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REALRIDE The
12 hrs of Thunderhill is a real and true challenge. This year the weather was
a big factor for all competitors. 54 cars at the start and last I heard 42
running with two hours to go. At times during the heaviest of rain there was
maybe half the field in the pits at any one time. the start at 9am was very
slow with everyone trying to make it through the tough conditions. It rained
until about 3pm and the wind never stopped averaging a good 30 mph all day.
the temp varied from the high 40's to the mid 50's I would guess. The TRS
prepared Honda Civic was running great unfortunately while attempting a pass
the car in front went off line and hit a huge puddle sending a wave of water
into our car and killing the ECU. Mike got the car to the pits and we poured the
water out of the ECU. Thankfully we had many donor Civics in our compound and
an ECU was located and installed. this time we wrapped it in a plastic bag
and duct taped to the underside of the dash. The next and only other
significant incident was right out of the pits at the 5 hour mark Miguel was
entering the track and Joe Jordan misjudge the closing speed and hit the
right rear tire and rear quarter panel and spun Miguel around and bent one of
the control links for the rear suspension(Joe later came by to apologies but
no real harm was done). Again there
were several donor cars available and the link was removed and a new link
installed body work pulled out and we were back in the race. the only problem
we had that was out of our control was with our transponder. It did not work
consistently and an overworked timing and scoring crew could not inform us of
the problem. Once we knew it was not working we replaced the battery for the
second time(started race with brand new battery bought the night before) and
we were working for a few more hours until a whole new transponder had to be
installed and we finished the race wondering if this will ever be sorted out.
We ran at or near the front of our group for the whole race and were leading
for the first couple hours. The TRS team had two other customer
cars in the race, another Honda Civic and an Acura Integra. The guys in the integral
did a valiant effort with bad weather and little experience with a new track.
they had a few off track incidents but nothing to prevent them from finishing
the entire race. The other Civic was having a bad day. They were black
flagged for continuously passing under yellow. they were having a hard time
in the rain and the windshield was fogging up badly. Once they were back in
the race they had a minor collision with a "Porsche"(they couldn't
remember which one) this required them to be removed from the mud. while
being removed from the mud the car got out of control and slammed into the
tow truck. Luckily no one was injured but the car was smashed and they were
DQ'ed. During Ben's first stint he also had a near miss with the tow truck,
luckily the very alert tow crew saw him coming and backed up to avoid a
collision. Off track the grass was like ice with no traction at all. Also during
this time someone oiled down the last few corners of the track. Normally this
is not a problem as the corner workers can see the spill and have the safety
crew put down some oil dry, but it was still raining and it was impossible to
see the oil. there were three or four bad spins leading onto the main
straight causing them to hit the wall head on. the worst was a light blue RX7
that hit very hard and destroyed the car. Driver walked away from the car.
after a few laps the corner workers must have suspected something was wrong
and had the safety crew check it out and drop some oil dry on the worst
areas. Miguel took over and immediately had to come in with the bent
suspension link. After that incident he ran well and piled up the laps. he
was unfortunately stuck in the dry with the car still running the wet setup
and full tread tires, so the car was very loose and hard to drive. He
continued on and did a great job. Mike took over for his second stint and had
the luxury of shaved tires and a more dry type setup on the shocks. It was very
dark with no moonlight and very cold, but Mike was moving up through the
field without incident. Ben took over for his second stint and put in some
good laps just before it started to mist again. Next up was Miguel again with
the mist getting to a drizzle he was out again with the wrong setup. now he
had the dry setup as the track was getting wet again. He managed to keep it
on the track and finished the race. Everyone did a great job through out the
day and all the drivers ran as hard as they could all day. the car was great
only suffering some outside influences, but otherwise it ran solid all day.
Not sure of the final finishing order, but we will post the official results
when they are available. Other notables Randy Pobst and Kim Hiskey in the 993
Porsche ran fast all day, but must have had some problems in the rain as the
M3 BMW of Ken Dobson got ahead and stayed ahead for the rest of the race. The
Fantasy Junction Mazda powered Lola CSR was by far the class of the field.
Several local racers did well by staying out of trouble and pilling up the
laps. When the official results are available we will post them here. RealRide/Pennyweb
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