The schedule for the VIR race weekend is as follows:

• Wednesday April 19 - Race rigs parked at the track
• Thursday April 20 - Optional Promoter test day - 3 test sessions
• Friday April 21 - 2 practice sessions
• Saturday April 22 - Qualifying and Race

Monday, April 10th (1 1/2 weeks before the race)

Since I crashed the car yesterday at VIR during testing, Danny has to immediately go into overdrive to get everything lined up in time for the race.  The plan is for Jon at German Speed Merchants to have the car Monday-Wednesday of this week, so he can use that time to check over the car, then take it to the body shop on Thursday.  The body shop guy can't work us in until then - he's got a pretty big backlog, and he won't be able to finish the work until the parts come in (the two passenger doors, the front fender and the side skirts). 

Saturday, April 15th (1 week before the race)

Danny went over to the body shop today, and saw that the car was progressing nicely.  He expects it will be finished today, except for the paint.  It will be painted on Monday.   Danny had to pay for some serious overtime to get the job done over Easter weekend.  Or actually, I had to pay serious overtime, since it was my accident.  But that's ok, that's only reasonable, and at least its getting done.

I phoned Sylvain Tremblay at SpeedSource.  Sylvain had sent me an email saying that 6 weeks ago Doc had asked Sylvain to modify a gas tank for our car, to try to fix our fuel delivery issues.  Sylvain said he took a stock tank, and modified the tank's fuel system so that it can draw down to the last cup of fuel.  But he couldn't get ahold of Doc, and he didn't know what to do with the gas tank.   I explain that Danny now owns the car, and I'll have Danny call him.  Danny calls Sylvain immediately, and asks him to overnight the fuel tank to Wilmington.  Wow, I wonder what that cost!?  Jiminy Crickets, to overnight an 8 ounce letter costs $20, what about a bulky 50lb gas tank?

But Danny wants that tank in our car in time for the race, because right now we have a real problem with range.  Our calculations show that with our current gas tank, we can only go about 72 miles between pit stops.  This modified tank would extend our range to about 90 miles.   With a little luck that can be stretched to over 100 miles (if the race has a few caution laps thrown in), which is how far we need to go in a 200 mile race so that we only stop once for fuel. 

Tuesday, April 18th

The car is supposed to be at the track on Wednesday afternoon - Rig parking is from 2-5pm, which means it would have to leave Wilmington by around 8:30am tomorrow morning.  The gas tank has to be swapped by then.  Danny picks up the car from the body shop and takes it back to Jon at GSM.  The bill is about $7500 (ouch). 

As always, Sylvain was true to his word, and SpeedSource shipped the new tank out on Monday, and it arrives Tuesday evening.  In the meanwhile, Jon busied himself by installing a fluid cooler on the rear differential. 

Danny calls and says his tractor trailer / race rig won't start, and now he needs to line a mechanic up to figure that out - one that will do house calls.  Nothing is ever easy...

Wednesday, April 19th

Danny and I confer Wednesday morning and its a mixture of good news/bad news.  The good news is that Danny's Rig has been fixed, and it was minor - the bad news is that the RX-8 won't be ready to load onto the Rig until about 6:00pm, so it won't be at the track until almost Midnight, well beyond the 5:00pm deadline for arrival. This is not good, because the paddock at VIR is barely big enough to hold all of the race rigs that will be there, and only then if they are parked carefully and with a lot of organization.   Its even remotely possible that if everybody packs extra "toys", and you arrive late, you may not have a place to put your rig.  Sort of like a game of musical chairs. 

So Danny asks me to go up to the track with my own trailer, so that we can hold a space for his when he arrives.  Kind of like saving a seat in a movie theater.  Well, since my crashing the car probably put us in this mess, and he has been working his tail off to get the car ready, I feel that's the least I can do.

I hitch my own trailer up to my trusty F250, and I figure that if I'm going to haul this thing up there, I ought to plan to leave it there, just in case we need it.  I pack it with all my tools (you can never have too many tools), and load it with my street car so I can leave the truck and the trailer at the track, and have a car to get around with.

When I get to the track, I have to park in a temporary staging area.  I feel pretty silly with my relatively small truck and trailer, lost in a sea of 18 wheelers.  All of these trailers are waiting to be parked in the Paddock.  The way this works is that the Rolex teams get to park first, then the Grand Am Cup teams are parked.  As I learn, teams are parked in order, based on your current team's points in the standings.  Since we split with the Roar Team, our new team, Silverback Racing, has no points - our finish at Daytona means nothing since we are now a new team.  That means we will be among the last to park - hopefully there will be some space left.

I wasn't parked far from the Synergy race team, which brought two tractor trailers and a smaller trailer only a little larger than my own.  These guys have their race shop onsite at VIR, so they had to drive a whopping 1/2 mile to get here (if that far).  They support 4 Rolex cars and 1 Grand Am Cup GS Porsche, so actually 3 rigs is not too many.   For this race they can leave a lot of spare parts in their shop, since its so close, but I wouldn't be surprised if they take more than this for other races.

These Rolex guys have bigger budgets than the Grand Am Cup racers.  Which is why their rigs are both longer and taller than the rest.  Did you ever notice how boating guys are always looking to get a bigger boat?  Its the same way with race trailers - your trailer can NEVER be too big. 

Rig parking was supposed to be from 2-5pm.  At 6pm, there are still 20-30 trailers to park.   When its time to park my trailer, I explain to the official that I really need to hold some space for a much larger rig, so when they park me, I will need more room than for just this trailer --- our REAL Rig will be here later tonight. 

With an accusing stare -- the kind of stare they teach to police officers and traffic court judges (not that I know anything about that) -- the official demands, "Why isn't the Rig here?"

"I, uh, I crashed the race car 2 weeks ago..." I manage to stammer out, not quite looking at him eye-to-eye.  I always have this problem when talking to folks in authority - especially when I feel guilty.

His eyes soften immediately - "Say no more - don't worry about it - it looks like we'll have plenty of room to park you in the morning". 

So it looks like we didn't need to worry about me holding a space for the rig.  But of course the officials wouldn't have been able to determine this until they were close to parking all the rigs. While it feels like I hauled my trailer up here for nothing, there was no way to know ahead of time. In any event, now I have all of my tools up here, and you never know when an extra trailer will come in handy.  You hope not to need it, but it always pays to be prepared.

