First, all the courses were great. The surface is relatively slick but we ran last on both days so we had a fair amount of grip once we had rubber on the course.

My first run on Tuesday was going pretty well until I pushed coming out of a pivot cone on the backside of the course. Mental mistake #1.

Second run was going even better, took the pivot cone perfect and went screaming around the far sweeper.... just a little too fast. The course has diamond cut grooves in certain places where the seams didn't meet very smoothly so they did some grinding. The last half of the sweeper is on the grooved surface, but as you exit the sweeper it goes away. I carried too much speed out of the sweeper, hit the smooth surface, and it carried me out too far for the first slalom cone. I managed to get back inside but couldn't get it back for the 3rd slalom cone. DNF. Mental mistake #2

Third run I just needed a decent time, I couldn't have any more cones or DNF's, so the pressure was on. The start on the West course went straight then a hard 90 degree left. The lights were about 100 feet pass the left. I took off, turned left and the whole car just drifted sideways toward the cone wall.... I have no idea why. Renee Dunham ran a few cars ahead of me and said her Spitfire did the same thing, she thought something was on the track. Anyway, I gathered it up short of the wall but not before I lost .5-.75 seconds. Luckily the rest of the course went well and I was in the trophies but in 8th position after that day. I was about .6 out of 3rd, .8 out of 2nd and 1.2 out of 1st.

Day two.....

Loved this course, lots of sweepers and transistions and very fast. My first run was good but not very fast. My second run was better but still 1.5 seconds or so off where I needed to be so once again it came down to the last run.

This course had a drag strip start which lead to a right hand sweeper and into 3 or 4 "S" turns. At the end of the esses was a sweeper which once again lead to a short fast slalom. I came flying into the sweeper.... just a little too fast, jammed the brakes and pushed outside. I don't believe I was looking ahead enough. I ended up plowing off the end of the sweeper right into a cone. From that point on I think I drove Jim's car faster than I have ever driven it. I have never taken slaloms as fast as I did then. More esses and two slaloms, then a hard left toward the finish. I finished with a 50.6 plus a cone. I'm sure I lost at LEAST a second braking for the cone and then having to re-accelerate so I figure that run would have been at least as fast, if not faster, than any FM run out there that day. But guessing and speculating doesn't matter at this point. All I know is that mental mistake #3 cost me a trophy. My guess is the third run on both days cost me around 2.5 seconds minimum. 2.5 seconds would have placed me in 2nd place.

But I walked away with some very valuable knowledge.

One, I learned a lot more about driving Jim's car. I thought I knew it better than I did. Once the car starts to push after hard braking, FULL THROTTLE, or at least, back on the throttle. That one thing alone might have prevented me from coning those two runs.

Two, the car can be tossed around much more and much quicker than I ever thought. I proved that on my last run, I don't think my hands have ever moved that fast before.

Three, I need to step up my performance even more. My goal for the rest of this year and next, PAX first at every event. I HAVE to force myself to go faster than ever before. I discovered that I can do it and the car can do it.

We also discovered several things about the car. All the fast cars are slammed to the ground. With no bumps to worry about, that's the ticket for speed. Jim's car was at least two inches higher than everyone elses. We dropped it as much as possible but ran out of travel, so that will be fixed soon. Also, the fast cars have a lower tray in the rear of the car with diffusers. It seems to add downforce to the rear of the cars even at speeds as low as 40 mph. I know I was hitting 65 on the East course and I had a hard time getting the power down down on some of the sweepers so hopefully the tray will help solve that too. Otherwise, the car is great. Good power, good throttle response so no changes needed there.

So yes, I was very disappointed with my personal performance. It appears that mentally I wasn't prepared. One thing I did there that I don't do here is walk the course over and over and over and over and...... Never again. I believe that for me, walking to much is a detriment. I think that walking less forces me to look ahead more so next time, just a couple of walks and that's it.