Wild Ride Part 2
Yesterday I believe I left off reporting most of the test day and the practice day action. Today I thought I would start with what we did after our practice sessions to prepare for qualifying later that day. With a whole afternoon of time to waste on Friday Bill and I headed to different spots around the track to catch some of the Rolex action. Luckily our friend and track guide Jason Crist was there with a golf cart which made our travels from one end of the track to the other a lot easier. We first started watching from inside the paddock area close to the beginning of the Uphill Esses. It was awesome to see the speed the Rolex cars were entering the Uphill Esses with. They were flying!. All of us kept thinking how much fun it would be to drive one of those cars going through that historic section. Maybe next year!
Next we moved to one of Jason’s favorite spots to watch from. He kept telling Bill and I how we would really appreciate how crazy some of the Rolex drivers are. He is right. Jason’s favorite spot was watching as the cars were coming up the Uphill Esses and into South Bend. He swore us to secrecy of the exact location we watched from so you will have guess. From this top secret location you could really make out who was fast and who was still a little bit slow. The GT cars were really using a lot of the middle curb almost leaping over it entirely. We usually do this in our cars but we also aren’t going as fast as these guys. It was very impressive to see a car leap over these curbs at 120+ MPH to land and keep going almost as if nothing had happened. They were making it look very easy.
The last spot we watched from was at Oak Tree, the 90 degree turn leading onto the longest straight at the track. We pull up on the golf cart and start watching right beside the fence. Where we are parked is a great spot to watch from since it is the closest to the track you can get without climbing the fence. A track worker comes up and asks us to move away from the fence. He says that being that close to the fence we could get hit by debris if a car hits the wall 6ft in front of us. He says we can move 10 feet away on the other side of the road from the spot we are currently sitting. This is a safer spot. 
We didn’t argue but thought it was kind of ironic that 10 feet further away from flying debris probably isn’t going to make that much of a difference especially since we don’t have a fence right in front of us anymore. As we are doing this a guy sitting on top of his camper asks if we want to come up on top to watch some of the action. We have never met this person or his family before so accept the offer. Who could refuse sitting on top of the camper watching racing action at the track. Come to find out this family has the best spot at the track. We could see about 50% of the track action right here. So we hang out for about an hour talking to everyone and watching the on track action. As we are about to leave Jason tells the owner Bill and I are drivers. So as we are leaving the owner asks us to sign a spot on his camper as he is trying to get a collection of signatures started. Bill and I signed the camper and headed back to the rig to get ready for qualifying.
Qualifying is one of toughest parts of racing psychologically. It is you versus the clock. In CTSCC competition there is usually about 15 minutes for you to get the best lap time that you can. At VIR where the lap times are over the 2 minute mark we usually get in about 4 laps. This means you have 4 laps to place your personal best lap time of the weekend. This is exactly what Bill did. He went over one second faster than he had gone all weekend. This placed him in 21st on the starting grid in ST. Dave was close behind him in the #80 car qualifying 23rd.
That night Bill and I headed to dinner with Resa, her parents, my parents and Resa’s friends from Raleigh. They had chosen some Italian restaurant in Danville. For those that have never been to Danville or to any city where there is a racetrack good places to eat are really hard to find. Most of the time the tracks are in the middle of nowhere with very little around. There usually is a couple of chain restaurants around that are usually safe to eat at. This place they had chosen was not a chain and of all the times I had been to Danville I had never seen it. We headed there straight from the track and pull in the strip mall where the GPS is guiding us. This is not looking good as most of the mall is for lease and the Itallian place is on the backside. Bill and I are a little weary. This place we really a great place to eat. One of the owners was from Italy and was a great cook. Bill had some kind of seafood chowder that was amazing with lots of crab, mussels, shrimp, and clams in it. I had veal parmasean with enough to feed the whole BimmerWorld team. I definitely walked out of there with leftovers.
The next day was raceday. With an early autograph session at the track and a late race we were at the track for a long time. With nothing really planned in between we stood around for what seemed like forever. We like to be at the track to drive not to stand around.