I unload my street car and head for home, 1 hour and 20 minutes away.  Around 9:30pm I get a call from Danny - "Hey can you help me find someone that can change a truck tire?"  Danny's in the Rig with the RX-8, somewhere on I-40, but he had a tire blow out on the tractor/cab part of the Rig.  You need some pretty special equipment to do that kind of tire change, so Danny can't do it by himself.  I do some searching on the internet, and manage to produce a phone number for a guy that will come out and take care of it.  Danny manages to roll into VIR before midnight, and has to park in the staging field until morning.    But after a week and a half of scrambling, we made it.

Thursday, April 20th (Promoter Practice Day)

Today is what they call a "promoter practice day".  Generally before each race, there is an extra day tacked on the beginning so you can test your car.  Its supposed to be optional, but they require your rig to be parked the day before, and the car's technical inspection is scheduled for the afternoon, so everyone has to show up anyway.   We have two 45 minute practices in the morning, and a 1 hour practice in the afternoon.  Then we have to get the car through technical inspection.   Its run a little more loosely than the official practice day, and there aren't any official lap times posted from it.

As the RX-8 is unloaded, I get my first look at it - I haven't seen it since Danny put the new graphics on.   There is so much vinyl covering the car now, its hard to tell what color it is under it all, which is probably a good thing! 

James Posig (on the left), owner of JMT Trackcars, will be our chief mechanic this weekend.  Jon Lewis from GSM (on the right in this photo) has to attend a wedding on Saturday (race day), so James and his crew will be supporting us this weekend instead of the GSM folks.   Since Jon prepared the car, he came up today just to make sure everything was ok, before he "handed it off" to James.

L-R in this photo - Scott Smith (Crew Chief), James Posig (Chief Mechanic), Jon Behrns (Mechanic / Crew) and Angel Faz (Mechanic / Crew).   Scott happened to be in town, so he was enlisted at the last moment to be Crew Chief.  That way James could concentrate on the details of getting the car ready.  This turned out to be a really good move because we kept James and his crew EXTREMELY busy this weekend.   Never a dull moment - more on that later!

Angel and Danny (foreground) are working on some last minute preparations, while Doc and James (background) discuss some details on the car's preparation.   As the original builder of the car, Doc is here to provide engineering support for us, and direct support for his newly built RX-8 for Mike Smellie and Andrew Lewis (Car #118).   Mike and Andrew did very well in the #118 car this weekend considering they had a newly built car with the normal teething problems, plus Mike had never driven VIR before, and its a very difficult track to learn.

Danny and I agree that he will take the first 45 minute practice session, I'll take the second 45 minute one, and we'll split the afternoon session which is 1 hour long.

Danny goes out, and has a pretty uneventful session.  He's taking it pretty easy, working himself up, and he's not altogether happy with the way its handling.  The car is still oversteering pretty badly in certain turns, and Danny insists it wasn't that way the last time he drove it on the full course a month and a half ago.

This is an uninteresting view of the back of Scott's head, as he prepares the race radios.  Scott suggested we re-program Danny's radios to match mine and Scott's own, so now we have 7-8 radios and 4-5 headsets, all programmed to the same frequencies.  LONO RACING (seen on his headset) is Scott's trademark - he's a huge Hunter S. Thompson fan, and the name comes from one of Hunter's books "The Curse of LONO".  Ok, that's a bit obscure and has nothing to do with racing, but I thought you might want to know what to get Scott for Christmas.

I drive the second session, and I find the car is handling HORRIBLY in the uphill esses.  On the second lap, at a speed the car should have been able to handle easily, the back end snaps around on me in the middle of the first ess - I countersteer and catch it - avoiding a spin, and drive off in the grass under control, at 100 mph.  What the heck was that?  I get back on track, and drive for another 1/2 hour, probing the limits of the car, and generally having my hands full, especially in the esses and in turns 9 and 10 -- the fastest turns on the track.  Plus in turn 3 under braking, the car would dart to the left unexpectedly.  It was both twitchy in transition, and had some terrible high speed oversteer.   

I came in 10 minutes early - I was cooked mentally.  It took all my energy to keep it on track - and this was in practice - I couldn't imagine racing it in this condition.

I have a lot of experience in other cars at VIR, but have never driven the RX-8 on the "full course".  Basically, I told James and Danny, this was the slowest racecar through the uphill esses that I have ever driven.   Actually, I was really P.O.'d and I didn't hide it too much -  I couldn't believe how bad the car was, and I was frustrated that we really didn't have the ability to make any suspension adjustments that could correct it.  We weren't running a rear sway bar, so we couldn't adjust that.  The front sway bar was set at full stiff, so we couldn't adjust that to help.  We had no springs to swap out - all we could do was change tire pressures and shock settings to see if that would help.   And I felt the problems with this car were WAY beyond what we could do by adjusting tire pressures and shock absorbers.  Plus, the seat position had been reworked, so I could barely see out of the car - if I looked straight ahead, I was looking at the dash board (I'm a short guy) - I had to crane my neck to see out, and I was on tiptoes to reach the pedals, meaning I was sometimes grinding the gears because I couldn't extend the clutch pedal enough.   I was NOT a happy camper - we've been working with the car for 4 months now, and I couldn't understand how it could be so bloody awful.

After I calmed down a bit, I discussed the problems with James, and he suggested we soften up the shocks to try to get rid of the twitchiness, and adjust the tire pressures to help get rid of at least some of the oversteer.  I thought that was a good idea, so James put the shocks almost on full soft.  Danny adjusted the rear of the seat up a notch, and moved it forward one notch, which made a world of difference for me (but I'm afraid it made him feel a bit cramped). 

After lunch, we had the 1 hour practice.  Danny suggested that I take the first half, and he take the second half of the session.  The plan was for me to run the car until I ran out of gas or detected fuel starvation - we had filled it up for my first session, and didn't refill it for this one.  This way we could calculate our fuel range with the new tank.  So I hopped in the car and circled the track for about 20 minutes or so, before it started coughing for more fuel.  The twitchiness was mostly gone, and I could go much faster through the esses than this morning (but still not as fast as I thought I should be).  It still had a bad case of oversteer, especially in turn 9 at the top of the esses.  I was having to countersteer significantly through 9 at 120mph, which is not something you want to have to do on every lap.   But I must admit, it was at least easier to drive, which was a good thing.

