9 October 2013 – PSCA Mickey Thompson West Coast Shootout

We were extremely excited for the last points race of the season in the Pacific Street Car Association race series. Since it was a three day race, with test and tune on Friday night, qualifying on Saturday and eliminations on Sunday, we had plenty of opportunities to get runs in before competition started. The practice rounds on Saturday held lots of promise for a successful competition the next day. The car was running awesome, my crew chief Richard had the car running within a few thousandths of the predicted dial, and my lights were on it. Maggie was launching and hooking so well that I was able to go trip zip perfect .000 on the tree, followed by .002 and .005 during qualifying. We were absolutely thrilled with the launch set up of the car, and had finally figured out the strategy to get optimum traction. Thanks to companies like Weld Racing, Mickey Thompson Tires, Strange Engineering, Unitrax Drvietrain and Driveshaft Shop, the car was in the 1.4 sixty foot range.

Unfortunately, to our utter shock and disappointment, on the 4th qualifying pass on Saturday, the driveshaft failed at launch. We brought the car back to the pits to figure out what went wrong. Unfortunately there was no way to fix the problem before the next day’s race, so we decided to stay and cheer on the rest of the racers on Sunday. I also had the duty of singing the National Anthem on Sunday morning during opening ceremonies. I also had the pleasure of presenting the car show awards to the "best in show" winners after the eliminations started. And lastly, it was a pleasure to hand out the trophies in the winner’s circle at the end of the day Sunday. If I wasn’t going to be able to get there with my team, it was nice to hand out the trophies and be a part of sharing the joy of the winners.

Even though we didn’t get to race on Sunday’s eliminations, it was an enjoyable last race of the season. I want to thank my crew chief, my wonderful racing friends, and of course all my marketing partners that helped us get the car working and running so well. Oh, and it turned out that the driveshaft failure was a unique mechanical failure, never seen before. That’s part of racing, things break.