So we had fun this past weekend at NJMP, my parents and sister made the 3hr drive down to hang with the kids and for some BBQ. I was happy to be on a new track but not so happy when I found out the passing rules are different for group 3 in this region. We were only allowed to pass in the straights with a point-by which sucked. In my region group 3 is allowed to pass ANYWHERE with a point-by so I was disappointed because I was looking forward to some mid corner point-bys.
Anyway aside from Thunderbolt being an awesome track to run on and have having fun with the family the track time lacked in several areas. They don't hot pulls which means if some one goes off track for a minor incident or mechanical failure they send the EV's out to recover them and only wave a local yellow flag in that area. The North East region waves the black flag and brings everyone in to pit road until the EV's tow them in then releases the group again if there is time remaining. This happens several times a day and everybodys tracktime gets cut short as a result.
1st session went good, learned the track so nothing exciting.
2nd session I get stuck In a long train of cars cause the front car for some reason isnt letting anybody by. I pull into pit road to get spaced out and its actually closed. The signs directs me into the paddock as if my session is over, so now I gotta weave through all the paddock rows to get back on track. After I got in another lap the session was over.
My 3rd session we got blacked flagged in the first lap and had to wait in the pits for like 5 minutes while they towed in a racer from the prior group that stalled or something in pit out. After they released us again I did a warm up lap behind some moron in a STI that was slamming on his brakes on purpose, why? I dunno but then he decide to break grip on purpose by sawing the wheel in a long decreasing radius turn. Im like fvck this and pointed by like 4 cars so they could deal with this idiot. After another warm up lap I start to build up speed then coming into my 4th lap Im ready to lay the hammer down as I come through turn 12 I shift from 3rd to 4th and boom I hear what sounds like my intermediate shaft flopping around. I get off line and eventually get off track after turn 1 cause I knew I wasn't gonna make it all the way around to pit out with out making things worst. So now Im the cause of the black flag less the 5 minutes after we were release from the last one,,,, uugggh I felt soo bad man.
So I get towed in, get the the front of the car on jackstands and everthing looks fine which means the damage has to be inside the tranny. I put it gear and accelerated a little while my pops watched inside the engine bay and he said it was rocking back and forth while a gave it throttle.
On the bright side I only had one session left so most of my day was done anyway, we packed it up went back to the hotel to jump in the pool!!
and its all on video lol !!!!
how she sits now
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps639a3678.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps0ac28689.jpg
not many but there was some nice sized metal shaving that came out with the oil
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...psdaefc1f7.jpg
off to Atlantic Motorsports along with the spare tranny to make one good one, Im so scared its the LSD.
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...psada6efbb.jpg
I have less then 3 weeks to get this thing ready for Summit Point