I pulled it into the paddock with about 30 minutes to go in the practice session, we refueled it, and Danny took the wheel.  As he got in the car, I warned Danny that it was oversteering in the high speed turns.  Danny was out there for a few laps when we got a message over the radio from Danny - "I totaled it" was all I heard.  For several anxious minutes we awaited the return of the car to the paddock.  Fortunately it wasn't that bad, but when you are sitting in the car during an impact, it sometimes seems much worse from inside the car than it really is.  

Danny said the back end of the car stepped out in Turn 10 and he got wheels in the dirt on the exit.  He caught it once, but it got away from him again and he went backwards into the tire wall on the outside of the track between turns 10 and 11.  Typically you are doing about 90-100mph at that point, and the tire wall is very close.   

Scott got under the car and inspected the suspension, and he found that a rear control arm was bent.  Was this the cause of the cars bad handling, or was it bent in the accident?  We wouldn't know until we got the car apart and examined it more closely.

James and his crew, Jon B. and Angel, declare optimistically - "We can fix this!"  It turns out Jon B. and Angel are both experienced with body shop repair as well, and they know this can be fixed with about a days work - if not perfectly, at least well enough to race.  Since James lives near the track, he knew a local body shop that could get right on it.  The crew took a quick inventory of the parts we needed to get the car fixed - rear bumper cover (we have that), rear hatch glass, rear control arm, rear deck lid, rear spoiler, rear tail-lights, and a few miscellaneous fasteners and plastic bits here and there.

Then we loaded the car up on my trailer (now I know why I hauled it all the way up here!), and James and I drove up to the body shop on the north side of Danville, about 30 minutes from the track.  Meanwhile Danny started hitting the phones - he calls Mazda and gets them to overnight all the needed parts.  He can get all of the critical ones, but a few of the minor cosmetic pieces aren't available.  He then lined up an auto glass repair shop to come in and replace the rear window.

James and I drop off the car at Maaco of Danville, where Brian, who runs the shop, has been doing repairs for James' racing customers.  Brian is familiar with the racecar repair "drill" - you show up at the last minute, and need absolute-immediate turn around on the car.  Brian agrees to work an all-nighter to get the wounded RX-8 ready for the parts (decklid, bumper cover, glass, tail-lights etc) - that way they can be bolted on as soon as they arrive (which should be by 11:00am the next day - Friday, which is a designated practice day).  Today is still Thursday, and the actual race is on Saturday, so we just might be in good shape to make it.  All we will miss are the practice sessions on Friday.

James and I head back to the track.  We plan to return tomorrow morning to Maaco with James' crew to help speed up the final re-assembly.  In the meanwhile, Crew Chief Scott makes a trip to the "tech shed" to talk to the Grand Am technical inspectors.  We were supposed to get the car inspected this afternoon (required for all cars), but obviously we can't make that.  Scott got permission for a last minute inspection on Saturday morning.

It was late in the day by the time we returned.  The day is pretty much shot - our car is in good hands at Maaco, so Scott and I decide to go visit with the guys on the Rehagen Racing team, a team made up largely of volunteer Ford employees.

This is Brian Phillips, shown in front of one of 3 Rehagen Racing GS Class Mustangs.  The Mustang shown here is of the newest body style, while the other two Mustangs (shown in the next photo), are of previous generation race cars.  Brian said they use the Ford factory crate motor (buy it and drop it in - no fuss, no muss) in the newer car. Without the required restrictor plate it makes just over 400hp to the rear wheels, not quite twice what our little RX-8 has.  With the restrictor plate, which of course they run, it makes somewhat less, but he wasn't sure how much less.

All three cars look great, showing the attention to detail that you expect from a top quality team.  This is no small feat, since Scott Whitehead (Crew Chief for Rehagen) said all three of these cars sustained serious damage at the Daytona race.  (Note to VIR Officials:  The beer bottle in Scott Smith's hand was an empty one that we found on the pavement, and being good citizens, we picked it up because we didn't want any children to get hurt.  No, we were not drinking beer in the paddock, as far as you know.)

In September 2004, The Rehagen team was featured on a Discovery Channel TV show, "Extreme Mustang : Back to the Track".  Here is a brief 1 minute clip: 

  <= Click picture for video

Friday, April 21st (Practice Day)

We won't be practicing today - instead we will be spending the entire day getting the car repaired.

We arrive at Maaco in the morning, to find that the guys there had been working through the night to get it ready to "hang parts". 

At 10:00 the parts had not yet arrived at the dealer, so Jon and Angel went to work replacing the bent control arm.  We had gotten a spare from SpeedSource (Sylvain comes through again).

THE MYSTERY OF THE RUSTY NOTCHED CONTOL ARM

Examination of the bent control arm revealed it had a notch in it, and quite a bit of surface rust on that area.  It was actually a lot more bent than this photo reveals, because it's bent in a vertical plane which isn't fully revealed in this photo.  But it certainly wasn't bent in THIS accident, and it was most likely the reason the car had such evil handling characteristics.  Poor Danny - you hate to do so much damage to your car due to a mechanical oversight like this.  The remaining question is - did this bent control arm contribute to my accident 10 days ago as well?  Or was this a result of my accident? 

The consensus amongst the mechanics was that this notch in the control arm was probably not the result of my impact with a tire wall 10 days ago.  My accident could have bent a control arm, but it wouldn't notch it like this.  Plus there is the matter of the rust - it looks a bit more than 10 days old.  Unfortunately I only drove the car for a few laps that weekend before I crashed, and that was on the North Course.  I was surprised at how quickly it went into an oversteer condition when I crashed, but I just chalked it up to driver error.

(Sidenote:  My friend Grover later theorized that this looks like the result of an accident while the car was being jacked up or put on a lift -  the car slipped off its support, and the control arm landed on the jacking surface.   Its just a theory, but it does seem to fit with the damage.)

So this bent control arm may have contributed to my accident (10 days ago) as well.  Or it may have been caused by it.  Unfortunately I don't think we'll ever know for sure.

On with the story...

The glass guy arrived and put in the new rear glass.  Around noon the parts arrived at the dealership, and Danny rushed down to snag them.

Jon and Angel start helping out the Maaco guys with the hanging of the bumper cover, the tail lights, etc.  The car starts looking whole again...

Jon and Angel decide to just bang out the existing tail lid because the new replacement tail lid probably wouldn't mate up to the banged fender very well - and they did a great job.  At least this way they could hammer the old lid to match the line of the banged up rear fender.  When Danny gets the car back to Wilmington after the race, he can get the car finished up with the new lid he purchased.

