Wasn't the weekend most of us wanted!
The venue was very low traction, very large pretty open simple courses- biggest prosolo courses I've run. Really favored the cars that could get the HP down.
We couldn't keep the back end of the car under us the first runs. I spun the first three runs so badly I couldn't figure out where the course was afterwards and just skipped the 4th run the car was so undrivable. Reminded me of the first Greenville event. I blamed it on the fact the course was wet, It had poured all Thursday and the winds were so bad the Xmas tree was in danger of blowing over so they cancelled practice starts entirely. There were tornado warnings in the area. The rains started again as sprinkles Thurs AM. Donna's dry runs showed it wasn't the weather as she also spun badly even tho I thought I had tightened the back end up with shock adjustment, as much as we'd use at a wet local event. In desparation I tried adjusting the shocks more durring Donna's runs but was having trouble doing it in the available couple minutes. Adam tried to ge the second side but burned his hand on the exhaust. Between the next two runs Aaron volunteered to attempt to adjust them again being familiar with the Celi shocks he turned them full soft, about 8 clicks softer than we ever used before. That tamed the rear down enough to get thru the course.
The afternoon runs were like starting over since we learned nothing in the AM except how to spin like a top. We were also gun shy! The Celi stood no chance against the Minis on that course, so we were both at the bottom at the end of the day. Leaving the event back to our hotel the car developed a familiar sound: a bearing going away in our third tranny in the car. The end of Nationals for the Celi if we hoped to limp it home???
Today we both drove Jeff Jacobs MiniS, Donna hadn't driven it since last year and I had never driven it. It's a well set up car, GH won GS in it, but 4 runs were not enough for us to become familiar enough with it to move up the order.
Donna was already going to drive Jeff's HS Mini in the championships next week and I'll now be codriving the same Mini in HS open. THANKS JEFF!!!
It wasn't a great deal better for the rest of the THSCC people. Jim F was a no show, Aaron and Adam both trophied down the order, Eric and Donnie finished out of the trophies.
It was a valiant effort by all, but not the surface we had been promised.
Next week will be "interesting..." stay tuned.
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So that's a ProSolo championship, too, as Jonathan won all three events he's driven in this year (he's taught some Evo schools, but otherwise his only autocrosses were the DC Pro, Wendover Pro, and this event). Things look pretty good for Nationals!
