The 2010 SCCA racing season has begun so we took the Mini Mania/MINCOMP MINI racing at AAA Speedway (Cal Speedway) on the weekend of January 22nd! The entire two weeks leading up to
the race weekend it had been raining pretty steadily only to stop at about 10:00 Friday evening!
the race weekend it had been raining pretty steadily only to stop at about 10:00 Friday evening!Saturday morning qualifying session saw the track dampish and the air temp pretty chilly but no rain! I did a several laps, and I qualified with a time about 1/2 second faster then my own best lap record time! Good thing! Bad thing was I was out qualified by a GTLite Honda by a little less than a full second! Not good! 
For the race we lined up right next to each other on the grid and on the pace lap, while I was warming my brakes and tires the brakes locked down solid and I came to very abrupt stop in the middle of the track with a bunch of race cars dodging me!
After the commotion settled down I started pounding on the brake pedal with my foot until it went "clank" and the brakes released. I drove like hell to catch up with the back of the field and took the green flag! I was flying thru traffic and by the time we got thru turn 1, I was back on the bumper of the Honda and now we have a race! When we got into the braking zone of turn 7, I lost the rear of the MINCOMP MINI on cold rear tires and spun! Once again I was being dodged by the rest of the field! Once again I am dead last! So, I just kept my cool and started just doing my laps with the hope that maybe the Honda that was now some 20 seconds in front of me would make a mistake that 
I could capitalize on. The gap remained pretty consistent for a few laps and then I could see that I was gaining ground on the Honda slowly but surely! It took a few laps but I was able to catch and pass the Honda that had developed a shifter problem and now I'm leading!
I could capitalize on. The gap remained pretty consistent for a few laps and then I could see that I was gaining ground on the Honda slowly but surely! It took a few laps but I was able to catch and pass the Honda that had developed a shifter problem and now I'm leading! On the 2nd to last lap, when I was by myself and not chasing anybody, I set my fastest personal lap that was again another 1.5 seconds faster than my personal best going into this weekend or 2.0 second total for the weekend!
On the last lap I ran over a hole in the track surface that was caused by the rain getting under the asphalt surface with the right front and it launched the mini into the air! When it came back down to the track surface it made an ugly noise and drive went away, end of my race!
Upon investigation what was found was, when the front tires suddenly regained traction it snapped a tooth off of the idler gear which in-turn pretty much stripped the teeth off of all 3 of the transfer gears...
Next race for the Mini Mania/MINCOMP MINI is scheduled to be February 27 at Willow Springs.