Around 2:00pm we load the car back on my trailer.  We decide to take the car back to Posig's JMT Trackcars shop near the track, because we still had a lot of work to do before it would once again become race ready.  James shop is very well equipped, and a more pleasant work environment than the paddock.

Danny felt the car was down on power with the stock ECU, and Doc wanted us to try out some new programming maps he put together for Smellie's #118 car.  So Doc came by James' shop and reinstalled the Greddy piggy-back unit - this involved re-soldering something like 64 tiny wires correctly.  I must admit, he did an admirable job.

Scott worked with Jon and Angel to re-install the fuel filler tube.  Fortunately the filler support had not been damaged in the accident - it has some flexibility that allows it to move without breaking in the case of an accident, but it had to be removed in order for the Maaco guys to do their job.  Jon and Angel also did an incredible job patching up the spoiler.  Danny worked on putting together a new seat bracket - the existing one was bent somewhat in the accident.   I mostly kept busy staying out of the real mechanics way, helping by cleaning up the car, vacuuming all the glass out of the car, putting decals back on, redoing a bracket for one of the oil coolers - simple stuff. 

By 8:00pm all the "hard stuff" was done, and it was time to reset the suspension back to spec.  James and Doc worked on re-setting the ride height - I had complained that the car was bottoming the left rear tire in turn 17, so the rear of the car was set too low.  Then they corner-balanced the car, and reset the alignment.  

It was a long day - we didn't get the car back to the track until midnight.  We hadn't eaten anything since lunchtime, so Danny heated some meatballs and pasta that his wife had cooked for us, and it tasted pretty darn good. 

We went to bed around 1:00am or so.  Normally when I race at VIR, I would drive home and sleep in my own bed.  When it became evident we were going to finish up so late, I decided to sleep in Danny's trailer - he has several inflatable mattresses which are reasonably comfortable.  I just hate sleeping in the same room with anybody but my wife, because I tend to snore - she somehow puts up with it, but most people won't.  I was so keyed up and restless, that I doubt that I slept for more than 2 hours total.

SATURDAY, APRIL 22ND - RACE DAY ARRIVES!

I started looking at my watch around 4:45am.  Finally, a little before 6:00am I decided to just get up. 

The schedule for us today looks like this:

• 8:00 - Take the car through technical inspection
• 10:00-10:15 - Qualifying
• 11:00 or so - Drivers meeting (I can't remember the exact schedule)
• 3:00 -- Grid for the Race, track inspection lap
• 3:15 - 5:45 -- Race

Most of our team will be arriving at the track around 7:00am, and I want the car to be unloaded by then, ready for final preparation. 

The paddock is quiet at 6:00am - I don't see anyone else stirring - so I roll the car out of the trailer without starting it.  I can hear thunder in the distance - its going to be a wet day.  Danny and Doc roll out of bed around 6:45, and Danny helps me set up another EZ-UP canopy, so we can work on the car with some protection from the rain.

Grover McNair and Mark Vitacco arrive around 7:00am.   Grover is going to act as a spotter during the race, as well as a driver coach.  Mark Vitacco is going to assist as part of the fueling team.

Scott, James, Jon and Angel arrive around 7:45am.  Jon and Doc take the car to the Tech Shed for its inspection.   It passes except for some minor things - the numbers on the side need to be larger, and we are missing a couple of other decals.  I had warned Danny about the numbers, so he had brought some extra ones to put on that met the spec's.

The driver nominations were due at 8:15, so Scott went and turned in the form.  Grand Am makes you declare who will qualify the car, and the person that qualifies the car must start the race.  Its really a safety issue, since this will keep teams from qualifying with their faster driver, and starting the race with their slower one.  If teams did that, the starts would be pretty messy, because you could potentially end up with slower drivers up front.  Since I did the start for Daytona, Danny and I agreed we would take turns, and he would qualify and start VIR. 

Here is a nice photo that Victor took that shows off the hood of the car.  You can't tell the hood is red under this.  Heck why even bother to paint a car at all?  Just cover it in vinyl.  I think we need more vinyl to cover up the red roof and the red trunk lid.

It's 9:45 and the car is being prepared for qualifying, and we have to make a decision on tires - do we go out with slicks (dry weather tires), or use the rain tires?  Right now its only drizzling and the track surface is still mostly dry.  The sky has a uniform gray overcast look to it, and it could start raining harder any minute - or it may stop altogether.  I try to check the weather forecast with my laptop, but I can't get connected to the VIR wireless network - it seems to work quite intermittently, and right now it won't work at all, at least for me.

At that moment a Grand Am official comes through the paddock, and stops to tell us that qualifying has been called off - the teams will be gridded based on points.  They were afraid the session would turn into massive carnage, because they feared the track conditions might get worse.  That means this 15 minute session is only going to be a practice session - it means nothing.

James, Danny and I talk it over, and we decide to leave the dry tires on, as do most of the other teams.  Danny goes out on track, and Scott and I and a few others head down to the pits to watch the action, and provide support for Danny.  Then, almost immediately, the heavens open up - the drizzle turns to a steady downpour in a matter of seconds.   Scott and I watch Danny go down the straightaway, completing his first lap.  Although we don't have a very good view of the track surface (actually we can't see it at all from where we stand), the track is becoming rapidly undriveable on slick tires. 

Several cars immediately pull into the pits for tire changes.  Several more simply pull into the pits and call it quits, since they, like us, didn't haul all of their tools and gear down with them, so a tire change in the pits was out of the question.  Its only a 15 minute session anyway, and since its no longer a qualifying session, why risk the car?

Scott and I talk it over, and Scott radios Danny to bring the car in.  Then we hear over the radio that there has been a bad crash in turn 14, at the end of the long back straight.   A few moments pass, and we get some more info - there are two cars that have gone off - Will Turner's BMW, and our RX-8.  But we don't hear from Danny, so we don't know what happened, we can only wait.  I decide to get on the 4-wheeler and see if I can get close to the crash site, to see what happened.

It turns out Will Turner went off at the end of the back straight, blew through two rows of tire walls, and settled on top of the third row of tires, held from going further by the fence.  Danny was a bit behind Will, and went off in exactly the same spot.  He said he pirouetted with multiple 360's through the exact hole in the tire walls that Will opened up, and came to a rest against the rear bumper of Will's car.  Danny had hopped out of the RX-8 to assist Will, which was why we couldn't reach him on the radio.

