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I had looked at the old track records for this track layout and of course there was nothing for TT3, as this class was new in 2013 and this CCW MSR-H layout had not been run since 2012. I was hoping we could slot in between the old TT2 (TTS) and the old TTA class records, if we won. Setting a track record on old scrubs that had seen 2 previous race weekends on them might be tough, and without running Friday to learn this track layout or work on the set-up, we might be in trouble. I was also worried we might run out of tires for day 2, so we brought another mounted set of scrub 315/30/18 A6s, just in case.
2012 TT Track Records for Motorsports Ranch Houston (2.38 CCW) (prior to this race weekend)
Class Driver Car
TTU Eric Purcell Radical 01:41.896 Jan-09
TT1 Joe Woodhead Chevy Corvette 01:38.402 Jan-12
TT2 Sean Farrah Nissan 350Z
01:40.172 Jan-12
TT3 .... n/a
TTA Josh Smith Mistubishi Evo
01:42.914 Jan-12
TTB Wynn Suebhongsang Honda S2000 01:43.134 Jan-12
TTC Norman Wilhelm Subaru WRX 01:47.241 Jan-12
TTD Blake Clements Mazda Miata 01:49.319 Jan-12
TTE Josh Price Acrua Integra 01:50.969 Jan-12
TTF Ken Brewer Toyota MR2 01:58.367 Jan-10
Our car sailed through annual tech (and we're a NASA approved HPDE Tech shop, so I suspected it would) and we had a good dinner in town with Costas and his wife Anna, then bombed up to our hotel for the night. We got to the track early Saturday morning and the weather was a bit brisk, but the forecast looked good. Amy rode with me on the first TT session, which we call the "Warm Up". This session does not count for times and is used for gridding purposes in TT session 1 only. I was pretty slow in the Warm-up, as Amy is a terrible passenger with me, and fumbled my way around an unfamiliar circuit. I was
9th fastest in TT with a 1:45.5, not a good sign.
Saturday TT Warm-up (at left) and TT session 1 (at right)
I was planning to only run Saturday in the TT Warm Up and TT session 1 only, leaving Amy two sessions later in the day to get her up to speed. So that meant I needed to lay down my best lap of the day in the first timed TT session, which luckily I did. I found about 4 seconds from my laps in the Warm Up, probably from figuring out the proper line and losing a passenger, and
dropped to a 1:41.457. That ended up being the 3rd fastest TT time of the session, behind Weather's TT1 C6 and Costas GT1 Camaro. It also proved to be our fastest time of the weekend, which I will explain below.
That 1:41 lap felt pretty good, but it was far from perfect. I knew there was time left in a few corners that I had hoped to work at on Sunday. For the rest of the day Saturday, Amy took over in TT Session 2 and 3, as planned.
Meanwhile our paddock area was pretty busy all day, as Costas dealt with some coolant leaks and other issues on his GT-1 Camaro and Matt had to rebuild the front end of his car after a big off. Later Costas was forced off on the back straight during a GTS/Super Touring/Super Unlimited race and tore up his splitter as well. A lot of us were pitching in to help get that car put together as he re-did the intake gaskets, repaired the splitter (using two piece of plywood and a truck tire to flatten the metal), and chased a few other fixes. There was never a dull moment in our little mini-paddock all weekend!
Costas' write-up on his website better describes all of the race incidents and repairs that he and Matt had over the weekend.
Amy took her time getting up to speed and ran a 1:48.2 in the TT session 2 but was already down in the 1:44s in TT session 3 when she had an accident in the end of the final session.
She said she missed a 5th to 3rd gear downshift (rev matching wasn't close enough - she normally goes through each gear in a downshift) which locked the rears at high speed and sent the car into a spin. That spin sent her up and over the high curbing on the inside of Turn 4, where the car got beached and was stuck for a good half hour. She spun at the very end of the TT session and the track crew (3 trucks worth!) worked hard to get the car off the curb without ripping the splitter off or tearing up the underside of the car. They used a lot of boards and ramped the car down, but at one point it was stuck with 2 wheels in the air. We now call Amy by her new nickname "Curby", hehe...
I was watching from a half mile away and knew something had gone wrong. I couldn't see any damage but the car was really stuck. Amy finally borrowed a phone to call me, and said "I broke a wheel. Bad. Bring a spare, quickly." So I borrowed a vehicle and grabbed an extra front wheel and tire and a jack and zoomed out on course, which at this point was closed for racers during the extraction (there were 2 race groups left for the day). They had the car extracted and were flat towing the car VERY SLOWLY on a broken wheel and flat tire, dragging the splitter, but I quickly stopped them. Using two jacks we got the wheel changed in about a minute while it was parked out on the back straight, but the car wouldn't start so they flat towed her in. Once we got the car back into the pits it was getting dark fast (these pics have been brightened up a lot) and it was getting very hard to see.
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