Battle Scars

Ok so I'm late in reporting this, but hey... Do I get paid for this? ;) (and also as far as I can tell, nobody reads this either)

So how did the 7/12/09 event go? Oddly but in the end it turns out I still managed to post an improvement. This event came on the heals of a fabulous run with the Renegade Miata Club. The RMC club event was the first time I felt like I was running *in* the pack, and some people with decent cars and more than a couple events of experience were envying my times. I was within 10% of the FTD...

This time featured a couple of new experiences. Wiley Co-Drove with me because his original co-driver's car ate it's own clutch early in the day. Co-driving theoretically gives a better chance at good times because the tires are warmer. It also demands that one pay closer attention to the grid. There is less time between runs, and for my part I kinda felt a bit rushed in comparison to solo driving.

Also in this event, I suffered the first incident of damage to the car directly related to the sport. The front clam is now slightly cracked and the plastic grating on the front left was destroyed by cones. It's not clear which driver inflicted the damage. Wiley claimed he had mowed down a cone directly when he came back from his second run. This caused me to recall what Russ had said about cracking his front clam and that caused me to look. But the run before I had blown straight through a wall of cones when I completely over-drove the Chicago box. I was too vexed to remember to check for damage after my run. Either incident could have been the source of the damage (estimated at $750 to fix).

Finally the day was plagued with timing problems, and we only got 5 runs. Of my five runs I had 2 DNF's due to spinning, and 2 runs that had 3 and 4 cones. Only one clean run. I wound up feeling like I had left a LOT of time out there and ended the day feeling quite down.

But as I mentioned, the numbers turned out good. My one good run actually represented a minor improvement over my "faboulous" RMC day. So while the day was rough on an emotional/ego basis as it happened, only one good run is needed to save the day. I can look back now on the problems and view them as battle scars, part of the cost of learning.