| GOTO:Racing #64 E3 CRX Race Report |
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GOTO:Racing had an incredible weekend in their first running of the NASA December Enduro, driving the 87 CRXsi to an E3 win in the 12 hour portion and into 4th place in the 25, posting 488 laps!
Saturaday morning was extremely windy and cold, with the threat of rain all around. I took the first stint and the rain began to fall as the cars left the grid, and it was pooring by when the green flag flew. We slid into 4th place and hunkered down for a rainy afternoon.
By 1:30pm we had moved up to 2nd, and by 3pm we were 2 laps in the lead, which we lost again to the German Motorsports Rabbit briefly at hour 8 but were able to regain. we were 9 laps ahead at the 11 hour mark, when two strange occurances almost had us losing the 12 hour. First, a voice over the 14(offical) band told us we were on fire, so we pitted. We were not, in fact, on fire, and none of the officials could tell us who made the call. So we went back out only to earn ourselves a HIGHLY contested 5 minute penalty for passing under a yellow. But we were able to get back out on the track with 2 laps to spare and take the 12 hour win. I had a few scary moments in my second ride, both involving 1 of two faster moving Glen Yee Motorsports 911s. Once I was sideswiped in Turn 8, and then punted once from 14.
The team got ready for a long and dangerous night. Thunderhill had never looked meaner than it did with mud and car parts strewn about the racing surface. Guest drivers John Anker and Doug Fournier did an excellent job keeping the #6 car out of trouble through the wee hours of Sunday morning, and by sunrise, we were again in the lead, this time over Metric Motorsports by 6 laps.
At T-minus 3 hours remaing, or 9am Sunday morning, I got in the car for what was going to be the last stint. The crew could only watch from there, but we were almost 15 laps ahead at this point, and I went out to just drive around the track and collect the win. But fate thought differently at the beggining of the 24th hour. I was behind another E3 car(a mini cooper) just cruising, when the #64 Glen Yee Porsche aproached us into turn 8. As we had been doing all race long, both myself and the mini moved over and pointed him though. He passed on the inside at about 120mph and clipped the end of the mini causing her to sping and collected me and another car in the process. Going of in the mud at about 85 mph caused what we think is terminal damage to the shell and sub frame, not to mention ending our race due to breaking the suspension. A valiant effort was made by the crew to repair the car, but too many suspension peice had been damaged, and there were not enough spares, so we were forced to retire. We lost our lead 1/2 an hour later to the Metric Motorsports 88 Honda Civic Hatch. But 488 laps was enough to net us 4th place behind Team Alpha and German MotorSport.
It was an awesome event, and we did better than we imagined we could. Unfortunately we now know the heartache of lossing a race in the 24th hour, but we will be back next year!
P.S. The irony is that the Glen Yee Motorsports car had our sprint number (64). He also went on to win ES and Overall.
Chris Lock
GOTO:Racing
WCHC #64 H5
Thanks to my sponsors:
SKI WORLD USA
IDE Inc.
JayDM.com http://www.jaydm.com
PIAA
Winchester Auto/Parts PLUS
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