Race Report: Laguna Seca, July 4
Got nineteen laps in this morning before things went bad.
This morning, I convinced our car owner, Greg Smith, to let me start the race despite the fact that I'd been in a post-race confrontation the night before. (Postscript to that: I'm all square with the #908 team and everybody's friends now.) At the start, I shoved us up to third place and held position between 2 and 3 seconds off the leader for the first 18 laps. Although we didn't have the power of the two cars ahead of us, I was highly motivated to turn in a solid performance for the team. On the twentieth lap, the second-place BMW of TBR (seen above, ahead of me, on lap 18) lost control on the very fast downhill Turn Nine, caught traction while sideways, and hit me in the right rear quarter panel, breaking the right control arm and snapping our fuel pump in half.
This left me incapacitated in the middle of the track and I was subsequently struck at reasonably high speed by the TBR car a second time. Thankfully the driver was able to avoid hitting me in the door. I was spun 540 degrees into traffic that was not stopping or slowing so I fled the car and jumped over the tires to safety.
After five hours and 40 minutes of repair including significant cannibalization of TWO other Neons that were on the track, our car made it on track for the final twelve laps of the race. It's pretty bent, to put it mildly. Some of the tools that they used were completely unknown to me. There's a hydraulic "spreader" that shoves body panels back into place and another ram-type thing that can bend the unibody. Neat stuff.
The TBR BMW required an engine swap and a new front end which was completed late tonight.
The TBR driver broke his foot (but not too badly) which was on the brake when he hit me the second time. I took a shot to the collarbone (from my HANS device, which probably saved me from a neck fracture for the second time in just seven years), my neck really hurts, my back hurts, my kidney hurts. Although I'd like to be back in Columbus sleeping on my foam mattress, I feel generally okay and I declined a ride to the hospital.
Why do this? Why risk your life to race a Neon against an old BMW? Why not just stay at home and watch television or play Call Of Duty? I'll quote Eliot, not for the first time and likely not the last:
My friend, blood shaking my heart The awful daring of a moment’s surrender Which an age of prudence can never retract By this, and this only, we have existed Which is not to be found in our obituaries Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor In our empty rooms.