A great way to start a new year

The first weekend of the 2013 racing season is in the books with the completion of our first two competitive outings in the Life’s Good Racing!TM 1969 Camaro in the new NASA Time Tials 1 (“TT1”) class along with not only the first day on track with our new 2012 Camaro, but also its first race…. a two hour Western Endurance Racing Championships Race (“WERC”).  And, I am happy to say that this new season is beginning the way the last season ended… with stellar performances on the part of the whole team resulting in fantastic outcomes with both cars.
clip_image002_0014With the 1969 Camaro we were able to build upon our undefeated string of outings in 2012 with another two days of wins!  With a 1:48 at Sonoma Raceway, we held the fastest time of our class each day in a very crowded field.  Big thanks go to Chris Hovey, “Uncle Mike” Brown, Eric VanZandt and Dave “Pitt” Pittenger for all of their hard work setting up and supporting the car through the weekend along with managing through some glitches including a stripped wheel stud.

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The 2012 Camaro hit the track for the first time Friday afternoon during a track testing day but saw little exercise as we experienced multiple “start up” issues including an exhaust leak, a fluid leak and an electical miss.  Work through the evening and Saturday morning, with the help of the team at WORKS Motorsports, resolved all issues and the car saw shake down duty throughout Saturday in preparation for Sunday’s first WERC race of 2012.

The impressive aspect of Saturday’s performance was that both Dave and I were able to put down impressive hot laps in spite of the fact that we had little if no opportunity for chassis tuning.  Dave achieved a 1:46 and I was able to get into the 1:47s by Saturday afternoon.  It is clear that this car has so much more in her.clip_image007_0002
Sunday’s race, a two hour multi-class Enduro, was set up for a random pick starting grid.  This resulted in Dave starting the Enduro mid pack when the green flag dropped.  The excitement began as Dave passed the start-finish line after the end of the first lap in the lead!  And, as he became more familiar with the car, he was able to break well into the 1:45s for lap times.

We had a large support crew on the hot pits cheering Dave on throughout the race and the crew executed a flawless refueling at midpoint.  Note that the car should have made the entire race without a fueling stop, however there appeared to be a fuel pickup issue preventing us from pulling all the fuel out of the tank.

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Many thanks go to the entire team, including Crew Chief, Chris Hovey, “Uncle Mike” Brown, Eric VanZandt, Dave “Pitt” Pittenger, James Gouveia, Joe Flood, and Danny.  Without their help we could not have achieved the success we realized.

We received the checkered flag and what we thought was the win, however a timing issue has clouded the victory and NASA is still working through sorting out the results.

Needless to say, we are more that pleased with the performance of our new car during its debut race, and Enduro!  With the help of our awesome sponsors we were able to complete an impressive performance.  The braking was beyond belief, with the help of Hawk Performance; and the launch and flawless shifting was enabled by Competition Clutch (CCI).  The car ran cool and smooth with our Red Line fluids.  We could not have been more satisfied with our initial weekend performance.
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Another highlight of the weekend was the contingent of visitors spending time with us in the pits throughout the course of both days.  We had many friends, old and new, come through from near and far.  We even had a couple of racers from way down south – Australia and New Zealand.  They not only hung out with us, but invited us to ship our two Camaros to their countries and race in their venues!   Perhaps the Life’s Good Racing!TM team will go global!

As I have shared with you in the past, we encourage fans to come out and spend time with us at the track as it presents a unique way to get to know our sport.  We encourage you to visit our Facebook page to stay up on the latest goings on with the team, “Like” our page, come out and visit to receive your free team hat and possibly get a ride in the 69 Camaro.

Hope to see you out at our next event March 16 & 17 at Sonoma Raceway!

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