4AG Challenge, Big Willow

At some point I knew that competition was going to happen for me. I've been concentrating on improving for the past two years, so it was about time to see where I stood with some of my peers. Luckily, PASS racing (http://www.passracing.com/) held a round of their 4AG challenge series at Big Willow. Normally I don't like driving Big Willow in my Corolla, but I figured I'd give it a shot since a few other friends were also participating in the event.

The car had the new engine in , and it had already had a few track events under its belt. Everything ran pretty well except for the high RPM misfire that seemed to keep happening whenever the ambient air temperature got too cold. I tried to remedy it by blocking half the radiator with cardboard, but it didn't work the whole day.

I managed to finish 4th out of 12 drivers (if you don't count Pfeiffer's turbo 7, then I placed third) but I know I can do better!

The 24 Heurs Du LeMons, AGAIN!

Yes ladies and gentlemen, we decied to do it again. We decided to enter the 24 Hours of LeMons race, this time held at Thunder Hill raceway!

To say that we had fun last time is truely an understatement. Sure some of us got egg in the face, some of us almost passed out of heat exhaustion, and some of us ran over things twice as large as our little MR2, but we really had the time of our lives! This time however the team changed a little with some people having other obligations, so we lost Andrew Liu, Matt Perkins and Alex Villareal, but in turned gained a few hotshoes! We welcomed Alex Pfeiffer, Geoff Wise and Steve Rodgers to our team (or band) of misfits.

This time around, we also modified the car more. We stripped it of everything we possibly could, to bring the weight down even further. All in all, we lost something around 150 pounds! It was no easy job though and I've certainly got the cuts to prove it. We also added some new performance shocks, as well as an adjustable coilover kit fabbed up by Mac from M1 fabrication! Thanks again Mac!

The race itself was far less grueling, but more intense. My particular stint didn't subject me to the heat that Altamont did, but the racing was far closer and more like a real race than before. I had to plan my passes carefully and really drive to conserve the car for the later drivers. The car was fantastic though, all the way up until the second day when a wheel bearing let go, and put us out for quite a while.

We ended up finishing 15th this time, even though our roster of drivers was a little more talented. We did however get black flagged 5 times, so I guess you could say it makes sense.

The worst of it is, I think we'll be doing this again in 08!