Link:  2006 Test Days at Daytona Preliminary Schedule

I am NOT Smellie!

Tuesday, January 3rd

Its Tuesday, just 2 days before testing, and a small disaster has struck.  The new motor Doc had put in some time ago has run into problems while he was tuning it, so he had to replace the entire engine at the last minute.  Doc told us he wouldn't be able to drive up from Miami until Thursday morning, so we would miss the first practice session.   I wasn't real happy about that, but what can you do - that's not unusual in the racing business, especially with a brand new car.  The testing is 3 days long (Thursday, Friday, Saturday), and we have 2 practice sessions each day, for 6 sessions total.    We'll we should still get 5 practice sessions in if Doc makes arrives Thursday morning.  More on that later...

Danny wants to take his tractor trailer racing rig down to Daytona to use as a support vehicle.  Not that we need it for transporting  the car (because Doc is taking care of that with his own trailer) but Danny got this idea that he could conveniently sleep in its crew quarters.   The crew quarters is a simple 9x10' room built into the front of the trailer.  It has some seating area, a convertible bed, and a TV with a DVD player.  The trailer also has a dorm-size refrigerator last cleaned during the Reagan Administration, and a 1960's era microwave that would be put to shame by an easy-bake oven.  Danny figures he can leave the rig in Florida, and use it again a few weeks later for the Daytona race, when it will be really hard to book a hotel room near the track.   That sounds like a good idea to me.

The only problem is that Danny wants to fly his plane down and back, so how are we going to get the rig down there?  Plus, the rig has to be down early, because all of the racecar "transporters" have to be lined up and ready to park by noon on Wednesday.   There are literally hundreds of trailers to park, so if you aren't there in time, you don't get a parking space.  Well, you may remember from a couple of adventures ago (when I ran One Lap of America), that I had a partner in crime, Bill, that is a professional truck driver.   Bill agrees to drive the rig down, as long as we can fly him to Philly on Friday so he doesn't have to break some plans he had up there for the weekend.   

So we make arrangements to do a 3-way transfer in the town of Benson, so Bill can pick up the rig.  Benson is kind of the mid-way point for all of us.   Danny will drive the rig from Wilmington, followed by his daughter, Ryan, in her Taurus, so he can get a ride back to Wilmington.  Bill will drive up from Fayetteville in his pickup truck.   My wife and I will drive me down from Raleigh so I can take Bill's pickup truck.   After I get back from Daytona, I'll take the pickup to RDU airport for Bill so he can drive it home when he flies back in after his weekend.   Sound complicated enough? Phew...

Danny and his daughter Rian, with Bill

While Bill drives Danny's rig down to Florida, I'll follow a day later on Wednesday late afternoon/evening in my own car.  I decide not to fly down with Danny this time, because my wife wants to come along, and we will bring along Shadow the wonder dog.  I don't think Shadow would fly too well - on occasion Shadow can be quite a nervous passenger.  We rescued her from an animal shelter several years ago, and on her maiden drive home we were rewarded with the royal trifecta - she threw-up, went number 1, AND number 2, all in the back seat of my truck!   Since then Shadow has gotten used to riding in the car, but I can't imagine going through that again at an altitude of 6500 feet with no way to open a window.   

Wednesday, January 4th

Bill got to Daytona in plenty of time to get the rig through the gate and parked in the proper spot.  The only issue he had was that Danny forgot to tell him ahead of time that the heater wasn't working in it, so Bill got a little chilly during the evening portion of his drive. 

Our drive to Daytona Wednesday evening is blissfully uneventful - all the gauges in my car continue to operate with no issues whatsoever.  Danny has similar good luck, and whisks into Daytona International Airport in something under 3 hours in his Seawind 3000.  This time he has no problem with the plane, at least none that he would admit to!  Beth and I stay across from the track at the Studio Plus extended stay hotel.  It's decent enough, and certainly convenient.  The hotel is half full of day laborers crammed 7-8 to a room, which is oddly reminiscent of what Bill and I found a few years back during our  One Lap of America Adventure.

Bill and Danny planned to sleep in the truck's crew quarters, but at 6 o'clock a security guard making the rounds kicked them out - it seems everyone has to leave the paddock area at night, and they lock up the facilities tight as a drum.  Resourceful Ranger Danny manages to snag a decent room nearby at the military rate for the night.   Danny is determined this won't happen again.

