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Heartbreak at the Runoffs	Wednesday, October 9, 2024
Since we were at the OU homecoming weekend in Athens on Friday & Saturday, and Kevin took the family to a Honda sponsored Fall event Sunday morning, we didn’t leave for Wisconsin until Sunday afternoon. Kev & I had loaded the race trailer the Wednesday before, so it was all ready to go. Sheryl, Diane, Kev, & I left the shop about 1:30pm. We got about an hour north and with the help of a passing driver, we discovered we had a flat tire on the trailer. We were pretty surprised since they were all new just 4 years ago and haven’t been used for many miles. Fortunately, we had the blocks to drive up on to raise the axle, and all the other tools needed to install the spare. We stopped at a Kwik Trip truck stop to fill up with diesel just as we got into Wisconsin, and then drove on to the lake house to drop off the ladies and stay the night. Monday morning, we were up early and drove to Road America and get settled into our paddock spot on turn 5. It was a great spot with plenty of room, nice green grass, and the trusty power pole was there for us to plug into all week. Even though we had the big 7500-watt generator on the RV, and the 1200-watt portable generator, it’s really nice to just plug in and forget about it. We unloaded and got all ready for Tuesday qualifying. We pumped out 5 gallons of 100 octane fuel and replaced it with 7 gallons of 100 octane fuel bought from the track with a special marker in it. We installed new Wilwood front brake pads to along with the new front brake rotors I installed the week before. I also ordered a new tire for the trailer from TireRack.com to be delivered to the track. Then we rode around checking out all the changes to the facility and talking with old friends. We also took advantage of being allowed to do a track walk/ride on our Yamaha cart, complete with free Spotted Cow beer out on the track at turn five. After we got back to the RV, we heated up Carrie’s Chinese casserole, along with some sushi we had picked up at Festival foods in Fond du lac. TUESDAY Because we had new brake pads and rotors, we took advantage of a hardship lap at 9:30 just to bed them in a bit. My good friend Scotty Kemper with his two boys Emmit and Walt, arrived at the track about noon and we went out for a tour of the track on the Yamaha and stopped for a couple double brats at the concession. I made hot dogs for the boys in the RV. Kevin started last in the field of 45 FP and HP cars, and laid back to find some open track. He turned in a 2:34.823 for 3rd behind Ira in his Del Sol and Strittmatter in his Integra. In the last lap Kevin was going for the pole but had a small spin the carousel into the sand trap. Because he knocked the splitter off the car, we were underweight so they took all of our qualifying times away, but we did pass the fuel test. We replaced the small splitter with the big one, added fuel, replaced the rear brake pads, and vacuumed out all the gravel from the trap. We had Carries awesome gumbo for dinner. WEDNESDAY We had to go out at the back due to no time from the previous day. Joey Moser started right behind us in his new Integra since he did not qualify on Tuesday to do be hit by another car on the Monday practice day. He stayed behind Kevin until Kevin poured it on and drove away from him. Joe’s car is a new car that has not been developed much so far. Kevin managed a 2nd place time of 2:33.613 right behind Ira with 2:32.327. The session was cut short again due to people crashing. The car ran great and the brakes were great on track but they developed a severe pushback by the end of the session. We found one of the new rear brake pads was in the wrong orientation which created the problem. We had help from Shawn & James from Wilwood to find the issue. We pretty much had the car all done before Carrie and the kids showed up about 4pm. I took them out for a long Yamaha cart ride and we got ready to leave. I took the kids to the Lakehouse so Kev & Carrie could have the night at the track for the block parties. I took the kids to Culver s for dinner and ice cream on the way to the Lake house. THURSDAY The kids and I got up early at the Lake House, had breakfast, and got on the road back to Road America. Just for fun we took the lake road from Oshkosh to Fond Du Lac. Kevin started 2nd behind Ira and just in front of Joey and he ran away from the pack. He improved his time to 2:32.982 but it was still second to Ira who got a tow for that time on Tuesday. He was trying to squeeze out a few more tenths to take the pole and dropped a tire off in turn three. No damage other than the large splitter - again. He and Ed Hosni did a great job straightening the splitter damn and installed the spare board. I checked fluids and made a few changes to the Race Keeper setup. We all went to the big party just right next to our paddock. It was typical awesome food from