I did get a little bit of excitement when Resa sent me a text message with a picture of a car overturned. Immediately I am thinking this is some race team who had a late night deciding to get the most out of their rental car with a prank that has gone too far sending the car over a 40ft retaining wall landing on its roof. This is right under our hotel room. The story gets even better. The car was stolen and the two guys were running from the cops when the car went over the wall. They got out and ran through our hotel lobby. I never heard if the police caught the guys or not.
Now it is finally race time. Bill is driving first since he qualified the car. This is one of my most nervous times at the racetrack. I know it is time to start getting ready to be in the car but I still have more time to stand around. Luckily in the pits there is enough going on that I can pass the time by keeping up with laptimes of Bill and other cars. We also get the TV feed on the monitors in the pit cart so everyone can see what is happening out on the track. Bill does a great job moving up a few spots in his stint driving. He gets as high as 14th before the first caution comes out. Several teams pit to switch drivers but we elect to stay out so we can make this a 1-stop race. Then as the track goes green again another caution comes out. This is our time to pit and put me in the car. Right before I get in the car our strategist, Wayne, tells me that we are going to close on fuel. He wants me to do what I can to conserve as much fuel while we are under caution as possible. No problem. Well he didn’t tell me exactly how close we were cutting it.
I do my thing during the race trying to run as consistent lap times as I can run. Even with some of the traffic and GS cars passing me I try to keep my lap times in the 2:12.xxx range. This is the pace of the leaders and I am still catching most of the cars in front of me. I had a good battle with one of the MX-5s and VW GTIs during the race. We are in the last 30 minutes of the race when I start getting a low fuel warning. I radio to the Wayne to tell him what is going on. He tells me to keep doing what I am doing and not to worry about it. He has it all calculated. Ok keep on setting the same pace. The car is getting a little bit faster as we are burning off fuel, making it lighter. I am starting to catch the leaders 
a little bit every lap. The low fuel warning is still flashing at me every lap too. Then in the last 15 minutes the gap with 1st and 2nd is closer but the fuel warning is now starting to flash in different spots and stay on longer. I ask Wayne again what the call is. He assures me everything is good and to keep laying down laps. Once again I say no problem, you are the boss. Well with a couple laps left I see the #74 Honda start to wiggle. This wasn’t a wiggle because he was having issues with how the car was handling. This was a wiggle trying to slosh fuel around in the tank. I start to get excited because this meant I might have a shot at the leader if he had the same issue. The #74 pits on that lap to get fuel and I take over 2nd place. I am catching the leader and he is within striking distance going into turn 1 after we take the white flag. I start to accelerate out of the turn when my car starts to bobble. The engine starts running rough. The fuel warning light has been on for a lap solid at this point. Oh crap. This can’t be happening. I am running out gas and I don’t know if I can make the rest of the 16 turns and 3 miles around this track. Doubt now starts entering my mind and I do what I can to keep the car moving. It sputters more coming out of turn 4. How can I make it now? This is impossible. So I put it in 6th gear and try to just cruise. 3rd place is now catching me. I need to keep my podium spot so we can spray champagne after the race to reward the guys for their hard work. I get to the top of the uphill esses with the car still running. It is still sputtering and I have a long uphill straight away that I still have to make it across. I get to the straight to find the car barely running but it keeps on pushing. The car is still running by the end of the straight and is now headed downhill with less than 1 mile to go. From the spot I know I can coast to the finish line but I am going to do what I can to keep the car running. Amazingly it runs all the way to the finish line and we take the checkered flag in 2nd place. Right after the checkered flag the car shuts off, it is out of fuel. I pull it off the track into the grass. Awesome! We did it. Only problem is how are we going to get the car to the podium for the celebration. The track workers tow us in. This isn’t the first time I have seen a car towed in to victory lane but that wasn’t because the driver ran out of fuel.
We finished the race in 2nd, maintained out 2nd in ST points race gaining some points on the ST leader, Bill is leading rookie of the year points, and BimmerWorld is still 2nd in team points. From what started out as a slow weekend we are now celebrating a podium at our home track. This was a wild ride.
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