Friday Day 1

Day one would consist of two practices and one qualifying session.   Austin showed really good pace in practice, equaling his best time from last year on tires with well over 100 laps on them.   Austin had his best qualifying session of the season with a 4th place start.   It was nice to see him near the pointy end of the starting grid again.  He was actually on a better lap near the end of the session only have to take evasive action from a car that was given the blue flag but it still turned into him at the top of the corkscrew.  Austin had to go over the curb at the apex to avoid a large collision with this other driver.   This same driver would go on to cause a red flag one lap later ending the session.   Still we were incredibly happy with 4th place and 9th overall out of 32 cars!!!

Video Recap Day 1

Saturday Day 2

Race 1 would take place early on Saturday morning and everyone was in good spirits heading into the race.  Austin had a really good start and even picked up another spot on the first lap.   On the second lap Austin radioed in and said the car didn’t feel right and once the tires got warm the car was a bit of a handful to hold onto.  Austin drove the hell out of it for the next 40 mins crossing the line in a respectable 7th place.   We were all disappointed.  Once we got the car back to our trailer a thorough inspection revealed the curb Austin hit in the final lap of qualifying the night before had done much more damage than we thought.   It turns out the curb had broken all of the mounts where the crash box fastens to the chassis.   The front splitter also fastens to the crash box for support.   So once Austin go rolling the splitter would move with the loosened crash box which caused Austin to have a massive understeer issue and at Laguna Seca understeer is about the last thing you need.   Austin’s best time in race one would give him his grid spot for race 2 and with the issues he had in Race 1 he was well down the order near the rear of the field.    

Austin obviously had a lot of work to do in race 2.   He was able to get a decent start and made up several positions on the opening lap.   He continued to make progress lap after lap and his incredible pace had him sitting in a podium spot with about 10 mins to go!!!   All of a sudden he radioed in and said the car shut off and wouldn’t re-fire.  Safety crews got him to a safe area and the race restarted without him.   This was pretty heartbreaking for everyone.   The heartbreak turned to despair once we got the car back and opened the engine cover.   Everything was covered in oil and there was a massive hole in the engine block.   This was a new crate engine from Radical which we installed at the beginning of the season.   We went with a new one knowing we wouldn’t be able to replace a rebuilt one halfway through the season.   According to the factory the new XXR engines should be good for 50-60 hours of run time.   Austin’s engine had just passed the 30 hour mark.  After the gearbox replacement costs at Road America,  any buffer we had was long gone.   The cost to replace the motor is almost $33k Canadian!!!   Austin was really struggling with the news that we may be going home early and that the rest of the season is truly in jeopardy.   One of the bigger teams at the track offered us their new spare motor for us to race on Sunday and that we would discuss payment terms after the event.   The important thing was we were there to race and that’s what we were going to do.   By the time Steffen and Jeremy removed the old motor and replaced it with the new power plant it was after 3am Sunday morning before everyone went to bed. 

Video Recap Day 2

Sunday Day 3

Everyone was very tired heading to grid except for Austin who was exhausted the night previous so he went to bed early.   Austin was super confident getting into the car.   He really wanted to put on a good show for everyone.   Austin’s start was incredible, he avoided chaos all around him into turn one and moved up several spots.   On lap tow he was already up to 4th in class and was gaining rapidly on third.   An early caution brought a holt to his progress and we were all shocked when Austin didn’t come around on the second caution lap.   He radioed in saying the car had shut off again, it was easy to hear the pain in Austin’s voice….two podiums had been taken away from him.   He had so many fans in attendance,  it was almost like a home race for him and for us to come away empty handed after everyone’s hard work was heartbreaking.   Once we got the car back to the trailer, we opened the engine cover to once again see everything covered in oil.   Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t the engine that had failed this time, it was the oil cooler that had let go.   When you lose a motor in these cars you need to replace the oil cooler to ensure that there aren’t any little pieces of metal within it to kill your new motor you have just installed.   Unfortunately for us,  no one in the paddock had a new oil cooler for us to use as a replacement, so the boys took ours apart and cleaned it and put it back together.   It seems the new O ring gasket we used either wasn’t seated properly or wasn’t strong enough to withstand the intense pressure once the wick was turned up.   Hopefully it’s an easy  and cheap fix but that remains to be seen at the moment.

So as I write this, Roxie is in our garage instead of being prepped for Toronto.  We have enough money to do the race or pay of the engine,   we don’t have enough to do both.   As you can imagine, things are more than a bit stressful at the moment.   I assure you that I am doing everything I can to ensure Austin is on the grid in Toronto in less than 3 weeks time but I am fighting an uphill battle.  

Video Recap Day 3