Thursday, January 5th - 1st day of testing

The next morning I'm over at the paddock bright and early, in anticipation of being ready for the car when it gets there.   Hopefully Doc will arrive soon, we can get the car tech'ed, and get on track for the afternoon session.  It turns out I had plenty of time on my hands this day, which is not necessarily a good thing.  But at least I could take a lot of pictures.  Each team car is assigned a garage space.

Next to us in the garage is the "Play Therapy Racing" RX-8 (just like the one we hope to be driving) with some really appropriate graphics.

And on the other side of the garage we had the Team Sahlen Porsches - there were 4 of them on the entry list, but I swear I counted at least 6 of them.  They were buzzing by us pretty good on the straights (once we got in the car - more on that later).

The Porsches run in GS class, while our RX-8 runs in the slower ST class.  Grand Am Cup racing has two classes of cars on track at the same time, so there are really two races within the race, with the cars all mixed together.  The faster GS cars are dominated by a preponderance of Porsches, Mustangs, and BMW M3's, while the ST cars are dominated by RX-8's, Acura RSX's and BMW 330i's. 

Team Sahlens also showed up with a somewhat unusual ST class car, a turbocharged Dodge Neon SRT-4.  These cars are plenty quick, and I'm glad to see one in the field. 

The 3 NRG Motorsports RX-8's are above - these are the cars that Doc built with Nick Gurucharri.  Our still empty garage stall is just to the left of these 3 cars.  Together, our car (owned by Doc), and these 3 cars (owned by Nick), will pool resources.  Doc is still on retainer to Nick as his chief engineer, I guess you would say.  

This is Danny with Mr. and Mrs. Rob Whitener III.   Rob formed ROAR Racing and has put some funding behind Nick's effort.  Rob will co-drive one of the cars with Nick.  As such, all three of Nick's cars are being co-branded as NRG Motorsports / ROAR Racing.    For this test session, our car (or I should say Doc's car, which we are renting for the season) is also listed on the entry list as an NRG Motorsports / ROAR Racing entry.  

The morning continues to pass by, and our car is still not here. If it doesn't arrive soon, we won't make the afternoon session either.  Frustrated, I decide to walk through the paddock and take some more pictures.

This is me with Will Turner, owner of Turner Motorsports.  Anybody that races BMW's knows about Will - he is positively HUGE in the US.  He and Don Salama co-drive this car in ST class, and he is one of the favorites to win the driver's championship this season.    Even though Will knew I would be driving "against" him, he spent quite a bit of time giving me some pointers about the track.   He is a true gentleman competitor, and he is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet (off track at least - I'm sure he's pretty fierce on track).   Over our shoulder you see the SpeedSource RX-8's.

Mr. ROAR Racing, Rob Whitener, is suited up, as Nick (in black with his back to us) confers with his crew about the car.  In a few moments they will be heading out on track for the first practice session.  The practice session is 1 hour long - most teams will switch drivers in the middle of the session, so both drivers get some time in the car.  

Since I won't be driving this morning, Bill and I decide to head out to the infield bleachers to watch the practice session, and maybe pick up some pointers.  Here is the Will Turner BMW that I was leaning against just moments earlier, carving its way through the infield course.   I have no way of knowing if Will or Don Salama is in the car.  It doesn't make much difference - they are both fantastic drivers.

This is the yellow ST Class SpeedSource RX-8 that won the championship last year, seen here dogging a GS class Mustang in the same turn.  This RX-8 is co-driven by  Sylvain Tremblay and David Haskell.   The 2005 Championship went down to the wire, with both the Turner Motorsports BMW and this SpeedSource RX-8 having a shot.  The BMW broke in the final race.  Will Turner is back this year in his BMW, he confided with me earlier, due to this "unfinished business". 

Left of center is the brand spankin' new ROAR racing transporter.   This is a top of the line rig, and it is being towed by a luxury coach style "toter home" - half tractor trailer, half motor home.  Very expensive, very nice - only the best for Rob!

To the right is Danny's rig, which is none too shabby either.  That cute, goofball looking car pasted on the rear is a BMW Isetta micro-car.  Danny has a soft spot for vintage Isetta's, and owns at least one.  I found a good site on the internet that gives a brief history on the Isetta, if you're interested.

