The weather forecast predicted rain at some point later in the weekend although it was beautiful when we arrived on Thursday for testing.

PRACITCE AND QUALIFYING
The Thursday test session was very important to us for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that Joe and Jay had never been to the circuit. We were also trying a slightly different direction with the set-up of the Porsche and we needed the time to get the car sorted.

We had four sessions that ranged from twenty-five to thirty-five minutes in length. We tried to get two drivers in the car in each session, but black flags cut into the testing time and I think I ended up getting about ten laps on the day. It wasn't enough time to make too much progress on the car, but we had some longer sessions the following day.

On Friday morning I got a few more laps and we made some good progress on the handling. We made some shock changes, adjusted the bars and added some rear wing. The car was much better than the day before and I managed to do a 1:38.3, which was within a few tenths of the other quick Porsches, but was once again nowhere close to the BMWs. They turned a fast time of 1:36.0, which was beyond our reach, and I suspect not all they could have done. The most encouraging thing about the session was that Joe and Jay were getting quickly up to speed at the new track.

We had a little excitement toward the end of the session when the left rear lower controller arm failed while Jay was motoring down the front straight. He did a fantastic job of keeping the car out of the wall and ultimately came to a stop facing backwards in the pit exit just to the left of turn one.

The Orbit crew had the Porsche back together well in advance of the afternoon session and Joe took the entire forty-five minutes. We had been looking at data together for much of the afternoon and Joe applied the things we learned and quickly dropped his lap times in dramatic fashion.

We had one more practice session on Saturday morning prior to qualifying. I pestered Rodger Hawley into letting me in the car for a few laps at the end of the session because I still wasn't completely happy with the car and wanted to see if we could improve it. I got a couple laps and turned a 1:37.9, which was right up near the front of the non-BMWs, but the balance of the Porsche was tending toward oversteer, something Jay had also observed.

All my practice laps were turned on old tires, so I felt like we should leave the car alone for qualifying and then address the oversteer when we chose the race set-up. After much debate we ended up leaving the car alone for the qualifying session.

Qualifying for the GT and SGS cars started at 1:05pm on Saturday. I lined up near the front and got around a few cars on the out lap, which gave me a nice gap to work with. On my first timed lap I did a 1:37.7, but the tires didn't come in until three turns from the end of the lap. On my second lap I got a great run through the difficult turn one through three complex and was well on my way to a quick time, but I still had the extremely fast right hand turn seven, which is taken at over 100 mph and with only a very light braking application at the entry to the turn.

Unfortunately, my braking application was a little too light and when I tried to turn into the corner I knew immediately that I wasn't going to make it. The back of the Porsche stepped out violently, but I managed to catch it. The problem was that if I had hung on to the slide I would have hit the edge of the gravel trap sideways and likely rolled the car, so I went hard to the brake pedal and spun the car while I still had some pavement to use to scrub off the speed. The car spun and I slid into the front of the gravel trap, just enough so that my rear wheels sunk into the rocks and I needed a toe truck to get me out.

I radioed to Rodger to explain what had happened. He said we were currently third in GT, but I knew that wouldn't hold up and that my session was over. They red flagged the session to get me out of the trap, but when I got back to the pits I was still spitting gravel and had a badly flat spotted left front tire. When they restarted the session we fell to sixth. The pole was the #21 BMW with a 1:37.0. I wasn't too disappointed because while I knew I could have gone quicker than that, I also knew that the BMW would have gone back out and bested me.

THE RACE
We made some changes after qualifying to try to balance the Porsche a little better for longer runs. We made small changes to the shock settings and front anti-roll bar to try to and accomplish better balance.

The race began at 11:00 am on Sunday. The weather forecast had been discussing the possibility of rain all week, but on race day it was beautiful. We took the green flag at 11:10am. Everything went fine at the start, however, we guessed wrong on the set-up and the car developed fairly significant understeer early in the stint. My quickest lap during the first stint was a 1:38.5 and the times got worse as the tires went off.

I was coming down the front straight when it went full course yellow for the first time. As I entered turn one the fuel light came on and the timing seemed perfect, but I stayed out for two more laps with the car stumbling trying to catch the pace car and I finally had to pit or risk running out of fuel on course. As it turned out we got caught in the pits when the wave-by came out and we went a lap down to several of the other GT cars.

In the pits we made a change to the front anti-roll bar to try to combat the understeer and once back on course Jay reported that the car was handling well. His lap times reflected this as Jay ran a strong stint and by the time he pitted he had moved us into third position.

Unfortunately, another full course caution came out as Jay was rolling down pit lane out of fuel. In spite of all his hard work we lost another lap to the GT cars that had yet to pit. Joe took over the controls and was doing a great job when he began reporting elevated water temperatures. Eventually, Joe had to pit and the crew went to work trying to find a water leak. After a second trip into the pits for the same problem we took the car back to the trailer to attempt to locate the problem. It took about half an hour to find the problem and fix it. It turned out to be a cut water line. The net result was that we went about twenty laps down.

Joe went back out and finished his stint and when the next full course yellow arrived he pitted for fuel, tires and a driver change. I took over the controls and when the course went green again I found myself right in the middle of a pack of the faster GT cars. I had a really fun dice for the next half hour or so before running the rest of my stint basically alone. The Porsche was handling a lot better as the change we made in the pits seemed to alleviate the understeer issues and I was able to run a lot of 1:37s and low 1:38s, which was a big improvement over my first stint, and the car didn't go off at the end of the stint. Since we were so far back, we used the time as an extended test and I think we figured out some things about the car that will improve it's handling for Watkins Glen and the other events.

Jay ran the final stint and we ended up ninth in GT. The #21 PTG BMW won the class again for the third straight race. I fell from the points lead to a tied for third. We move on to Watkins Glen in a few weeks and I'm very excited not only because I love the track, but also because I think the Orbit Porsche will be quicker with the discoveries we made. Hopefully, we will bounce back strong.