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Sarah and I spent the 4th of July racing at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. My good friend Terry came along as crew chief, providing his invaluable mechanical help (he also owns the tow van and trailer).

The car didn’t handle very well Saturday morning. We got it handling a bit better for the race, but it still didn’t turn very well. But the bigger problem for the race was a wicked vibration. There weren’t any broken-mechanical sounds so I chocked it up to an unbalanced wheel or possible flat-spotted tire.

Turns out I had broken the left drive shaft. Of course, I had just put new drive shafts in the car so neither Terry nor I brought spares. Fortunately, a fellow Dodge racer lives not too far from the track and he had spares for us. It only takes about a half hour to change, so we had no problem getting everything ready for Sunday morning.

Sunday went a lot better. We dialed out more and more of the handling problems so that during the race the car was much better. There is still a ways to go, but we’re pointed in the right direction. I was still towards the back half of the field, but I had a great race with another car the entire time. We were literally nose-to-tail and door-to-door for the entire race - without touching once. I was in front of him for most of the race (we traded places several times), but he pushed me hard enough to get me to overheat my front tires. With grip going away, he finally got around me with only a couple of laps left. The really cool thing - he’s got a digital video system in the car. Hopefully I’ll get a copy before too long and I’ll share it with you all.

Both photos in this post are from this past weekend. (Patrick, you asked, I deliver.) The track at Mid-Ohio is a 2.5 mile circuit, and these photos were taken near the spot labeled 16 on the map.

Finally, I thought I’d share this article that was written about me a couple of years ago and published in the Big Idea magazine.