Jim at A1Fotos.com happened to be stationed with camera ready inside turn 14 as all of this was unfolding, and he took these unbelievable action photo's.  Check these photos Jim took:

Here comes Danny!!!

The RX-8 comes to a rest right next to Turner's BMW.

This is potentially a bad situation for Will - he can't easily get out - it looks like he's trapped by the tires blocking the driver's door of his BMW.   Plus we don't know if he's been injured in the crash.   Should the BMW catch fire (not unheard of after a bad accident), he could be in serious trouble.

Danny's Army Ranger training kicks into high gear.  Like the super-hero he is, he leaps from the RX-8, sweeps aside the tires blocking Will's exit, and pulls him from the burning wreckage of the Turner Motorsport BMW.  Ok, maybe I'm laying it on a bit thick - the car's not on fire, that's just some steam from the broken radiator.  And Danny's not a super hero.  But you have to admit what he did was pretty cool.  That's the kind of guy he is - he doesn't panic, and he thinks of others first.

Danny waves to his adoring fans - "Aw shucks, it was nuttin..."

These are only a few of the great pictures that Jim took.  You can view a complete slideshow by clicking on this link of the entire accident sequence.  Jim at A1Fotos.com sells beautiful 8x10's for only $6.95, or you can hire him to come to your event.   You can see he does outstanding work.  So check him out! 

You can see in the above photo that they had just used the back-end loader to lift Will's yellow BMW off the third row of tires.  Note the bend in the fence where Will's car came to a stop.

As I was watching all of this, I was expecting to see the RX-8 get towed back, but instead they pulled Danny back onto the track, out of the wet grass and mud.  Then they unhooked him, and he drove it back into the pits.  That was a pretty good sign that maybe it wouldn't be too bad.

Back in the pits we surveyed the damage.  The newly replaced rear bumper cover was crumpled, the passenger side mirror was dangling, the passenger side door was rumpled (hard to see in this photo).  But the car looked very drive-able.  We dodged a bullet on that one.  In the matter of 5 minutes, the track had become completely undriveable on slicks - track conditions can change very fast!

James went over the car, making sure everything was ok, checking the wheel alignment, etc.  The team made final preparations for the race - there was still quite a bit to do. 

• Go to the drivers meeting
• Setup the fuel rig in the pits
• Get the fuel rig inspected
• Haul all the tools, spare tires, etc down to the pits
• Deploy the spotters
• Install the correct tires (rains or wets?)

Here you see my buddy Bill Gratton working on some of the final race preparations.  I think he's putting together the protective cage for the high pressure nitrogen gas cylinder we will use to run our air tools in the pits (for faster tire changes).   The cage keeps someone from accidentally breaking the valve off of a fully charged cylinder - if someone did this, the cylinder would take off like a rocket (literally), so its a safety precaution.

Danny, Scott, Grover and I went to the final pre-race meeting.  It was the normal discussion - they went over race procedure, and warned everyone to stay safe.  After the meeting, I ran into Will Turner - he leaned way over (Will towers over me - he's over 6' tall) and said to me "I met your co-driver!", referring to Danny helping him out of the car in the accident.  I told him I was sorry about what happened, and asked him about it.  "I was just going too fast," said Will.  "But we'll probably make the race."  Holy cow, I had a hard time believing the car could be fixed so quickly - usually going through two tire walls and landing on a third means major reconstruction.  But Turner Motorsport has a crack team of mechanics, and sure enough, Will was on the race grid just a few hours later.  Amazing.

Meanwhile back at the paddock...

We had to get our new fuel rig set up in the pits, and it had to be inspected as well.  The fuel rig is just a 35 gallon (or so) drum which sits on 5' high supports, and during a pit stop you fuel your car from it.  By suspending the fuel above the height of the car, gravity helps to fuel the car faster, so you don't need a pump.

Jon and Angel hauled the rig  down to the pits on the golf cart, and set it up.  That was when we ran into a little snag - our rig, as we purchased it, would not pass inspection. There had been a technical bulletin issued that the standard fuel rig required reinforcement where the hose attached to it - it seems that this area was determined to be a weakness in the design, and that if a car drove off with the fuel hose attached, it might break and spill all the remaining fuel in the rig.

This made us a little bit upset - we just bought this brand new fuel rig, which was supposedly built to Grand Am specifications, and it immediately required major modifications in order to make it safe.  And we weren't the only one in this boat - several other teams were discovering the same issue with their brand new fuel rigs.

Crew Chief Scott came to the rescue.  One of the things that Scott does so well is network with the other crew chiefs, so he had an inkling that this might be a problem, and was already working on a solution.  Some of the teams had developed a temporary workaround by bracing the piping with a network of straps.  Even this looked kind of cheesy, but it was better than not racing - well I guess we could have raced, we just wouldn't have made it very far without being able to refuel.   Using this solution, Scott was able to negotiate a one-race exemption.

About an hour before race time, I was able to get my wireless internet connection back up, so we could view the weather radar from weatherunderground.com.  There were storms moving across the area, but right now it wasn't raining at the track.  If you went outside and looked at the sky, you saw clouds everywhere, but you had no idea if rain was coming unless you had access to the radar.  The storm flow was from the southwest, and that area currently looked rain-free on the radar.

3:00pm - 15 minutes to race

We decided to stay with the dry tires - it seems almost all the other teams did as well.  Danny strapped himself in, and I accompanied him to the false grid area, where they were staging the cars.  The rest of the team went down to the pits to await the start of the race, except for our two spotters, Grover (near turn 7), and Karl Kaufman (near Oak Tree).  Karl had shown up to see the race, and we drafted him at the last minute.

The car is on the false grid, I'm leaning in the window talking to Danny, when Doc runs up - "Did you remember the video camera?", he yells over the sound of race engines.  Holy crap, I forgot all about that.  We've been so busy this weekend, I haven't had a chance to mess with the camera.  I ran back to the trailer, quickly grabbed it, ran back to grid, and strapped it in.  Unfortunately I could only find a 1 hour tape to put in - this would mean by the time I got in the car (an hour or so into the race), the tape would already be at end.   At least we will get some video of Danny's driving in the first half of the race.

I gave Danny a little pep talk...

<== Click for the pre-race talk

...then I went back to the trailer to put on my drivers suit, as Danny headed onto the track.

