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[924RACR]

My wife and teammate Merritt wrapped up the season with the final race weekend at Waterford Hills this past weekend. Despite a wide range of conditions, she was a force to be reckoned with every time she got out on track!

Qualifying was tough for her, as quite old race rubber (2 years old!) and cool temps left her searching for grip, mostly unsuccessfully. But she wasn't the only one struggling, and still came up with 2nd place on the grid, down only 0.1s on the leader. Even better, the whole ITB grid was together promising a fun race.

Saturday afternoon's race was a bit warmer, and grip and confidence were high; she'd already beaten everyone in the field before, at various times. The start was good, but not good enough, and she fell back to 3rd. Then she started pushing hard, and a few laps later picked off one, then the other ITB car to move into first!

After leading a lap, however, the pressure got to her and she lost it through the esses, spinning and ending up at the back of the group again. She pushed hard again, though, and was able to pull off an impressive outside, then cross-over move to pick one of those spots back up before the checker flew.

She also clocked her best lap ever, fastest of the field that day, easily good enough for pole on the Sunday afternoon Feature race!

Frustrating, but to be expected - it's a lot easier to get into the lead than to hang on to it!

Sunday morning rolled around, quite wet, we knew we were looking at a damp or full wet race. We knew also that if we ran the dry tires in the wet, those 2 year-old tires would do us no favors... so we searched around to identify a better option. Found 3 good A6 Hoosiers, and one new one with the tire guy. Merritt cut the check, and just as they were mounting the one new tire up, I found a show-stopper: a broken strut!

Indeed, despite the heroics Saturday afternoon, the tube of the left front strut (the most important one, being the outside front) had snapped nearly in half, was barely holding on at all! Definitely undriveable, not to mention scary!

After much wasted time hemming and hawing about what to do, to try to fix it or not, we decided we could get away with welding it back up and reinforcing it. So we removed it, ran home (45 min drive each way), and I welded it all back together carefully.

Run back up to the track, reinstall, rough in the alignment, and throw on the rain tires, cause it's as wet as ever! New tire never touched the track...

Line her up on grid on the pole, still misting strongly, but the pack's on a mix of rains and drys... mainly 'cause a lot of 'em don't have wets! She's got a tummy full of butterflies, but a calm voice on the radio to talk her through it all and keep her focused.

Start goes great, pulls clear into the lead and even manages to pass another out-of-class car, putting him behind her on dry tires as a blocker. She then pulls a bit of a gap and chugs around cleanly for 7 laps (12 lap race)... till a Prod car falls apart and parks on track, necessitating a full course yellow to remove it.

This destroys her lead and lets a very hungry 2nd and 3rd place car get in range. The yellow is brief, only two laps, then they're back green. She gets a great run at the start, and immediately pulls a little bit of distance, but not enough, and the grip continues to worsen. The 2nd place car puts the pressure on at the end of the first restart lap, and she runs wide and off into the grass, losing her place.

She recovers, but is unable to regain any ground, finishing in the back again, sadly.

HOWEVER... this is still a strong enough performance to allow her to gain 2nd place in the 2013 Waterford ITB Championship! She also turned the fastest lap Sunday in the wet, retaining that honor for both days of the weekend...

Now she's pissed that we have to call it a season... but I gotta take the car apart, reinforce that other strut, and deal with some other tears and rips appearing elsewhere in the car, like on the firewall...
_________________
Vaughan Scott
Webmeister
'79 924 #77 SCCA H Prod racecar
'82 931 Plat. Silver
#25 Hidari Firefly P2 sports prototype

[924RACR]

PS - pics and video, including busted/repaired strut photos, will be posted to our Facebook page, just search for PUB Racing!
_________________
Vaughan Scott
Webmeister
'79 924 #77 SCCA H Prod racecar
'82 931 Plat. Silver
#25 Hidari Firefly P2 sports prototype

[jazz guy]

Thanks for the write up. I've always enjoyed catching up on PUB Racing escapades! The news is a little more sparse now that you've moved out of the 924 but it sounds like Merritt doing well in good ol' 77! Thanks, Vaughn!

[morghen]

Thanks for sharing !
Great story, as always.
_________________
https://www.the924.com

[924RACR]

Finally got to dealing with the video; here's the most exciting, racing for and then running in the lead on Saturday's afternoon race...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKuH2zbWOoY
_________________
Vaughan Scott
Webmeister
'79 924 #77 SCCA H Prod racecar
'82 931 Plat. Silver
#25 Hidari Firefly P2 sports prototype