The Cascade Enduro was a struggle this year but we still managed to finish 2nd overall. The challenge began prior to the race. After a mid season engine failure, I scrambled to get another engine ready for the enduro. The engine was strong but had precious few miles on it. Who knew what gremlins were still waiting to be exorcised! Well a few showed up and oh yeah, it was going to be wet off and on all day.
We also had a new driver, Alan Himes, who had never turned a lap at PIR prior to race day. He had come all the way out from Virginia, so being a good host he was thrown to the wolves first. Alan has a load of experience so it didn't take him long to figure out the wet track and the car. He had us on the lead lap for much of his stint. Unexpectantly, the car started to stumble about 20 minutes short of when it should be running short of fuel. Either we were not picking it all up or something else was going on. The problem seemed to go away with a full tank but now the stints were not going as long as anticipated. Bruce Trenery had the second stint and was lucky enough to get the driest part of the race. We actually got about an hour where we could take the rain tires off.
We were a bit past half way in the race, the track was dry but the doppler radar showed all kinds of pretty colors coming towards us. Since Bruce was nearing the end of his fuel it was decided that we would pit, put rain tires on and I would get in the car and drive the rest of the race. The timing worked great as I was able to get out and put a couple laps of heat into the tires before the rain started. However, I noticed immediately the car was not running right. It was not making full boost and at times it was reluctant to take any throttle. The windscreen was also fogging up. Great! I found that if I applied the throttle at specific rate and RPM I could keep it from stumbling. Traffic didn't always allow me to do that however.
Even with a reluctant car and crappy conditions, time flew by. I really enjoyed being out there. I just wish we had the full car under us all day so we could have challenged the winning Mustang, but it wasn't gonna happen on this day. Everyone on the team did a great job and we got to the finish. There's always next year....
Enduro Stats:
- Drivers: Alan Himes, Bruce Trenery, Eric Krause
- Crew: Cam Norton, Emmet McAleenan, Gabe, James Temple, Joe Kamman, Randy Krause, Scott Norton, Steve Clinton, Zack George
- 2nd Overall, 2nd in Class
- 7 pit stops
- 294 laps completed
- 1:20.370 fast lap (Bruce Trenery)
