[Thorshammer]

Hello Everyone,


While the shop toiled away, the crew was busy practicing, and the cars were cleaned and prepped.

Practice went well, and Qualifying gave us P2 Outside pole, P16 and P19.

With Crew Chiefs, Strategy, Car Chiefs, Crew and Drivers ready to go, we started outside the APR Volkswagen. The start was not a good one for our leading car #71 and it turned worse after cutting down a tire in the chute and not being able to go into the pits for one full lap, Ouch.

The Trade Manage car #09 was on point while natural selection took care of several competitors. With the pack thinning, Steve Goldman was starting to move forward and ran as high as 8th.

There were multiple yellow flags and full course caution periods which helped all of the Cars to use a one stop strategy. The pit stop went poorly for the 09 car, with a 20 sec penalty being given for the safety guy closing to fuel door, and they lost a lap to the class leading ST car. Live and learn. With Sam Schultz in the car, the lap times came down and the Boxster posted the fastest race lap of 2:06.8. As a relative number, the class winning car ran the best lap of 207.4.

While the #72 Boxster got very lucky with yellows, Jon and Jose drove very well, and consistently and they finished 9 overall.

The 09 charged hard the second half of the race, but was balked by the 74 C360 Honda driven by Lutz. After multiple requests to the stewards, Grand Am did not allow the 09 to pass, and this prevented the 09 car from getting its lap back. The cars all started coming together near the end, and each one of them was within 30 seconds of each other two laps before the end.

The most unfortunate occurance was the #71 Deman car being unceremoniously punted off the track in turn six by the same a hole (Lutz) that held up the 09 car earlier in the race, only to be further insulted by the front of another racecar at over 50 MPH. The Boxster was badly damaged but Rick Deman was okay.

The 72 car finished 9th and the 09 finished 10th in ST.

Conclusion:


The car is fast, the crew is starting to gel, and the VW's got lucky. At Daytona, I will take luck over skill any day of the week.

Erik Madsen
Madsen Engineering
Thor's Hammer Racing