Spec Exhaust

Spec exhaust is finally installed on the car. Thanks to Amos at Patton's (no relation) automotive for great service and good price. Now to get ready for this weekend at Road Atlanta.

Location:Hiram Acworth Hwy,Dallas,United States

Winter Meltdown at CMP

Well the 2008 season is finally here. After an off season of troubleshooting issues that plagued the car not to mention an engine swap the car was ready to go at CMP.

Saturday morning I babied the car through practice just trying to see if everything was working and learn changes to the track. Pushing harder in qualifying I heard the (unfortunately) familiar noise of the pressure plate disintegration again (#2) and withdrew from the rest of the weekend.

In the end, it's a good thing as the start of Saturday's race ended up in a nasty multi-car wreck between Foushee & Cullen (two people I qualified between).

Engine Swap

With the power and driveline issues that arose this season and a spare motor sitting in the garage, I decided to go ahead and swap the motor out. After all the original 275k mile motor leaked, had an oil starvation issue at Barber, and the car really seemed to be down on power. After some coordination we did the standard southeast motor swap at Eric Nissen's and dropped the motor out using a lift.

Once we directed the old motor, we found out the pressure plate straps had broken... Hmmmmm

Great Pumpkin Run @ Barber Motorsports Park

Saturday I qualified 12th out of 14 Spec E30s with a fast lap of 153.840. The race was a fun battle with Jim Robinson and Laura Patton... finishing 12.

Sunday I did not make the Great Pumpkin Run combined race.

While I don't have video of this weekend, I do have a 2007 highlight video:

Roabling Rumble w/ IFU

22 Spec E30s took to the track for this weekend at Roebling. Qualified 4th on Saturday and finished the race.

Saturday afternoon was the inaugural Inverted Fun Unlimited (IFU) race. This one started with an inverted grid from qualifying and halfway through the race they stopped us and reinvented the field. While Damion won, the start was Mike Skeen who made it to the lead before the re-inversion and drove back through the field to a 2nd place finish... just ran out of time.

Sunday, I qualified 10th but had a mechanical issue during the race and did not finish.

Hotlanta Challenge @ Road Atlanta

After my first major mechanical failure at Roebling Road I ended up buying another car. After all, if you need a transmission doesn't it make sense to buy another car. You never know when you need an extra engine, body panels, etc. It seems everyone except my wife was less than thrilled witht he idea.

This race weekend included a record number of Spec E30's and NASA had enough racers to split into three race groups. The Blitz group consisted of 944 Cup, 944 Super cup, and Spec E30. Nineteen cars took the field on Saturday and I qualified mid-pack excited about the race. Unfortunately the accelerator petal came off after the start. After trying to drive around the issue (using my toes) I almost collected another racer when the accelerator would get stuck and decided to call it a day.

Sunday, with the accelerator problem taking care of I was able to put in a better qualifying session starting 5th out of 19 cars. It was a pretty exciting race up until it was stopped early (double yellow) due to an incident.

Unfortunately no photos or videos

Sonsor: Gran Turismo East

Kieren at Gran Turismo East was the target of my next sponsorship pitch. It's hard to do well in any type of driving or racing without good wheel/tire and alignment support... These guys are top notch in Atlanta. Make sure you check them out