Summit Point AER 2019

This was a tough weekend that did not produce the results we were hoping for but we all came away safe and had a great time with the AER community/Team and did well, all things considered.....

Friday - Practice......as is usual, I spent the first amount of time in the vehicle to get it setup for the other drivers as well as quickly assessing what kind of pace the vehicle could maintain. After a few damper and tire pressure adjustments, we finally got the vehicle where it was in a good spot for everyone to "play". With only a few races left in the year, and a roster of drivers able to quickly acclimate to the vehicle, we kept a casual pace giving each driver just enough time to get familiar with the vehicle and track.

Qualifying - All of our drivers were able to quickly get near the vehicle limits and put down consistent times, the downfall is this placed us in a very competitive group against other drivers that were still getting used to their setup. As such, we would start in the top 5 for our saturday race against a very tough crowd.

Saturday - Race

Knowing that people might get aggressive, nearing the end of the season, we decided to be cautious on the start, knowing we had plenty of time to make up for it. The first driver did just that, keeping the car out of trouble and carefully moving up in the field. However, luck wasn't quite with us for the 2nd stint. Since AER races are "Multi-class" (fast and slow cars mixed together) the driver was giving the faster class plenty of passing room when one of them stopped paying attention and unfortunately hit us hard enough to destroy the wheel, leading to a flat tire.

After some time, we were able to get the vehicle back on track to finish in the top 10, but a post-race inspection would show that we had more damage than we realized. The impact earlier in the day had knocked the fuel pump around enough that we finished the race, down on power and with out a sufficient supply of fuel, leaning the engine out as it ran.

Sunday - Race

Having repaired all of the visible damage over night and thoroughly checking the vehicles alignment and fueling situation, we were optimistic for a podium on Sunday, especially with a couple of much faster cars getting pushed to their proper class.

We had a great start and things were going very well into the 2nd stint, as the driver was constantly picking up the pace and moving up in class, until a sudden loss of power.

We were able to get the car into the pits, under its own power, but after seeing how low we had become on oil, we had to push it back to the garage. Checking each cylinder carefully, we found that we were indeed "down" a cylinder (no compression), as a delayed result of the damage we suffered Saturday and was enough to end our day.

Looking back on the weekend, of course we all wanted (and were capable of) a podium finish, but the drivers got a chance to work on their race craft while Saturday even finishing in the top 10, on a "hurt" engine. As always, hanging out with the drivers and crew was a good time and we all look forward to a renewed "Big Red" to dominate Mid Ohio in a few weeks!