The practice session ends, and Doc still hasn't arrived with the car.  We try to reach Doc, but just get his voicemail.  Danny and I are conferring in his trailer about the implications of this. 

Like me, Danny is anxious about the car not being here yet.  He finds ways to keep himself busy to pass the time.  Here you see him using the workbench in his trailer to fabricate an exhaust gasket for this little gas-powered scooter that he has.  Its basically a skateboard with a chainsaw engine on it - of course its stupidly fast, and somewhat dangerous to ride, which suits Danny just fine!

Morning turns into afternoon, and our car still hasn't arrived.  Its pretty obvious that we aren't going to make the Thursday afternoon practice session either, so Bill and I setup the observation deck on the top of Danny's trailer.  We have a pretty good vantage point, as we overlook the road used to enter/exit the pits.  Bill manages to snap some pictures of some interesting cars.  This appears to be a ROLEX Pontiac GTO.  The ROLEX cars will run in the upcoming 24-Hours of Daytona.  The 2.5 hour Grand Am Cup race we are in, will run just prior to the ROLEX race.

This is a Daytona Prototype (DP class) car that will run in the 24 Hour race, coming off under its own power.

Here is a different body style of a Daytona Prototype, this one getting pushed by the ATV behind it.

Still another Daytona Prototype car being pushed off, as one of our ROAR Racing / NRG Motorsports RX-8's heads out for practice.  Nope, we won't be making this practice session either.  Maybe we'll have better luck tomorrow.

Here is the Lowe's Home Improvement-sponsored Daytona Prototype, getting a little more help.  The rear-end must be broken, as they have it up on some sort of push dolly.

Say Cheeze!  I manage to warm some popcorn in the 60 watt easy-bake microwave - it only took about 12 minutes to pop it.  The test day winds down and the track goes silent around 5:00pm. Tonight the paddock won't close until 9:00pm, so we decide to hang out a little longer.  As the sun goes down, Bill and I get the brilliant idea that we'll walk the infield track - I couldn't drive it, but at least I'll get to scope it out on foot - maybe we'll learn some insider secret that you can't fathom when you're driving over it at 100mph.  We call Danny on his cell phone, and he agrees to join us.  Danny catches up to us as we walk down pit road - not even breathing hard even though he just ran 1/2 mile.   For the next 15 minutes, under the infield lights, we pretend like we're going to find out something that will help us go 2/10th's of a second faster here or there.   Then a corner worker truck comes by, the driver puzzled by our presence on the track.  A few minutes pass, then another one comes by, and the driver leans out, "Hey, what are you guys doing?  Don't you know we're about to go green?"   Uh, oh, they were about to start night practice for the Rolex 24-Hour cars, and we were about to become roadkill!  We hurry up and get off the track, feeling rather foolish.

Danny was determined to sleep in his trailer - dang it, he went to all this trouble to bring it down, he was going to use it.  Danny and Bill agree that Danny will sleep in the trailer crew quarters, while Bill will sleep in the back of the truck cab (which has a bunk in it as well).  So 15 minutes before the paddock closes, Bill and Danny use the restrooms.  Then Bill climbed up into the sleeper cab, and Danny closed himself into the crew quarters, and they called it a night.   Danny's trailer doesn't have any windows on it, so you would never know he was inside.  The truck cab sleeper is visible through the truck's front windows, so Bill had to be careful to not turn on any lights, or he might be seen. 

Friday, January 6th - 2nd Day of Testing

Friday morning as I'm heading over to the track, I get a call on my cell phone - Doc has arrived with the car!  He arrived late last night, but it was after hours, so he couldn't get in.  I hurry over to the track, to find that they have already unloaded the car and it is sitting in its designated garage stall.  The first practice is at 9:00am, but looking at the car, it slowly becomes clear that we won't make it.  Don't get me wrong, the car is in mechanically good shape, but its missing several of the finishing details we need before we can go on track.

The ROAR Racing team mechanics were all busy working on their cars, so Danny and Bill and I roll up our sleeves and work to get the car ready.  We need to mount the seat, install the harnesses, install the roll bar padding, mount the mirror, put on the decal's, get some Hoosiers (race tires) mounted up, get the car through tech inspection, etc, etc.  The last minute broken motor really put Doc behind schedule.  There was so much to do that I was starting to wonder if we would finish in time to make the afternoon session! 

