[BW911]

The weekend was fabulous. The weather was perfect and the company was equally enjoyable. It was nice to see the others who came out to lend us moral support and check out the cars.

Thanks to the Dorkis who pitched in and bailed me out when my front brake calipers decided they were tired of being ignored and decided to dump all my brake fluid out the piston seals. Marc, Doug, Jason, John, Tony and others I'm forgetting made a quick diagnosis and sprung into action, offering tools, turning wrenches and giving me an education as well. I was lucky to find Mr. Coleman, who has an interesting shop not too far from the SP track, and who graciously rebuilt my front calipers Sunday morning while I watched. He has an incredible machine shop where he builds race engines and has quite a resume as a track driver in SCCA, PCA, etc as well. Marc, I'm sorry you weren't around when he stopped by our paddock spot later in the day.

Congrats to Greg, who is now running with a faster crowd in the blue group. Congrats also to RL, who had a better weekend than the rest of us.

I had a lot of fun in my 3 runs on Saturday. I had a great instructor and felt like I was making real progress. Like others in green, I wasn't enthusiastic about missing my fourth run to go to the mandatory skid pad exercise, but it was a good experience anyway. Brake trouble kept me out of the morning runs Sunday, and the afternoon was given over to the time trials. Despite Greg's encouragement, I decided to pass on the time trials, since I wasn't sure of the brakes and was pretty fried after dealing with my unexepected mechanical emergency.

Brakes aside, I'm delighted with how my car and engine performed. As some of you know, I decided to go ahead with an engine rebuild in July, given my frequent plumes of blue smoke, indications of valve guide wear, and the ponds of oil that kept appearing on the ground beneath my engine. Taking a page from the LeShander and Stylianos shop manual, but not skilled or confident enough to tackle the job myself, I decided on some upgrades: Euro-spec P&Cs with 10.3 : 1 compression, 20/21 Webcam, new clutch, etc. Minh and his crew at Pitstop did a terrific job and delivered on schedule. This was my first track outing with the new setup, which really is still breaking in, and I was very happy with the increased pull, new speeds and sweet sound. One result was problably my overbraking, which led to my caliper problems.

Longwinded way here to say a big thanks to everybody who pitched in to help me and made for a great weekend. I'm looking forward now to VIR. For those not going, but in search of track time, I'm told that Schattenbaum is doing a DE at SP that Thursday-Friday and may have some openings.

- Bill

'88 Carrera