As you can see from the posts so far, there was a little of everything at Sebring this time, starting with rain Wednesday morning. However, the weather was perfect after that.
I showed up Thursday and in my first session, gearbox problems with a car that would not downshift. Next session I turned my best lap ever at Sebring in my first flying lap (2:29.5) but lost my brakes going full-tilt into 10, could not slow enough to get the car turned and augured straight into the tires. In retrospect the car had been a little hard to slow into the hairpin immediately preceding, and the brakes had felt a little "numb" into 17 the lap prior, but somehow worked fine into 3. But at 10 there was suddenly very little slowing down. Scared the living daylights out of me. But those cars are built like tanks and luckily I walked away with a bunch of bruises and a big strawberry on my right forearm from the frame. Turns out there was a fitting on the front master cylinder that was not holding pressure. I almost didn't get back in the car after 2 sessions like that but Gregg Borland convinced me (rightly so) that if I had just done my best lap ever, the best thing to do would be to get back on the horse. He was right, of course. I was determined not to let the incident affect me and the shock must have reset all the normal synapses in what is usually an overanalytical, "head-case" brain, because I drove the best session of my LIFE. Everything started to flow and I rolled several 29 flats and finally a 28.5 by the last lap. In the heat and by myself. I was finally seeing all those little landmarks Bobo talks about well before the car got there. I couldn't believe it, it felt so good. The next day in Practice in the morning the feeling continued and I had a couple more 28.5s but this time the air was cooler so the car had more horses and grip was perfect. But I lost the feeling after that and settled down to more predictable times the rest of the weekend, but still an improvement for me. Had a DOP car for qualifying which had so little pace that I was braking at the 3 for the hairpin and still overslowing, so started at the back for R1. Got a different car for the race and had a GREAT dice with Dr. Mike and Dom, hard but clean, all of us swapping places in the draft. In R2, on lap one I got a huge run on Kasey coming out of the Tower turn and actually went side-by-side with him through Bishop's Bend, but the thrill of that must 've gotten me too excited and I missed my brake point into 15 on the inside line and understeered off onto the concrete apron. Killed my run through 16 so much that I lost the draft. Had I been more patient, I think Kasey and I could've worked together to see what we could do through the pack ahead of us, but my inability to give up a great run for the bigger picture screwed us both. Sorry Kasey!
I just like trying new stuff too much! One of these days I will put it all together. Hope it's this decade.
As Chris mentioned, it was a really tough weekend on the crew and Keith Watts. On top of crashes, a LOT of non-crash-related mechanicals. We kid about Bruce MacInnes' "logistical nightmare," but this was it. In spades. Tempers flared, unfortunate for all concerned. Keith was trying out a new system of re-drawing for cars for qualis and each race, in order that "good" and "not-so-good" cars got moved around to different people. Seems right in principle and I don't know what the problems were because it seemed people were still not happy. This was definitely the most mechanically-compromised race weekend I have experienced in 2 years. I'm worried that it may be another of those symptoms we have discussed on other threads. Too few crew for too much work, cheaper instead of reliable parts, etc etc.
They did put new fuel bladders in all the cars, which have more usable fuel capacity, so session length for practice was great and for races better.
Cannot say enough about all the people who worked in dedicated fashion to get a very challenging weekend done. The mechanics should be granted sainthood for how hard they work to give us the cars we want even under dire conditions. Keith kept a good attitude and kept things going in what I thought was a fair handed way despite being besieged by the circumstances, the instructors gave me some of the best feedback ever. And Sebring is still the greatest track of all for me.