Here is Danny and I trying to figure out how to mount the seat and attach the harnesses.

This is Lenworth, Doc's main mechanic and right hand man.   Lenworth is assigned to only work on our car. 

This is one of those times when it helps to be a short little guy - you can work in pretty close quarters...

(Super) Mario, the AIM factory representative (AIM is the maker of the electronic racing dash that we are using), works on programming the dash.   The racing dash is just a big LCD screen, and you can program whatever gauges on it that you want - a tachometer, oil pressure, oil temperature, water temperature, rpm, speed, etc.  You can also set LED alarms to come on, to indicate a problem.  Very cool technology.

Literally with only 10 minutes to spare before technical inspection closes for the day, we finish the car.  Here you see Grand Am officials scrutinizing the car, making sure that it meets their safety standards.  It passed first time through.  It looks like we will make the afternoon practice session!

We missed the first 3 practice sessions - two yesterday and one this morning - but there are 3 left to go, so that is better than nothing.  Danny and I fight over who will drive the car first, but not the way you might think.   My reasoning is that, hey, its a new car, finished in the nick of time, and completely untested. We all know that there is probably a 50% chance that the engine will blow up, a wheel will fall off, the fuel tank will spontaneously explode, etc, etc.   So I insisted that Danny go first!!!  Aren't I a nice guy....

So Danny agrees to drive the first 30 minutes, and then he will come in and let me drive the last 30 minutes.  We don't have a radio installed in the car yet, so he's going to have to look at his watch to keep track of time.   Danny gets out there and cautiously turns a few laps.  Everything stays together on the car just fine.  He slowly turns up the wick and starts driving faster and faster, and that's when he starts braking harder, and he realizes that the Antilock Brakes aren't working!  The brakes on the RX-8 are just tremendous, but with the ABS not working, the car is prematurely locking up the left front tire quite badly.  Do this too much, and you will destroy the tire - you can wear the tire rubber right down to the steel belt in an instant if you brake too hard.  Danny comes in after about 12 laps, and hands the car over to me.  He said he was sorry, but he has badly flatspotted the tires (it turns out it was just one tire that was flatspotted badly - the left front).  It wasn't his fault - an unexpected ABS failure will cause that.  Danny also said he accidentally tapped the #70 SpeedSource RX-8 when it cut in front of him in the braking zone going into the chicane.  It caught him by surprise, and with our brakes locking up, Danny couldn't brake as hard as he needed to, so Danny ended up kissing the #70 car in the rear (but not badly - just a minor scrape on our front bumper - it wouldn't even show up in the pictures).   One of our crew went over to the SpeedSource pit to talk about it, and everyone agreed it was no big deal, just one of those things.

Right as I was getting into the car, Bill had to leave to catch his Friday afternoon flight to Philly, so he was unable to get any pictures of me in the car.

I got in the car and I must admit I was a bit overwhelmed.  I have never driven Daytona, nor have I driven an RX-8, so I had my hands full.  It didn't help that everyone else on track had already driven 3 sessions and was familiar with everything, and I was just turning my first laps.   The car handled great - like a go-kart, so that wasn't the problem.  I had to brake VERY early to keep the left front wheel from locking up (little did I know it was already worn to the metal in one baseball sized spot).   Daytona has several corners where you have to drop 2 or 3 gears worth of speed, so having to brake 100 yards early was a big disadvantage - when I did so, any car behind me would just dive by me into the corner.  It doesn't make for very quick lapping when you're watching your mirror constantly and giving way to overtaking cars so much.  Plus the 6 speed transmission was giving me fits.  I'm so used to a 5-speed, that I just didn't find the 6 speed to be intuitive.  The gears are very physically close together, and I was afraid of over-rev'ing the car if I blew a shift.  So I kept coming out of turns in the wrong gear.  I managed to get about 12 laps in before the checker, but none of them were particularly good.   My lap times certainly weren't very impressive compared to everyone else's. 

Picture from www.theracesite.com

I tried to look at the bright side - my times were only 2.5 seconds off what the Turner BMW and Speedsource RX-8 were turning in their first session the day before.   I figure I didn't have ABS, I was driving with a flatspotted / corded tire, I've never even driven the track, I've never even driven the car - maybe that's not so bad.   Although I have to remember, those guys were now driving 3+ seconds faster than their first session!  So the current gap is pretty wide.  But I was trying to find a positive way to look at it.   Heck, you gotta pump yourself up somehow!

