This morning started bright and early at the Manzanar air strip where my car was inspected and I registered for the event. We had two run groups, the first including female drivers, stock class, and the beater class. The number of beaters was smaller this year but the 5 series BMW from Santa Barbara was fun to watch as it had some major component broken (never did find out what it was). It had recently been painted flat black and given a flame job.
After working the course for 2 hours in the hot sun, I gridded up in the second run group which consisted of all the fun cars, includinga couple BMW2002s, several MR2s (a turbo one which got TTTOD) a spec SE-R, an RX-7 with super super wide slicks, a really awesome vette with massive side pipes (which spun out nearly every run) etc.
On my first lap I spun out, (first time ever) which was fun. My next two runs were much slower as I had been spooked by the spin. One of the corner workers later said "what happened, after the spin, you were going like 5 times slower." The car ran great, temperatures briefly got to 200. I realized late that I wasn't using my brakes enough. I am used to the stock 914 brakes and went into things conservatively slow. The new 911 brakes ar far more capable than I was comfortable with
Basically the car kicked ass but I didn't. More seat time is in order.The weather this year was wonderful compared to last year. By mid-afternoon it started to get pretty hot (felt like 100) but thee was a breeze. No winds like last year.
In the morning we are leaving as early as possibe to come home. There is apparently a good amount of hot air leaking form my front trunk into the engine bay and it is NOT comfortable.
-Tony