Wisconsin. They had BBQ pork, brisket, and roast turkey with baked beans, and excellent mac & cheese. The kids and we all loved it, and of course there was plenty of Spotted Cow on tap, or wine, and fancy “printed” sugar cookies for the event. Carrie took the kids back to the Lake House about 7:00pm. Kevin & I stayed for some of the entertainment which was Eric Prill’s band. FRIDAY Kev & I are up early to watch the Bspec race at 8:30. It was a good race but ended under caution. We filled the fuel cell in the race car to 9+ gallons to make sure we weren’t under weight since the RA scales were a bit wonky this week. We bolted on the set of race tires and checked everything we could on the car. Carrie & the kids arrived about 10am and I took them for a long cart ride while Kev & Carrie took the car to the flat spot to check the alignment one more time. The kids and I went to the playground equipment near the outside of turn one. We watched the start of the SM race at turn one, then moved to turns 3, 7, 10, the kink, and Canada corner. When we got back, I gave the kids rides on the Navi in the grass around the RV which they loved. Then we all went to turn 7 to watch the HP race. Just for fun, we drove into Elkhart Lake to go to Siebkins Bar and Restaurant to have some breaded curd and a few more Spotted Cows on a beautiful day. The kids loved looking at all the stickers on the walls and ceiling. We got back to the track just in time for the “worker of the year” award. Again, they had great food with Sheboygan brats, chicken, Mac & Cheese, and more fancy cookies. Carrie took the kids back to the Lake House about 7pm. SATURDAY RACE DAY We got up early to make sure everything was ready for the race. I tried to put the charger on the race car for one last charge but it wouldn’t work. The 30amp Victron charger has been popping the GFI for the last couple days, and today it went dead. I borrowed a charger from Joey and put it on for a hour just to make sure the battery was full. Carrie and the kids arrived so we watched some races. Dede and Sheryl, and Scotty and family all arrived around noon and the car was ready to go. Kevin started the race in the front row next to Cliff Ira in his very fast Jesse Prather Del Sol. The second row was Joe Moser in his King Motorsports Integra, and Mason Workman in his very fast Jesse Prather Miata. The next 8 cars were all Jesse Prather Miata’s and Integra’s except one. Ira jumped the start and Moser followed him so Kevin pulled in behind Moser going into turn one. The three of them drove away from the rest of the pack. Kevin quickly passed Ira in turn three and followed Moser for most of the first lap. Coming up the hill to the start finish, Kevin drafted and passed Moser for the lead. In turn one of the first lap Hingston bounced off two cars. In turn 14 of the first lap, he bounced off of another car and went into the gravel trap. He managed to wiggle out of the trap right before the pack got back to him. Kevin caught him on the straight at the beginning of lap two and was lucky enough to get past him without incident. The idiot is now a full lap down (over four miles) and continues to race with the leaders of the race. He gets to the back straight and drives it off the track again, but instead of staying there he keeps his foot in it and drives back across the track and hits Cliff Ira, knocking him out of the race, the same as he did last year. That brought out a full course yellow for several laps which allowed the field to catch back up to Kevin. At the restart Kevin once again drove away from the rest of the field turning consistently fast, but not record setting lap times. His best was the quickest time of the race, 2:33.246 on lap 10. The next closest lap time was Simons with a 2:34.384. Dave Bednarz had the third fastest lap of 2:34.476. On the last lap, right before Canada Corner, our Integra engine let go in a huge cloud of smoke. In addition to Kevin, several cars dropped out of the race for one reason or another including Hingston, Ira, Strittmatter, Powers, Gaydos, and Moser – handing the win to Workman, and second to Kannard. Third was Simonds in his Jesse Prather Miata. I had gone down to Canada Corner where Kevin was after the engine let go. I was amazed to see the entire crowd on both sides of the track gave Keivn a standing ovation for his great drive. We believe our car may have suffered some damage to the internals earlier in the year when we had issues with detonation. It appeared fine and drove over 50 race laps after we fixed the detonation problem but apparently it had some residual damage. Considering in July we were nearly ready to not even go to the Runoffs, this was not so bad. The good news is, we now know how to make a completely legal car, with good power, that should be competitive for several years to come. The best thing about the week was the family that was with us at the track and the family that was watching from home. We had a great time. We are sorry it was a heartbreak for all of our fans. For Kevin and I, I have to say it was not that traumatic. It was so ridiculous; it was almost funny……