Our pit area was quite crowded - ideally, only two teams were to share each pit stall, but for some reason we had three teams sharing ours. This would complicate matters quite a bit.  You can see that we had very little room to maneuver.  This also meant that if one of the other two cars was in the pits for fuel or tires, we couldn't bring our car in.  From our team alone we had in the pit box:

• Scott - Crew Chief
• James - Chief Mechanic / Tire Change team
• Victor - Timing and Scoring
• Bill - Fueling team
• Mark V. - Fueling team
• Jon B. - Mechanic / Tire Change team
• Angel - Mechanic / Tire Change team
• Doc - Car Engineer
• Danny or Me

And we were sharing this area with 2 other teams with a similar number of people.

Since there was no qualifying session, the cars were gridded based on team points.  Because we split from the Roar team (we were now entered as "Silverback Racing"), we had zero team points, even though we had run at Daytona.  Several teams were new as well, and they were in the same situation, but we also had one other disadvantage - we did not have any recorded practice times from Friday, which I suspect were used as a "tie breaker" for those of us with no points.  That meant we were starting dead last in the  field! 

I remembered to bring my laptop with me to the pits.  This turned out to be our own little unfair advantage, as we seemed to be one of the few teams that had real-time access to the weather radar.   We could see the size, speed and intensity of the storms as they headed across the sky, and this allowed us to gauge if and when we needed to swap to and from rain tires.

The race had been delayed about 15 minutes for some reason, and in that additional time, I could see a small but powerful rain cell forming and heading our way.  It was hard to judge what its impact would be at this point, and it was still dry by the time they started the race at around 3:30pm.

The cars finally left the grid and made their way around the 3.27 mile track, led by a pace car.  The GS cars were grouped together, then followed a second pace car about 20 seconds back, leading the ST cars around.  By the time the ST cars took the green flag, they were so strung out that our poor Silverback racing car was already 25 seconds behind the ST leaders when they crossed start-finish.   And Danny couldn't do anything about it - passing isn't allowed on the start until you cross the start-finish line, even if the green flag has flown.  You are at the mercy of the cars in front of you - if they fall behind because they fail to keep up, so do you.

On the opening lap it starts to rain.  There had been a dry line on the track, but it was starting to become slick.  About 30 seconds after the start, Danny is on the inside of the Sahlen's Neon in Turn 2, hugging the edge of the track.  The Sahlen's Neon attempts to move back in front of Danny, but the Neon driver doesn't realize that he isn't quite clear of Danny's front bumper. The result is disastrous for the Neon! 

<=Click to view race start

After Lap 1, the field goes to yellow so the Sahlen's Neon can be extracted from the infield near turn 2.  The Neon hit the jersey barrier that separates the track between turn 1 and 2, and the barrier had to be moved back into place before the race could proceed.  Thus begins the first of many long full course yellows.  And many hard decisions as well.

Here's where things get a little complicated - the way the Grand Am rules work, during the first 2 laps of any caution, only GS cars are allowed to pit.  The next 2 laps of caution are for ST cars.  This is because the pit stalls are being shared (there aren't enough of them to accommodate the 90 or so cars), and all the cars don't come in at once.   (Sidenote:  The bad part about this is that every full course caution is at least 4-5 laps long, even if the obstruction is cleared within the first lap.  That is why the cautions are so long.)

We decide that we ought to come in and just change to rain tires right away - beat the rush so to speak.   But when it comes time for our car to take its pit on the third caution lap, our stall is blocked by another car.  We get ready to bring it in on the 4th caution lap, but its the same situation - our stall is blocked again.  So during the first caution, we never get an opportunity to change to rain tires.

Poor Danny, he is caught out on the track with slicks, and the rain is coming down pretty hard.   When its time to restart, we tell him to hang in there, because it probably won't be too long until another yellow is called.

<==Click to view Wet Action!

Sure enough, another yellow has been called.  So far there has been only a couple of laps of live race action.  We have been watching the radar, and we can see that the storm is moving pretty rapidly.  We figure in another 15 minutes or so, almost all of it will have passed.  That should just about take us to the end of this caution period.   We make a decision, and tell Danny to hang in there on the dry tires.

By this time word has spread down pit row that we have a live weather radar feed.  Heck, we would have thought everyone had one, but it seems only a few do at best.  Other teams are sending crew members to peek over our shoulders - some asking nicely, others trying to get a sly glance. I decide I don't want to share this type of intelligence, so I turn the laptop away so it can't be easily seen.

During the caution period, not one team comes in for dry tires.  Its still pretty wet out there, and the rain hasn't stopped yet, but it has slowed to a trickle.   We know from the radar that the rain is practically over, and it probably won't be coming back, but you can't tell that from looking at the sky, which is still littered with puffy grey clouds.  Scott is encouraging Danny to just hang in there, its going to dry up.

After several laps, the yellow lifts, and the race resumes.  Its barely sprinkling now, and the track condition slowly, painfully, improves.   For a while rain tires are the way to go, but then with every lap, Danny's able to push the car a little harder, go a little faster.  Eventually a dry line starts to develop, and in the few green flag laps that are available, Danny makes the most of them and starts moving up through the pack.   He's actually starting to have some fun as he slowly gains the upper hand.

Somewhere along the way, Danny is called for passing under a yellow flag, and has to come into the pits for a penalty.  There are so many penalties being called, the Grand Am cup officials can't keep up, and Scott can't get an explanation of where it happened.  In this case the penalty is to drive through the pits at 45mph - not quite as bad as a "stop and go" penalty.  I did a quick calculation, and figured a "drive through" probably costs about 30 seconds of time.   There are so many cars having to perform "drive throughs", that pit lane starts to look like a freeway.

A Grand Am Cup race is either 200 miles (about 57 laps), or 2.5 hours, whichever comes first.  Scott and I guess that since there are so many full course yellows, the race will be called on time and not distance.  We start planning for a 2.5 hour race and plan our driver change accordingly.  There is one danger though - if Danny were to pit at 1 hour 15 minutes (the halfway point), we may not be able to complete the second half of the race without another pit stop if it dries up and there aren't many cautions.  We know we can't go that length of time on a single tank of gas under dry race conditions.   We decide to keep Danny out as long as possible, to insure that I can make the final leg without having to stop again for fuel. 

Another great race photo from A1Fotos.com - the car is sporting a bit more duct tape than we like - we will have some work to do after this race.

