Photos from The Loooong Race

In this morning's email were several great photos from Brian Lindstrand -- D Sports Racer driver, nephew of Bruce Lindstrand, and general all-around great guy.

Ahh, the good memories. Getting ready to get in the car for the first practice session. My father seems to be trying to tell me something terribly important, but in fact he's probably asking me if the tire pressures are set, or if there's fuel in the car. Yes to both questions... and yes, I have forgotten both before.






Aaaand... the not-so-good. This is us in our mad dash to try to repair the gearbox before the race. We cleaned the parts and then bathed them in oil and tired to flush the maincase with fresh oil to try to make the parts happy again. It was a very unhappy gearbox.







Here's Brian next to his racecar. Sitting in the car is Nicole Temple, Lindstrand Motorsports' transmission specialist. (Did I mention that Nicole also helped with the paint on my car?) They co-drove this race, and won their class. Bravo!

The car was originally a Formula Ford built by Titan, but it was converted to a sports racer with a Fiat engine some years ago -- before I started my own driving career. Brian was finally convinced to replace the Fiat with something a little more reliable a couple of years ago, so a Yamaha R1 engine now powers the car to some very impressive speeds.

Back in my garage, the transmission is off, as is the rear suspension and most of the engine "extras." The engine should be out of the car tonight. We may be able to start tearing it down this weekend.