Nola update! finally sat down at my desk long enough to type this up. Like I said before I Hauled the car all the way to NOLA so I could get in three Optima Events this year for the points chase. The drive wasn't fun, and the weekend was exhausting. For the first time in D&E all of my lights and streetcar required stuff worked! Horn, dome light, HVAC, wipers and of course all the lights. Score! The new stereo in the car helped with D&E too, and I recorded my highest D&E score to date. Stereo? yep, I put in a thumping mostor stereo thanks to Soundwave Customs here in Va Beach.
Back to NOLA, the veryfirst autocross run my entire exhausts dropped off the headers halfway through! yikes! I'm just glad my wideband O2 wires kept it from coming all the way off and I was able to salvage it. It took about an hour to get the car up on stands and replace the exhaust, so I lost quite a few autox runs. Once back, something didn't sound right and there was a lot of clunking going on in the rear end, I ran a total of 4 runs and during the lunch break I put it back up in the air to check things out. Well, the crossmember that holds the Pinion mount (IRS remember) was broken in two! Its a 3" piece of heavy pipe! broken. No more autox for me that day. Patched it up best we could for the road rally, and I was extra extra gentle on it for the rally portion. Once back to the track we tore into it to remove the crossmember and re weld it back together for Sundays action. Good thing we had a keg because that attracted a lot help! We managed to get it out and one of the other teams stepped up to help us weld it with their portable set. Got it back into the car and finished the keg about 1am sunday!
On Sunday I made sure I got at least one speed stop run in before I hit the open track laps just incase I had any issues in either. Turns out the parking lot welding and extra bracing held up just fine all day on Sunday!
I gave it all she had on the road course and even sprayed a whole bottle of NOS through it, but I just couldn't make up enough ground to take the GTV win home. I was close, and only a few points out, but it's not a win. Still 2nd in GTV is my highest finish yet! and I got to grab some of Falken tire's contingency money! win win!