Car Runs Great at Grattan	Sunday, August 18, 2024
We had to get another race finish to be eligible for the Runoffs this year. We decided to go to the “last chance” race at Grattan, Michigan like we did last year. We don’t like to wait so late in the season to get qualified for the Runoffs, but life kept getting in the way. Between Walt, Ed, & Cora’s baseball, football, softball, BMX racing, dancing, and Kid Kart racing, we found it hard to allocate the time to racing. What made it worse, was the issues we faced with the car’s new engine which really threw a monkey wrench into things this year. Well, it looks like we got it fixed. After the test weekend last week at Mid-Ohio at a Regional race, which did not count for Runoffs qualifying, we hoped the car would continue to run well at Grattan. Kevin and I checked a few setup items on the car before we loaded her up for the trip. We left about 3 pm on Friday and arrive at Grattan about 7:30 with only a few slow-downs on the road. We looked at paddocking up on the hill outside the track but after riding around on the Yamaha cart we found that the inside area had plenty of room for our long rig. We got set up but did not unload anything as it was supposed to rain all night, and it did. The next morning, we unloaded and did almost nothing to the car. We just put on the old intermediate tires to handle the damp track. Kevin took her out for our 9:35am qualifying session. The track dried out quickly and Kevin got up to speed quickly. He did drop a wheel off in the 2nd lap due to the rear tires not being quite warm enough to go yet, but it only put a little grass in the radiator screen. After six laps he brought it in with a 1:27.53 which put him on the overall pole by 3 seconds. We could go faster but we always kept our goal in mind – which was to get a finish to qualify for the Runoffs, and to protect the car. Our race was right after lunch at 1:25pm. We added fuel, and bolted on a set of dry tires for the race. Kevin started on pole and jumped out to a small lead over Doug Weaver in #3 FP Miata. In the third lap after the tires got up to temp, he poured it on and turned in a 1:26.22 very close to our fastest ever lap there of 1:26.18. On lap six it started raining and rained hard. Everyone slowed down and waited for the race to be over. Kevin stayed away from the slower cars to protect the car. He finished all 15 laps and took the overall win one minute in front of the second-place car. We put the car up on stands, removed the wheels, checked all fluids, cleaned the radiator, downloaded the data from the dash, and the video from the camera. We put the cover on it and left it that way since we were not sure what the rain was going to do in the morning. We wanted to temper another new set of new tires but weren’t sure if the track would be dry enough. After that we went to the famous Grattan Saturday night dinner which did not disappoint. The brisket, BBQ chicken, cheesy potatoes, vegetables, and coleslaw, along with a half dozen local wines, and beer were excellent. Sunday morning it was dry enough to temper tires so we bolted them on and went out for the qualifying session. Unlike last weekend, the starting position for the Sunday race was determined by your fastest lap of the weekend, not just in that qualifying session – so we were not going to be knocked out of first. After the tempering process on lap 5 he ran one fast lap of 1:26.560. That was over five seconds faster than the next best time. Only 9 of the 20 cars in the group actually went out in that session. We had accomplished all of our goals – completed a race, tempered a set of tires, and protected the car, but there was one session left – the Sunday race. We didn’t need to go out, but we were going to, if the track was dry. Literally 3minutes before the start of the race we were all ready to out, proper tires, all gassed up, etc. Then we looked at the radar which showed a small, but powerful cell approaching our position which should arrive in just ten minutes. That made us decide not to go out. We did not need more slow, wet, slippery laps around this track so we started loading up the trailer. Just as we were driving the car into the trailer the sun popped out, and it was a beautiful sunny day. Two minutes later, right after the race had gone green, it was pouring. That sent out a pace car, presumably because of an accident, and the rest of the race was in rain. By the time they had finished, it had stopped raining and we drove the rig out of the track and headed for home. It reminded me of the old days with our ITA Integra. Put gas in it, put the right tires on, and go win the race. We have not had much of that lately. The only thing that would have made it better, was if we had our crew and fans there with us.
