Bill reviews how his first day with NASA Great Lakes went at Pitt Race. It was hot, but the instruction in the car and in the classroom was excellent. Chris was able to be his instructor. The day ended with another few laps on the kart track. An excellent day one for the Pitt Race HPDE. Really looking forward to day 2.
GHIT 0053: The Night Before NASA Pitt Race HPDE
Bill is going solo this weekend but going to cover what he is expecting at the HPDE event with NASA Great Lakes at Pitt Race. Having raced here earlier this year, it may have helped, but we shall see. Hopefully the brakes will not catch on fire this time. Bill is driving a 2017 Toyota 86 TRD this weekend for the third time ever on a track. And hopefully home after Sunday, lol.
The NASA Great Lakes region has some of the best instruction we have been able to find and we love going to their events. While Bill attended this solo for the Garage Heroes In Training team, we did have a bunch of great friends that attended and this event has become the highlight of our season. We cannot wait for next year and we promise to have many more attendees for the next Great Lakes event at Pitt Race. (Now if we could only add a second event here, lol)
We came, we saw, we were conquered.
Alan, Jennifer, Vicki, and Bill with a few drop ins cover our race weekend with the Lucky Dog Series at Portland International Raceway. It starts with a review of practice Saturday morning, then our 7-hour endurance race Saturday and our work to get back out late Sunday.Â
We compare Lucky Dog to our home series the 24 Hours of Lemons. While similar, there are differences, pluses and minuses for each, so we compare the two in the continual pursuit of the perfect low budget amateur endurance car racing.
There were a ton of great teams there, most of which passed us on Saturday as we were towards the slower end of the field.Â
We recorded this shortly after we completed Sunday so there is a bit of echo since we were in the pit. However, we did manage to give out our team awards for the weekend. Â
Racing Results for those who are keeping track at home:
Saturday: We were in 37th place when our engine went away Saturday and ended up at 41st for the day. We did not get to participate in the 2 Saturday enduros due to the engine issue. Our fastest lap was 1:38.664 by our guest driver Randy Pobst, but we managed to 1:45.870 as our internal team best. (Randy was able to get to 48th fastest lap of the day and Alanâs time would have placed us as the second slowest car in the 60 car field that ran a lap Saturday )
Sunday: We ended up getting on track after a long day of engine swapping and rebuilding and finished 3 laps and ended up finishing around 48th out of the 64 cars this weekend and 48th fastest of the 48 cars that ran on Sunday.
Fastest lap of the race weekend was 1:29.932 by Blue Bayou for reference to the relative performance to the field.
We came, we saw, we were conquered.
GHIT 0050: Our Lucky Dog Race and Portland International Raceway – 2019
Here is how our day and night have gone at Lucky Dog Portland. Its got a good, bad, and ugly, but what would you expect from us after all. Its live and unedited from the paddock, so sound quality may be less than stellar.
Any questions, please let us know on our Instagram. We will try to cover them tomorrow or tomorrow night if we finish fixing the car.
Thanks again.
Well this episode started out as a quick update and we intended to show you some of the planning that goes into a race weekend when you have to travel a significant distance. What we ended up with was a bit of what we intended plus a whole lot more. We go over a training session using go carts, new ear plugs for racing and a variety of other things. Technical issues in the background abound as well, but they will hopefully be entertaining.
GHIT 0048 Pre-Race Prep for Lucky Dog race in Portland OR (PIR)