After getting the car back to the paddock, we tried to figure out our strategy for tomorrow.  In the morning there would be a 1 hour test session from 9-10am, then another 45 minute test session from 1-1:45pm, then we were done.  Danny had his radio show from 9-10am, so that was a problem - he wouldn't be able to drive any of the first session.  Also, Doc had arranged for some local hot-shoe driver to come by and take a few laps in the car, named Mike Smellie.  Doc's plan was that Mike would be able to provide immediate feedback on how the car was handling, and recommend any changes.  Mike and a friend (sorry I didn't get his name) had been hanging around all day today, hoping to get a chance to drive the car. 

So this was the plan for our final track day:

Friday Morning Session:  9-9:15am  - Mike Smellie;   9:15-10:00am - Me

Friday Afternoon Session:  1:00-1:45 - Danny

Danny and I went and got another set of tires mounted up.  Lenworth looked over the car.  We needed Doc to diagnose the ABS problem, but he was busy consulting on the other cars, which had some problems that needed his attention.   

Danny and I took a break for an hour or so, then came back to work a little bit on the car.   The seatbelts needed to be adjusted better to fit me, so I started to fiddle around with them - we just hadn't guessed right when we first put them in, and hadn't had a chance to redo them.   When I sat back down in the seat, I realized something wasn't right.  Danny and I both have short legs, so this morning we had the seat bolted just about as far forward as we could get it.  It had taken us two hours to get the seat in the proper position, because quite frankly our field-fabricated seat brackets were a royal pain in the derrière to take out and put back in.   But as I sat in it this afternoon, I realized I could no longer reach the pedals properly.  Someone had unbolted the seat and moved it all the way back!   I asked Doc if he moved the seat, and he said no.  A little investigation revealed that Mike Smellie, test driver, had moved the seat to accommodate himself.  He's a tall guy, so the seat in this configuration would not have allowed either me or Danny to drive the car. 

The troubling part was that the seat (which is bolted in solid) was moved without asking or telling Doc or Danny or me.  If things had gone as planned, I would have not figured this out until tomorrow, during my only session of the day.  This would be during the driver change in the pits, when Smellie got out of the car, and I got in.  That would have been a disaster for me, as I would not have been able to drive the car at all, and would have completely missed the test session.  I guess I would have had to turn the car back over to Smellie, since he's the only one who could drive it at that point. Danny and I had a discussion with Doc, and we agreed that we needed to change the plan.

We decided Danny and I needed track time (having only driven 1 of 4 sessions so far) more than anything else.

So the new plan was:

Friday Morning Session:  9-10am -  Me

Friday Afternoon Session: 1-1:45pm - Danny

It was 5:00pm, and the paddock closed at 6:00pm, so we had an hour to work on the car.  Doc started working on the ABS problem, but his new Sony Laptop kept dying on him.  His laptop was the only one that had the software that could interface to the onboard computer, and he needed it to get the fault codes on the ABS.  He had a call into Mario, the AIM factory rep, to see if he could come by and get the software working on Lenworth's computer, but  he wasn't available. 

Lenworth knew I was upset about the whole seat fiasco, so he stepped in to try to put things right.  But quite frankly our field-fabricated brackets were fighting back, some of the bolts had gotten cross threaded from overuse, and he wasn't able get the seat in quite right.

So by 6:00pm, we didn't have the seat back in, or the ABS working.  The track opened at 7:30am, and we would have try to address these things in the morning before my first session at 9:00am tomorrow.

Back at the hotel, I logged onto the Grand Am website to look at my laptimes, and I then notice that the number 63 car is listed as "Danny Alvis / Mike Smellie".  Hey wait a second, I'm not even listed as a driver!  Don't they know, I am NOT Smellie!!!   Sigh...

Saturday, January 7th - Last Day of Testing

Doc, Lenworth, Danny and I got to work on the car first thing in the morning.  By the time we all got into the paddock, we had a little over an hour to get the seat reinstalled properly, and get the ABS squared away.  Once we replaced some of the seat bolts, we got that taken car of pretty quickly.  The ABS was another matter.  Doc's laptop ended up dying completely, and refused to power on at all.  So he was resorting to manual methods to troubleshoot it, and there just wasn't enough time.  As 9:00 rolled around, Danny went off to do his radio show (he phones in remotely to the station), and I suited up to go on track.   Lenworth and Doc made sure the car was fueled up, checked the oil, tire pressures, etc.

