[Eric S]

Great seeing everyone, car ran well (except for a last session DNF - more later), and had a really good student. On Friday had lots of fun running with Jim E and Bob M; in the last session Bob and I were making lots of passes, some induced by "creative signals", like moving track right and giving the signal to the left entering T1. The only limitation was that in that session White was combined with Red/Black so we were restricted to White passing zones.

In the last session Saturday Jim Bob and I were performing multiple leapfrog passes with three cars, then Bob and I took it to a whole new level. We passed several times each lap, and in total we made passes in every corner and every straight except 7-8! The highlights were a pass at the apex of T8 after having given Bob a pass between 6-7, and we once passed three times between the brake zone and the exit of Turn 1 (I gave Bob a late pass under braking; he moved left and pointed me to the apex, I took it but he knew my line was compromised so he dove underneath and I gave him the pass just after apex)! I have never literally laughed out loud while I was driving on track before; pure on-track gold!

DNF: Was shifting to 4th after Turn 3 and something broke in the shift linkage; found a spot to get out of the way to the right of T5 until they could tow me over to the tub at Carousel so that they didn't have to black flag the session. Turns out I snapped the stud of the shift fork that mounts to the shifter and holds the end of the forward shift rod. If that is all it is, then it is an inexpensive fix and it happened on the session of the last day, so I'll count my blessing - it could have been a lot worse.

Eric