Regional Race at Mid Ohio	Friday, August 16, 2024
We had to get another finish at the Grattan race to be eligible for the Runoffs this year, but we were not sure if the car was fixed and running well. Therefore, we decided to take the car to a regional race at Mid Ohio to make sure it was good before hauling it to Grattan. That also gave us an opportunity to do the weekend with the family since we did not get to do that at the May Mid Ohio race. I had removed the four damaged valves from the broken spark plugs and found they were not just fouled but they were dented and pitted from the ceramic pieces. I found 4 better used valves in my inventory and lapped them before installing them in the head. I had not lapped valves in many years, and I had never lapped a valve on the Integra head. It turns out the drill will not attach to the valve to spin it because of the interference of the head sides. I bought a 6” drill extension made for a ¼” drill. The valve stem was just a few thousands larger than ¼” so I had to drill it out. It worked great. I lapped each valve 1 minute in each direction, then again 1 minute in each direction, then cleaned the valve and seat. I had to be careful not to get any lapping compound in the valve guides. After reassembly I still had 98% on 1 and 3, and recovered to 98% on 4, and 92% on 2 – close enough. In addition to repairing the valves, I made sure the Infinity and the EPM were calibrated AND made sure to commit the changes to the Infinity with a cntl-shift-C. I tested it several times to make sure the calibration was saved. I was in Reno visiting friends all week before the event so Kevin, Carrie and the kids loaded it all up, drove it to the track, unloaded and took her out for qualifying on Saturday morning. I was in the Denver airport on my way back home and watched the times on Race Hero. I wasn’t sure if the engine was fixed until I saw a 1:38.6 which is very fast. I landed in CMH on 3pm but couldn’t make it to MO in time for the 3:30 race. Kevin and the car did very well and turned in a 1:38.0 which was about a quarter second faster than we had ever driven on the Club course, and just about ¼ second slower than the current track record which had been set over 20 years ago. This was on old rear tires which made Kevin slow down, and an engine that had not yet received a final tune. I made it up to the track by 8am Sunday morning to see the kids and check out the car. For the qualifying race in the morning, we decided to temper a set of new tires rather than race. That worked great but left us starting 18th for the afternoon race. We knew there would be some risk trying to drive up through a bunch of regional drivers but we would be careful. At the start of the race Kevin passed 4 or 5 cars immediately, and continued to pass cars a careful as he could. On the third lap he was in about 5th and was drafting a car on the straight, when the guy came of power completely. We don’t know if he lost power, or decided to let off. Either way we tapped him in the rear. The hit actually broke both of the hood hold down bolts and allowed the hood to flip up over the windshield. The bolts were aluminum and snapped like a twig. Kevin didn’t want to wait for a tow, so he drove it back to paddock. The damage was quite minor and after a couple days of repositioning stuff and doing some fiberglass repairs, it was as good as new. And this time I installed steel hold down bolts instead of aluminum. It was really a great weekend for the car, the weather, and the kids. It seemed to me that they were very much willing, and able, to help with most everything on the car, including loading and unloading after we got back to the shop. Also, this weekend hosted an HP race with 25 cars in their own run group. Not only was it fun to watch, but Kevin was on the PA system helping announce the race. He knows all of the cars and almost every driver, so he had lots of useful comments during the race
A very short Test and Tune	Friday, July 26, 2024
At the Mid Ohio race a few weeks earlier we damaged 3 of the 4 plugs and never finished a race. After discussing the problem with lots of people we determined that the problem was probably the 93 octane fuel. We needed to test the car after re-working the head to fix the low compression in 2,3,4 cylinders and switching to 110 octane fuel from The Fuel Depot. We took the car to the Thursday Test and Tune at Mid Ohio to see how it would go. The car ran well for maybe the first lap and then started running bad. Kevin brought it in after just a couple laps. We found that we had plugs #2 and #4 already damaged. We loaded her up and took it home. We were so disgusted that we just dopped it in the shop and left. For several weeks we did nothing to the car as we were trying to figure out what went wrong. I talked with Mark Kent at NGK technical support. He was very helpful and knowledgeable. He thought the problem had to be timing ignition causing pre-detonation. He also told me they were seeing lots of Chinese counterfeit plugs being sold on eBay and Amazon. I was using Denso Iridium and after looking I found that the last 3 sets I bought off of eBay. I checked the leakdown and found 1=98, 2=75, 3=98, 4=60. I replaced the plugs with new ones and started her up. It ran very well and idled which allowed me to check the ignition timing. Before we went to the test and tune we set the ignition in the shop. Earlier, while troubleshooting issues with the car we installed the spare EPM which requires you to calibrate the timing for the different unit. Apparently after adjusting the ignition, the change did not get saved or “committed” to the memory in the Infinity. That meant that when we got to the track, the ignition was off by at least 15 degrees advanced, which would have caused the problem. I researched the issue with the Infinity and found that you have to hit “control-shift-C” to commit the changes to memory in the Infinity. I was under the impression that it was committed when you cycled the power So, in summary, we believe that the occasional plug damage was from the 93 octane fuel, and the immediate damage was from the ignition timing being way off. This is the same cause, detonation, due to different situations. We now think that if we make sure the ignition is correct and run 100 octane fuel, we should run fine. We are going to remove the head to remove the 4 contaminated exhaust valves. Then we are going to lap the valves to see if that regains our leakdown efficiency. Then we are going to try to run at a Regional at Mid Ohio before we go to our last qualifying race at Grattan in August. Hopefully all will be well and we can go to the Runoffs at Road America and run well.