Daytona has an unusual pit row exit that cars use to get onto the track.  As you leave the pits, the pit road actually curls around, following the inside of turn 1, and you don't actually enter the track until the following straightaway.  The reason this is important is that as I was driving down the pit row, but before I actually entered the track, the car suddenly died - no lights on the dash - it was if I had no electrical power whatsoever.  It just completely cut off, and I couldn't restart it.  Fortunately, I coasted to the side of the pit road - it was pretty wide there, so the car wasn't sitting in a dangerous position.  However, because of the way the pit road curls around, I was out of site from the pits, and out of site from a corner worker station.  And because I didn't have a radio, I couldn't call Doc to tell him what happened.   So I had to get out and walk! 

First I walked to the corner worker station on the inside of turn 1, and told them that I was stranded.  Then I started my long walk back to the pits where Doc and Lenworth were.  There was a maze of fencing between where I was and where I needed to go.  While clutching my helmet and my hans device (if I was smarter I would have left them in the car), I actually had to climb a 7' high chain link fence in order to get back over there.  Finally, as I was getting close, I ran into Doc and Lenworth - they had gotten word from an official about the car (they must have been worried sick when it didn't come around).  So we half walked, half ran back over to the car.  Doc and Lenworth climbed the fence, Doc got in the car, and of course it immediately started.  Lenworth and Doc checked connections under the hood, and couldn't find anything wrong.  So I did the only thing I could do - I strapped myself in, and went out on track.  I made it about 3 or so laps, when it died again on me while I was in the banking on the oval.   I got the car down on the apron section (the flat part inside the banking) and managed to coast about 1/2 mile to the pit road entrance.  Then all of a sudden the dash lit back up, and I was able to restart the car. 

Doc had me drive the car back to the garage area, where he puzzled over it for a few minutes.  He reasoned that the only thing that could cause that type of failure was the ignition relay, so he had me go pull the relay out of one of the ROAR Racing RX-8's (that wasn't running for some other reason), and we put it in our car.  I think he was correct, as I was able to go back on track and run what was left of that session without incident.  Nonetheless, my second practice session was cut extremely short - I probably was only able to complete another 12 laps or so.  Some good things did come out of this session - I was much more comfortable with the shifting, and made fewer mistakes in that area.  Because I still had to deal with the front left brake lockup (we had no way to adjust it), I was pretty gentle on the brakes - I wanted to make sure I didn't destroy the tires so Danny could run on them this afternoon.   Nonetheless, despite the abbreviated test session, I cut over 1.5 seconds off my time from yesterday's session.    I just wish I could have gotten more time in the car, with the brakes working right.   24 total laps is just not enough time to learn a new car and a new track under those conditions.  And that was all I was going to get.

We got the car back into the paddock garage, and Mario, the AIM factory rep, stopped by.  Since Doc's laptop was dead, Mario was able to get the interface software working on Lenworth's laptop.  Once Doc had that working, he quickly diagnosed the ABS fault, and replaced the failing sensor that caused the problem.  So Danny would be able to drive a fully healthy car this afternoon. 

For the first time in the last day and a half, we weren't thrashing on the car.  Everything seemed to be working ok.  So I decided to take the time to install the video camera (you can see it in the lower left side of the windshield), while Lenworth wiped off all of the dirt and grime that accumulated on the car - mostly brake dust and tire rubber. 

Cleaned up, it looks pretty good, although this is not exactly how the car will look when we race it.  Doc will have some graphics put on the side to make it look a little more racy.

Danny had a pretty good final session.   It was fairly uneventful,  although it was cut a little short due to another car's crash.   Danny said the car was much easier to drive with the ABS working properly.  But like me, Danny probably only drove another dozen laps on track.  He had driven at Daytona before, although not very much.  Both Danny and I need a lot more time in the car, and at Daytona, before we can be competitive.   But at least the car seems pretty healthy, so the testing was valuable in that regard.

For your enjoyment, I am including some video from one of Danny's test laps, taken during the final session. 

A practice lap at Daytona with Ranger Danny  <=Link

That's all for now.  If all goes well we'll be back in a couple of weeks!