Testing again; not a 'pop-quiz' though.
After San Jose we stayed and turned the cars around for the upcoming Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin - Road America open test. It ended up being a very. Coming in at 6:00am on Sunday and having to leave the hotel at 4:30am on Monday, made for an exhausting day and a painful morning! Home for a day, you (try to) catch up on sleep you've missed and wash laundry, and... that's basically it! From San Jose transporters went straight to Wisconsin and the crew drove up on Wednesday (2nd). We worked until 9:30pm on Wednesday to unload the trucks, setup the pits and finish the cars. We had a decent day of running on Thursday, neither one of our cars set the world on fire though. We ran from 9:00am until Noon, ate lunch, and then ran from 1:00pm until about 3:00pm. We were scheduled to run until 5:00 but a crash shortened the day. The track went 'red' (red flag-no running, all cars back to pit lane) for a car in the pea gravel run-off area near turn 6. That's not usually a big deal but as we later found out it was a very serious crash. One thing you learn being around racing for any period of time is when you hear or see the Lifeline helicopter moving, it's a bad wreck. This was true Thursday. Christiano da Matta (#10 RuSport) was coming out of turn 6 and a deer jumped on to the track in front of him causing the crash. The doctors flew with him to the hospital where the they later had to remove a subdural hematoma (a mass off blood between the skull and brain). He aparently has no more bleeding, but still has some cerebral adema (brain swelling) and is recovering. Please keep him in your prayers.
On Friday morning the ChampCar staff made the decision to continue testing. The Players/Forsythe team decided to load and return home. This left a total of 6 cars to test for the day.
We ran the full day, until 5:00pm. Dan ran well for his first experience with this track. He had one major 'off', but really didn't hurt much. Nelson's car had a wiring issue which lead to changing the engine. After the change we went out for a couple of laps and discovered an engine oil leak which meant going back to the tent and shut us down for awhile. We were able to finish the day without incident after that repair. Disassemble the pits, load the cars and parts, and finally the awnings and equipment and we were ready to go home. Most of the team took showers and then piled into the team vans for the 6 hour journey home. It was my turn to drive, and the trip went quite smoothly. I managed to, somehow, beat the other vans home! I put the key in my front door at 2:07am this morning; almost a 20 hour work day! I'm resting up today as we are back to work at 8:00am tomorrow! Racing is the life for me!
1 comment:
20 hour work days are not the life for me. I don't see how you can do it and still stand on your feet!
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