Road Racing at Charlotte

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Well, this had to be one of the more bizarre race weekends.  The plan was for Harry to race the Cobra, Dan to play instructor, Bobbie to play trophy girl and do the bikini contest, Dave Lewis do his first NASA race, and have friends like Chris Thompson and Kurt and Lynn do driving school.  Throw in a little Hyper-fest.  Pretty simple, huh?  If only it had worked out that way!

Let's start with the schools.  Dan had talented students that managed to cruise around the track at speeds in excess of 140MPH.   Poor Chris Thompson lost his instructor on the line, but managed to move up to the Intermediate group.  Kurt brought his fast 993 Porsche to the track and Dan took Lynn for a ride during the instructor session.  The car got going over 155MPH and was doing great.  Unfortunately, the right rear tire suffered a catastrophic failure near the wall and NASCAR turn 3.  While it didn't hit the wall, the car still suffered significant damage and cast a pall over the weekend.

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Dave Lewis ended up being ill, so Dan drove his Miata while Harry drove in the 'big bore' race on Saturday.  Dan managed to briefly take the lead in this very competitive class, but lack of horsepower and familiarity left him to a finish a respectable third.  Harry was running the old tires and finished second behind John McIver.

On Sunday, Harry and Dan switched cars/races.   This meant that Dan had to start at the back of the pack in the big bore race.   Since we have pretty well locked up the series championship, we thought it would be more fun to have the two Cobras race side by side for a little fun.  McIver had earned a spot in the middle of the field and wasn't thrilled with having to fight his way through slower cars so he politely declined.  McIver had also broken Dan's track record in the cool evening air, so it seemed unlikely that Dan could pass enough cars to get to play.

After almost 200 laps around the track, however, Dan had become pretty familar with the fast line around the track.  In less than half of a lap, Dan had already passed McIver and was pulling away. A McIver spin seemed to ensure that Dan would pick up the victory that had been lost to the last trip to Charlotte.  A fast lap to (temporarily) regain the track record appeared to be icing on the cake.

Unfortunately, about halfway through the race the engine began missing and actually cut out entirely twice during the entrance to the steep banking.  This gave McIver a chance to pass with 4-5 laps remaining while Dan watched helplessly.  Once again, some decent driving had been thwarted at Charlotte!

Thanks to Jim Rathbun for some of the pictures!

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