During one of the yellows, right around the halfway point, Danny is calling over the radio to come in - he wants to make sure I get my fair share of drive time.  Danny's arguing with Scott to let him come in.  But I'm standing next to Scott telling him to keep Danny out.   I'm not sure Danny understands our potential dilemma, but he does listen to Scott, and stays out. 

Finally with a little over an hour to go we bring Danny in for the driver change during yet another full course yellow.  At this point a definite dry line is developing on the track, but the surface is still somewhat slick.  Some teams are coming in for dry tires, but I think most are still out on their rain tires, thinking it might rain some more.  We are pretty confident now that no more rain is on the way (based on the radar), so we keep the dry tires on.  The car is refueled as Danny and I switch places.

As I go down pit lane, I'm watching my pit speed to keep it under the mandated 45mph.   There is a little bend in pit lane right around the start finish line, and normally you can start your acceleration just after you go by the start finish tower.  So I do, and I make a terrible mistake - Grand Am had extended the Pit Lane  so there are more pit stalls setup on the other side of the Timing Tower, to accommodate all of the additional cars.  

Yep, there was an official with a radar gun standing almost right in front of me when I did this - I was busted for going 49mph (in the 45mph zone).  I had raced VIR several times before, and I had never seen pit lane extended like this, so I was caught completely off guard.  If we had practiced yesterday, I probably would have seen this, but we were too busy fixing the car.  And I didn't get to drive in the practice this morning, because it was so short.  Excuses, excuses - the bottom line is that I should have known better. 

I circled around under the yellow conditions (it hadn't ended yet), and drove as fast as I could to catch up with the tail of the field. Scott radio's to me that he's heard over the scanner that I've been busted for speeding on pit lane.  He doesn't have word yet on whether I'll have to do a drive through penalty when the field goes green - he's waiting for an official to walk up and tell him "officially."  During the yellow, cars are driving through the small puddles to keep their rain tires nice and cool.  I'm purposely driving through the puddles trying to dry off the track...

Finally the track goes green and then the fun begins.  Although the track is still slick, there is very little standing water, so I have a definite advantage over cars still on their wet tires (which is most of them).  It seems like I'm passing cars everywhere - ST cars and even a few GS cars, and having a ball.  I'm passing cars under braking into turn 1, passing cars on the sweeper between 2 and 3, passing cars on the bridge straight (before the uphill essess), and especially passing cars between 9 and 10 at the top of the uphill esses (my favorite spot).

At one point I dive bomb the Smellie / Lewis silver RX-8 (the other car Doc just built) going into the tight right hander, turn 11, immediately before Oak Tree.  I'm on the inside of him in the really short section between turns 11 and 12, and as we round the tightest turn on the track (Oak Tree), I look in the mirrors and see their Silver RX-8 go off in the dirt on the outside.   Oh my gosh, did I knock him off the track?  I didn't feel any contact.   (Sidenote: It turns out after the race I talked to Doc about it and he said we didn't make contact, and it was a clean pass.)

I still don't have word yet from Scott on if and when I needed to "drive through the pits" as a penalty for the 49mph infraction in the pit lane.   Scott says the officials are a bit behind because they are sooo busy issuing penalties. Maybe they are like real cops and will let 4mph over slide?  Naahhh.  I just keep driving and try not to think about it.

For 3 or so green flag laps I feel like superman in the car.  Its handling pretty well, and I seem to be able to pass cars at will.  An Acura ST car is stalking me and we are nose to tail for a lap or two.  Then, coming out of Oak Tree, I can't seem to find 4th gear - when I go to shift, it just won't go in.  The Acura passes me easily as I struggle with the transmission, and finally I get it in gear and resume the race, having lost a few seconds and a position.

As with most endurance races, because of the pit stops, penalties, yellow flags, etc, I have no idea where I am in the standings.  I decide I don't want to know, I just want to drive.  I'm thinking if we get enough green flag laps, I can probably improve our position a bit, since everyone else is caught on wet tires.  Then I make another mistake, although I have no idea how I could have avoided it.

As I'm coming down the hill for Hogpen (turn 17), I see the flagman furiously waving a yellow flag.  I'm going at a pretty darn good clip in the turn, around 90mph, but in front of me on the inside of the turn are 3 slow moving cars.  Two of the cars are stacked behind another car which *I think* is pitting, which is why they are going so slow - probably only doing 50mph.   I can't slow down in time - if I hit the brakes, I will surely go off into the muddy wet grass on the outside of the track (and maybe get stuck).   So I end up completing the pass - under yellow, of all three cars.  My only hope is that maybe all three were pitting (doubtful), and that they won't give me a penalty because of that.  Way up ahead I can see a Porsche re-entering the track on the left from the grassy area where he went off (the reason for the local yellow).   I easily avoid him and proceed down the straight.

I radio Scott and say that I passed under yellow, but the conditions were that I had no choice - will they penalize me?  He doesn't know yet.  Then I lose radio contact with Scott, and with all of my spotters - as I'm driving around, I can't communicate with any of them.  Is the battery dead in the radio?  Did a wire come lose?  I can't fiddle with it too much as I'm racing, it'll have to wait until we go yellow.  Geez Louise, I'm in a real pickle.  I have potentially two penalties (the speed limit and the yellow) that I have to come in for, but I don't know for sure about either one. 

Then we get a full course yellow.  The cars start to form up behind the pace car.  As we round the track at a reduced pace, the field develops an inchworm type flow - fast then slow in places.  I'm trying to fix the radio, which isn't helping things a lot. Coming into turn 11, there is suddenly a huge bottleneck at Oak Tree (turn 12), and we come to a complete stop.  I'm facing uphill and I have to put the clutch in and hit the brakes - then the car dies!  The engine won't hold an idle when its hot, and I failed to keep my foot on the gas to keep it running.  I cranked and cranked the starter, but it wouldn't restart.  The line of cars starts to move again, and I'm still stopped on the track and holding up the rest of the field. The cars behind me get frustrated and start passing me - I get passed by 15 or 20 cars.  Finally the RX-8 fires back to life and I rejoin the field, having lost several positions, under yellow!  Probably every car I had just passed in the previous green laps, was now back in front of me.  I can't imagine what the team is thinking back in the pits - I'm sure they are looking at the computerized iCard timing system (which tells us our race position), wondering how I could have lost so many positions under yellow.  It just doesn't happen.

By this time a few more cars have pitted for dry tires.   Just as the field goes green, I get a nice run on the GS Porsche in front of me, and time a perfect pass at the top of the esses between turns 9 and 10.  That felt good - its ALWAYS fun when you pass a car that is supposed to be faster!  Grover was spotting for us in the grandstands at the base of the uphill esses, so I'm hoping he got to see that one. 