A SHIT SHOW AT MID OHIO	Sunday, May 19, 2024
It was the worst outing we have had at Mid Ohio in a long, long, time, but the car was still sort of drivable and no one got hurt. I had spent a lot of time in the last month building the Cora engine with the new cams. After working through all the problems with piston-valve interference, spring pressures, and valve lengths & adjustment lock nut interference, we finally installed the engine in the car just after running the Pittrace weekend with the Edwin engine. We took it to the dyno at SloMo and got a real good tune from Corey. The new cams were higher horsepower up top, with less torque, but revved a bit higher up to 7600 rpm. We also had installed the newly required 55mm restrictor plate. We decided to not go on Friday morning to run the test session at 11am because Kevin needed to attend the twins kindergarten year-end activities at their school. We drove the rig up to the track on Friday afternoon and arrived at 4pm. Kevin had arranged with a friend at OVR to be there and get us through registration and into the track. The number of cars registered was quite large, so the paved paddock spaces were all full. We decided to park up on the hill where we parked many years ago. It was in the grass but OK. We got her all ready for our qualifying session at 8am Saturday morning. Since we were not there for the practice session we had to start at the back of about 40 cars. The track was very crowded, and Kevin had difficulty finding any open track. The car ran well but the front end was not tracking like it should, and the steering wheel alignment kept changing as the session went on. He ended up 6th overall which was ok. After the session we found a flat piece of concrete to check out the car and do a setup. After checking toe and camber we finally discovered the right upper wishbone arm mounts were installed wrong. The thick washer should have been installed under the frame instead of on top. We tried to straighten the mount and then remounted them correctly and pulled to body sheet metal back to where it should be. Then we adjusted both camber and toe-in quite nicely. We thought we would go a lot faster for the race that afternoon. By race time we had Mark Middleton with his son, daughter and son-in-law stopped by our paddock to visit. We also had Diane & Sheryl, and of course Carrie and the kids on a beautiful day. Justin Hickey also was there to watch and help with the race. A friend of Carrie & Kev with her boy also came to watch. We started 3rd in class and 6th overall but expected to pull to the front quickly, if our fixes on the front suspension were successful. They were - the suspension was perfect, BUT the car decided not to run with any power. It was doggy, and eventually overheated, even though we got no errors from O2 sensors, or Exhaust Gas Temp probes, or anything else. After four laps Kevin took it back to the paddock. We downloaded the data and we discussed what was happening. Kevin thought the throttle was reading weird and it seemed like the Infinity wasn’t controlling the engine properly somehow, so we checked it out. We found a few off readings so we decided to install the new TPS and try to get out for a hardship lap before the day was over. We managed to get permission to go out after the group that was on track at the time. Kevin took it down and out for his lap. He came back saying it was still not right. Well, now we had all night to work on it so we pulled the plugs and found 2,3&4 were melted. Then we did a compression test and got very low reading on all cylinders. We confirmed them with a leak down test on all four cylinders. We didn’t know why or how but we knew we had a sick engine, so we loaded it up on the trailer. We went down to the Saturday night dinner and relaxed and had some beers. After we got back to the RV, we looked closely at the data we had retrieved from the car, but nothing seemed to jump out as a cause. We were both dead tired, so we decided to hit the hay about 1030. The next morning, after a good nights sleep, we got up and went to watch the first race which was STL, T3, T4 and others. Kevin got to talk to a few friends before we left, and we managed to dump the sanitary tanks before as well. It was another beautiful day so we thought we might get back in time for Cora’s softball game, but she decided she wasn’t feeling well enough to play. Instead, when we got the shop we unload, then drained the oil out of the RV as it was ready for a change. Then we put the car up on the lift and pulled the head off to look at it. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, so we went home What a SHIT SHOW! We did everything right on the engine build and install, Kevin drove great, and nothing worked. Very frustrating.
