Oh my! Thank goodness for that Kestrel unit - completely saved the "Ben Bear Racing" & "JRC" Teams! [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/eek.gif[/img]
The weather in Bristol, TN is radical, not to mention the altitude change. We ended up jetting down several times, and pulled all of the 60 #'s out of the car every morning only to put 20 #'s back in every afternoon. Glad we went for the extra races the previous weekend, and the track sponsered 'Fun Races' during the week. These runs gave us a nice data population to draw from for the elimination rounds.
Ben won a round or two in what is called the Mike Bos race which is an index race with a Pro Tree! He loves Pro Tree's, but the crew chief was still bringing the car to the driver and I didn't have the weather quite figured out yet. So, the car was reacting slow at first, but once dialed in Ben was cutting good lights on the Pro Tree.
Ben won a round or two in the Fun Race, but the big deal was he won First Round in the Eastern Finals. We were thrilled. We dialed the car based on our data and our Kestrel, Ben cut a great light - treeing the competitor, then dumped him in the stripe.
Bummer on the second round though as Ben lit up the red eye, [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/frown.gif[/img] He was quite upset given that he had dialed a 12.90, the other guy had a lazy light and was 2 tenths off the dial while Ben frustratingly ran it out the back door with a 12.88. He knew he had a little bit in his back pocket, but could only yell 'poop' as he drove past the tree. He wanted to make changes to the car till I reminded him that everyone red lights once in a while - if you don't, you aren't trying hard enough. I also reminded him that even the Pro's red light, that calmed him down.
Our friends, JRC Racing, went 5 rounds in the 10 year old class - losing in the Semi's by running out.
What a great mancation week at an awesome track! A few Blackberry pics:
Pitted with Friends by putting the trailers in a 'C' pattern, allowing plenty of room for working on the cars between rounds. The kids had plenty of DS Tourny's in the trailers, [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/grin.gif[/img]
First time to the lanes:
About 60+ cars in Benjamin's class:
Plenty of rain that created delays and really messed up the weather consistency - we learned they don't just call it Thunder Valley bec/ of the car noise reverberating between the mountains!
Once the weather cleared, Ben couldn't wait to get back to racing - here he is a full 5-10 minutes before the next car pulled into the staging lanes.
A nice shot after the 8-12 year old's Fun Race, about 200+ cars in this picture.
Total car count was a touch over 600 cars! [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/eek.gif[/img]
After the event was over on Saturday evening, we walked across the parking lots to the Nascar track for a Monster Truck show. Ben was excited to see the jet powered port-a-potty.... unique!
