RJRacing

Friday was all about testing. We had a day and a half of work to do in 6 1/2 hours. The day started early (as usual at the track) and it was non-stop until about now (11:30pm – finally sitting down and the first thing I do is reach for the laptop to blog).After a quick bleed of the braking system I got on track to scrub in our tires for the race. This consisted of 3-5 increasingly faster laps on each set of brand new tires to make sure they last as long as possible through the 25 Hours. Immediately after hitting the track my suspicions were confirmed – all the hard work we have put into the car showed immediately. More power. Better balanced. What a great feeling. But still room for improvement (always).

After the tire work we immediately went to work tuning to get a fast and tire friendly setup on the car while allowing some time for all the drivers to get behind the wheel to familiarize themselves with the track and/or the car. Mark got in the car and quickly came up to speed. However, he noticed the smell of exhaust so we pulled in to assess the problem. There was also some setup work to be done. Work, work, work. Lunch was closing in on us and the issues to be addressed were increasing rather than decreasing. This just means we’re not working hard enough.

Lunchtime provided an opportunity to tweak the setup without losing any track time. After lunch the car felt better and Dion and Mueller traded shifts in the car and put down impressive lap times. The afternoon was closing in on us and we still needed to get Rob in the car. With the exhaust problem coming and going and shortly before the end of the test day Rob finally got some laps in showing that all drivers were within a respectable range of times. As the afternoon went on you could sense a growing excitement amongst the team that things were starting to come together. After a short practice and qualifying session our last crew member, Bob, arrived. Tim and Bob converged on the car and started solving problems left and right. The rest of the team started to pitch in to help in any way they could. It’s hard to describe the atmosphere at that moment. Multiple individuals with various backgrounds and experiences all focusing on various problems with one common goal. Problems being solved left and right. Hearing one person after another take a task, diagnose a problem that seemed insurmountable only hours before, solve it, then ask what else to needs to be done. No ego. No complaining. It’s pretty amazing. I’m probably not articulating very well since it’s so late but the bottom line is this is why we love racing, and endurance racing especially.  Never stop. Never give up. Forget sleep. Forget eating. In fact, as I’m writing this in the RV trackside my ears are being filled with generators whirring and hammers banging sheet metal as we approach midnight. It might sound crazy to some but to us crazies we ask “why would you want to do anything else?” You know your team loves working to make the car and team better when you have to force them to sit down to eat.

Special thanks to Norm for the great dinner, tips and tricks, and going the extra mile and to Bob for showing up after a flight and car ride only to crawl under a dirty race car to change fluids. Thankless tasks but I’ll try to remedy the thankless part here. And Tim has, as usual, been amazing. How do we do a race like this with such a small crew? Do I really have to tell you at this point? For the uninitiating I’m talking about the tireless effort and never say die attitude Tim brings to the team. I look forward to asking him what else can be done. Here’s to tomorrow… Whatever obstacles are in our way I’m sure we’re prepared to handle them.

– John