Great Shakedown Weekend at Pittrace	Monday, April 29, 2024
We finally got the car out to the track for the first time this year. We haven’t done much of anything to the car since we reassembled the head in the tech sched at the Runoffs at VIR. I did install the new FlagTronics system and the new Race Keeper camera. I have spent most of my time this Spring building and timing the new CORA engine with block 5 and head 1 with the new cams. Kevin and Carrie came to the shop on Wednesday to bring food for the weekend and to do setup on the car. While they were there, Kev & I did a CC job of the new engine to make sure our compression ratio was good, and then I reassembled the head to make sure there were no interference with the valves. While there Kevin started up the car and ran it up to temp to make sure it was OK for the upcoming race weekend. I also un-winterized the RV and filled the water tank, but I couldn’t get the water pump to pressure up even though it was running. I thought I would work on it at that track. On Friday I took the RV out for the first time of the year to fill the LPG tank and to top off the diesel. We have not put LPG in the RV since Nov of 2021 and even still it only was half empty (14 gallons). We left for the track on Friday about 2:00pm and arrived at the track about 5:30pm. We filled out the on-line waivers with our phones when we got to the guard shack. It was pretty nice weather so we got set up in spot #19, then took the car down to tech for our annual safety inspection. We had some great food that Carrie sent along for us. Our first session was qualifying at 8:30 Saturday morning. It was threatening rain so we didn’t know what tires to put on the car until it started raining pretty good. We put on the new rains and took her down to grid. Just then they announced a delay because of lighting. About a half hour later it mostly stopped but we didn’t bother changing the tires because the track was so wet. We went out and did only 3 laps so we didn’t overwork the new rains, but that was enough to put us in second behind Charley Campbell. Our race was at 11:30 am and it was dry and sunny but still cool. Kevin fell back a few spots due to a bad shift from 2nd into 3rd with the dog box. He quickly recovered and followed Charley for a lap before he passed him for the lead. After 7 laps he felt the car handling getting worse and the brakes went very soft and eventually were pretty much gone. He let Charley, Max Gee, Ed Hosni all pass him so he could slow down and figure out what was happening. At one point the car got loose and went off the track which allowed Strittmatter to get past him as well. Kevin managed to keep it from hitting anything but the splitter was pretty much destroyed. He followed those guys for the rest of the race. On the last lap, Hosni and Campbell contacted one another and went off. That left Strittmatter in the lead and Kevin in second. On the cool down lap Strittmatter’s car had a problem with the crank shaft which put him out – after he took the checker flag. At the scales we showed 12 pounds under weight because our splitter was dragging on the ground. They let us pass due to that issue. We put the car up on stands and inspected everything. We found no issues with the brakes, so we just rotated the front pads and then replaced all of the fluid. We bolted on a set of new Hoosier fronts so we could temper them in the second qualifying session at 330 that afternoon. We took the car out, without a splitter and tempered the tires. The brakes seemed fine and handling was fine. We only did 3 hot laps but one had a faster top speed that we saw early that day when the splitter was on. Saturday evening, we added lots of fuel, nearly 12 gallons to get the weight up to make up for no splitter. We put the Yamaha cart and everything else in the trailer. After that we passed on the cold pizza and beer provided by the Steel City’s region of SCCA, and had some more food sent by Carrie. It was quite warm that evening and Sunday was very nice. We used a tempered set of Hoosiers for the front and an old set for the rear and went out for the race where we started behind Gee and in front of Campbell. Hosni and Strittmatter did not start due to damage. Kevin passed Gee for the overall lead and held it for 7 laps. At that time Campbell was way back so Kevin backed off and let Gee pass him for the lead. The car ran very well with no brake issues and it handled well. The new Race Keeper filmed front and rear from inside the car. We never turned on the Flagtronics as Pittrace was not set up to run it just yet. Again we were surprised to see that we had hit three laps at 123 and one at 124 without the splitter, when our fastest with the splitter was 120mph.