One Lap of America May 6 to May 13, 2006
Article provided by David Goodman.

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8

Thursday May 11, 2006, Day 6
Halfway to Putnam Park the skies opened. At this point, the extra time we spent hooking up the heat before we left really paid off. The weather was wet and raw but we had plenty of heat and at least half of the windshield was defrosted. As is often the case with these long transits we hit a piece of road debris pretty hard. I don’t know what it was but didn’t sound too bad. On later inspection at the next fuel stop we discovered that whatever it was took a nice sized chunk out of the splitter and damage the fiberglass front spoiler. It must’ve been pretty solid because it actually fractured the plastic splitter, something I didn’t think was possible.

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. We got to the hotel, got a decent night’s sleep, and woke up to some nasty cold windy weather. Competing in this stuff is never much fun but on this event it is made even worse by the fact that you are carrying with you all your clothes and supplies and keeping them dry is a pain in the ass. From past experience we were smart enough to unpack the car at the hotel, get a late check out and leave everything there. I disconnected the front and rear sway bars, thinking I could get some extra traction that way. One unpleasant discovery that the rain brought was that the car leaks like a sieve. I had left my helmet in the backseat, it was filled with water and we had to bail about an inch of water out of the backseat and the passenger floorboard. We got it all cleaned up and headed to the track.

My first run session I put on a clinic in sloppiness. The track was soaked and the 930 is not much of a rain handling car, but these are just excuses. I over drove the car and misread several of the turns. Turn seven was the worst, I drove off the track there twice in three laps and would’ve driven off there a third time if it wasn’t for my buddy Drew in his 997. He had passed me in one my previous offs and I followed him through that turn without carrying too much speed. As expected my finish for that event was 71st overall, terrible.

For the second run session I reconnected the sway bars. The track had dried up and I’m not sure I was happy with the way the car handled with both ends disconnected. I had finally begun to figure out how to drive the car with my previous adjustments and this just added another variable. If it rains again tomorrow at Road America, which it is supposed to do, I don’t think I’ll disconnect the sway bars again. This run session I turned a 27th overall, I was happy with that and happy to be saying goodbye to Putnam Park. Not a bad track, but horrendous in the wet and a location where I had no prior experience. continue>