the finish....

Ok, back home and running on about 40 hour of no sleep.


After we fixed the car and sent Matt out, he reported that the car was the best it has been and it showed in his lap times. Andrew took over after Matt and ran a great stint having some fun playing/racing with Charles Espenlaub in the #91 MX-5. Andrew caught Charles after chasing him for a bit and eventually passed him. I was on the radio with Andrew and at one point he comes on to say "He bumped me!", with a laugh... it was fun to watch.

Sammy and Mark follwed Andrew with a couple really nice stints with Mark bringing the thing home in 6th place. Considering all that happened over the 25 hours, we were very proud to have finished. We were about 9 laps down at the end.

I just want to thank Jason Hoover, Tony Silva, Brian Mezger, and the entire crew for working their butts off in the pits. The team was truly a machine out there.
To my co-drivers: It was a pleasure to drive with all of you and I thought the chemistry was great between us. This was a GREAT team for sure! Personal thanks to Marshall Pruett for everything and BIG thanks to team MER/Mazdaspeed for sharing parts, LOTS of them.

Ok, so tired now I can barely type. I'll post some pics tomorrow after I recoop.

- johnny k

5:39... and things are WAY different

Well, I (Johnny) just got off my double stint from hell. Within the first 40 minutes of my stint, I radioed in to report a vibration from the right rear in left hand corners. About 3 laps later, the exact same thing that heppened to Matt on the left side of the car, happened to me on the right (sheared hub). After finding some more parts (thanks Mr. Buck), we got the thing back together. As I headed back on track I immediately noticed another vibration that became progressively worse. I came into the pits and the guys discovered a broken left rear shock. Ok, fix it and also address the no-ABS issue (which require complete disassembly and reassembly of the right rear corner), I was back on track. So, we finish up the first half of my stints and head back on track. Then, I receive word that we had a fuel spill and had to report to the pits for a 5-min penalty stop. Ok, back on track. Nearing the end of my stint, all of a sudden, at the exit of turn-6, the right rear drops and I think I have a flat tire. NOPE.... I nursed it back to the pits to find a shock that was broken in half, this time the right side. SO, we scrounge some more parts, fix some more things, put Matt in the car and are back on track. Matt is scheduled for a double, so we'll see how that goes. We are something like 30 laps down now, but still plugging away...

- johnny k

Hey Nightowls.. 1:30am

We made a few changes to the driver line up - Sammy and I (Mark) did single stints, Johnny is in the car now for a double.

We moved up nicely. I was in the car and we were on the same lap as the second place E2 car and gaining about 7 seconds a lap. We were two laps down from the lead and also closing at about the same rate him.

Two thirds of the way into my stint the brake pedal went nearly to the floor going into turn 3. I had just enough pedal to get the car turned in. In the pits for a brake bleed - no obvious problems so I went back on track. Same thing, back in and the crew discovered the right front bearing was toast.

Once again Jason and the crew worked quickly and we were back on track in about 19 minutes including driver change and fuel.

We're now 7 laps down on second and 12 down on first, but we're running again 7-10 seconds a lap faster than they are. Provided no more mechanical issues we should be able to close the gap - 10+ hours to go.

The other MX-5's are out of the race with engine failures.