[Fot] Brief Sebring RiffRAF Racing Report

[Jamie Palmer]

Proud to say the FOT flag flew high (thanks, Chris!) over the 14 Hours of
ChumpCar at Sebring this weekend...on the other hand, RiffRAF did not have a
smooth trip.  Details below for those interested, pictures at
http://www.awolphoto.com/keyword/09242011-chumpcar-0#1498444314_CSPd5qw:
 
Race started out well once we finally got 4 tires on 4 useable wheels...thanks
Yarborough Tire in Sebring, they succeeded where others couldn't, although we
still couldn't mount Dunlops on Cal 500's. 

Ted Schumacher, Brian (Ted's
son), Jack McGahey, Joe Downer and I were drivers. Special thanks to Scott who
helped us fuel again as he did last year!

Special thanks to Kevin/Robert/Mr.
Andrews/Steven for helping to get the car ready even though they weren't
coming to the race.

We had pit position #1 again (beginning of pits) which
worked out nicely.

I started the race, I think the green flew with us in
about the middle of the 61 cars that started. Worked my way up to about 14th
and then ran out of gas with 15 mins left in stint. This made/makes no sense,
but I and someone else both checked the fuel level before the race, so we
could only assume the car actually used that much fuel. Changed driving stints
to 1-1/2 hours for rest of race and Lacey continued to use the same amount of
fuel, so it's either the track or something else in the car changed
(unlikely). There certainly was a lot of foot to the floor time in a Sebring
lap. 

Crash truck service left a lot to be desired. They asked me if my crew
was planning on bringing out gas to me... (!) They could learn a lot from Iowa
Speedway...

I will say that I enjoyed driving the track as much or more than
any track we've been to. It's not ideally suited to Lacey's lack of power but
it's REALLY fun to drive!!!!!

Jack got in the car and was doing great, then
spun close to the end of his stint. We're still not exactly sure what happened
but from this point on, the car would only fire on 5 cylinders. Turned Brian
loose in the car and kept bringing him in trying to diagnose the miss. Traced
to cylinder 3, replaced plug, wire, rotor, cap...no luck. Started to miss
more, pitted long time, found plug/piston contact. Not good. Pulled two
pushrods and kept going.

That's pretty much the story from there on out. Joe
showed us again that he's our ace by coming within 10 seconds of my best lap
on only 5 cylinders (!). 

Major lightning stopped the race for about 2 hours.
We ended up 29th (out of 61), passing a Volvo 740 in the final minutes to take
that spot.

No car-car contact for us for entire race, and LOTS of cars went
off track where we did not (Jack stayed on track during his spin, but car
stalled). More cars dropped out of this one on a percentage basis than any
other race we've been to (by my estimate only 50% of the cars entered were
running at the end, and it may have been fewer than that).  Winning car was a
'96 Nissan 300ZX...very, very quick!