months of 2020 and first part of January 2021 were an absolute blur. Craig and I spent just about every waking hour in an attempt to finish our cars before our first event at MSRH that started on Jan 29th. Up until my last update, the focus was on the rebody, and with the major work done I now had just over a month to finish all the little details of the body…and completely wire and plumb the car, assemble and install the entire drivetrain and suspension, get graphics on it, get it dynoed and get on track!
It did happen. On Friday the 29th, the car was on the track with me in it, running hot laps to figure out what was working and what needed attention. A huge amount of credit goes to my family for being so patient and tolerant, for Pip McCormick who laid down all the vinyl literally even as we were loading the car onto the trailer, and to Craig McCormick for endless help and absolutely refusing to let me give up.
The months of work had such an immediate and such a big payout that its hard for me to describe. All weekend, the was mechanically flawless. I mean, everything worked as would be expected, and nothing broke. Considering this was effectively a shakedown run, that was simply awesome. Yes, I showed up with tires that were so hard that it was tough to drive even in a straight line, and yes the dampers and springs were so soft that the car floated around far too much…but a complete maiden weekend without mechanical failures? Thats rare even under the best of circumstances. The only issue all weekend was when a three wide entry into a turn resulted in getting a bit too close to a competitor’s left rear tire and AMCM 001 earned her first battle scar.
On Sunday I swapped on a set of new tires and oh my! What a difference tires makes on these cars!! The car had been transformed from barely drivable to reasonably competitive. I had nothing for Cody up front, to be honest, but I had more than enough to fight the rest and take home a 2nd place in the Shootout…certainly the racing achievement I am most proud of.
The focus now will shift, from thrashing on the car just to be ready to gradual performance improvements. There’s a long list of changes that the car (and I!!) need in order to keep pushing for the ever elusive faster lap times. I cant wait to get started!
