Daniel

Wow. The first endurance race. First race with this car, first W2W race ever, what a wild experience.

Big takeaway is that despite years of doing trackdays, we were super underprepared. Some of that can be solved by reading rules closer (how big does the fuel spill pan need to be? Is the fire extinguisher we’re planning to use in the green zone?🙃). Some of that needs more practice, like getting into the full safety gear and hooking up harnesses, HANS, comms, cooling, lap timing, cameras, and window nets. Some of that will only come with experience I think (turns out you should talk to race control immediately when you see transponder issues, who knew?), but we definitely have a better picture of how we need to prep.

I was battling a cold/allergies all weekend. Blew through 2/3 of a kleenex box and had 4 bloody noses, the Buttonwillow dust certainly didnt help. Getting more sleep and getting up earlier (not having to figure out car fixes at 1am) will be a huge improvement, as will figuring out a good breakfast and remembering to hydrate.

Huge thanks to @speedsf_track_events for hosting the weekend, everything was well organized and ran smoothly, as always. Getting that many sessions of test and tune plus a 2.5 hour race is a great value for the money. Huge thanks to the teammates @themerrickan and @tjkeon for jumping in on prep work, buying parts, wrenching, bringing food, and keeping spirits high, there’s no way I could make all this happen alone. Huge thanks to Aaron @slateford, who stepped up from Spectator to Pit Chief and made the fueling and driver change so much easier. Big thanks to Chuck @chalkboard_racing for handing over a car that was 92% there, having something solid to build on is way easier than trying to start from scratch.

My other surprise is that despite not being at a socal track weekend since…March of 2025, I had so many friends old and new in both paddocks, both days, and I didnt even see everyone that knew who was there. Absolutely incredible community that I’m glad to be a part of.

We have a few fixes, more parts to buy, and with any luck, should be at Lucky Dog’s BW circuit event May 30-31