(Sidenote:  At one point Scott sent Bill Gratton across Pit Lane and over the guardrail (on the front straight), to signal me to come in for my drive through.  I never saw him even though he was out there waving for me.  In the replay of the race on TV, you could see him crossing pit lane to do this - he was on TV more than I was!)

Then, a lap or two later, we get ANOTHER full course yellow.  I still don't have radio communications with my team, and I take advantage of the slow pace during yellow to try to figure it out.   With the helmet and Hans Device on, I can't move my head more than a couple of degrees, and the gloves aren't helping much.  Plus I'm fully belted in the seat - my mobility is severely limited.  But I grope around, and eventually I find a loose connection in the wire that goes to my helmet earbuds, and I snug it in the connector - it had come partially out.  At last, I'm back in communication!

Scott says I need to come in and serve my penalties - there will be no reprieve - I'll need to do my pit "drive throughs" for the exceeding the speed limit, and the pass under yellow.  The rules say I can't do it until the field goes green again, so I fume in silence.   Most of the cars have pitted for dry tires, so I've probably gained a few positions.

The field goes green, and I start to pass some cars again, and it feels pretty good.  The pace is picking up, since most of the cars are now on dry tires.  Amazingly, there are still a few cars on rain tires, and they are easy pickings.  At one point I spot Sylvain Tremblay's RX-8 in a pack up ahead, and I can see he doesn't seem to be going any faster than me, at least not at this point in the race - and that gives me some hope.  Then Scott calls me and says its time for me to do my "drive through" penalties, so I do.  That sinks our chances of a good finish - all I can do at this point is drive the best that I can.  I really feel like I have let down my team.

At this point there are only about 20 minutes or so left in the race - a handful of laps.  The track is drying up nicely, so now is the time to lay down some really fast times.  I make few more fun passes - an especially memorable one on another GS Porsche while coming down the "rollercoaster" in turn 15.

And then, of course, it happens.  I'm stalking an Audi ST car, coming out of turn 17 / Hogpen - I'm right on his butt -  planning to draft and pass him down the front straight.  Before I can reach down to shift to 5th gear, the transmission just pops out of 4th on its own.  No friggen' way!  This is bad.  The car bled off some speed, and I try to stick it back into 4th, but it won't go, no dice.  I do the only thing I can - I put it in 5th gear, and I'm rewarded with the sound of parts going "ting-ting-ting-al-ling-ting-ting" in the transmission as I motor down the straight.  I put it in 6th to see if that's any better, but it isn't - "ting-ting-ting-al-ling-ting-ting".  Entering turn 1, I shift into third - and it goes in, but not without considerable force on the lever.   Our time is near end - can we finish the race?

Here is the situation.   I've lost 4th gear, and I can hear metal bouncing around the tranny.   3rd gear is not feeling too good either, and sometimes it won't go into that.  We have 15-20 minutes to go.  The track is drying out, so everyone else is getting faster and faster, and I'm getting slower - right now I should be setting my fastest laps, but I can't. 

I'm driving the track with mostly 5th and 6th gear, and occasionally 3rd, when it will go into that. As I go up the esses, I spot 2 white GS Mustangs closing in my rear view mirror.  We round turn 10, then I point to the right to let them know I'm giving them the inside pass into turn 11.  The first Mustang blows by and starts to negotiate the right hander for turn 11 - the second Mustang also blows by, and plows into the rear quarter panel of the first Mustang as it is turning.   The second Mustang rotates the first Mustang completely sideways, shoves it out of the way on the right/inside of the track - and we both go through the hole where the first Mustang once was.  From where I sat, it seemed to be a brutal move, or a terrible mistake, I don't know which. 

Then, with not much time to think about it, I lose 6th gear - I'm down to 5th and every now and then, 3rd.  I've radioed Scott of the situation, but Danny is not in the pits, so he can't talk it over with him.  Scott is afraid that the tranny will seize up, or explode or who-knows-what, and then I'll have a bad accident.  I want to stay out and try to finish the race, but I don't know how far we have to go.

Scott decides to order me in, and as I'm pulling into the pits - I'm right at the entrance - he says over the radio, there are 5 minutes to go.  What?  I make a quick decision and dart back onto track.  I'm staying out no matter what. 

Then I lose 3rd gear completely - no way its going into gear.  I'm down to just 5th gear, with around 2 laps to complete.  This makes negotiating the Oak Tree turn (some cars take it in 2nd), pretty difficult, but I manage.   A large pack of GS cars rapidly overtakes me - probably the race leaders.  I'm caught in the middle of their fire-fight going into turn 14, down through roller-coaster, and through hog-pen.  I just try to hold a predictable line, stay out of their way, and not get taken out like the Mustang did a few laps earlier - this is a blood-sport!

Coming down the front straight, I see the white flag being waved from the start/finish tower, and it doesn't mean surrender - it indicates the final lap!  Once more around I go, and then I see the checker flag - a wave of relief sweeps over me.  After the "cool down" lap, I enter the pits for the final time, and all of the cars come to a stop - a traffic jam in the pits.  I coast to a stop, not quite in pit lane.  I never get it going again - all of the gears are now gone, including 5th, and we are forced to push the car back to the paddock.   But at least we didn't come in on a tow hook.

Here is the car as it finished the race. 

The only additional body damage is from a small dent in the front fender where we made contact with Sahlen's Neon.  You can see a little rubber from the Neon's rear tire on the side of the front bumper cover.

Angel and Jon did a lot of the heavy lifting and cleanup, of which there was quite a bit to do (about 3 hours worth).

We did take a few moments to enjoy our "success."  Actually, I was feeling somewhat low about our finish (18th in class).  But the rest of the crew actually felt pretty darn good about it, so they cheered me up.  I think all things considered (the multiple penalties, the car stalling during yellow, the tranny failure, etc), 18th isn't the worst finish in the world - heck we improved 16 positions during the race.   We have to remember that 41 ST cars started the weekend, and in the end, we did better than most. 

It looks like our next race will be Lime Rock.  We've got a few wounds to lick, and encountered some unexpected expenses these last few weeks.   So we are going to take off from the two West Coast races (Laguna Seca, and Phoenix), then rejoin the fray the end of May.  Between now and then, I may have another update, we'll see!