The Nose Job

The car, not my face.

When running the car in '06, in mixed conditions, I managed to mangle the nose at the California Speedway. There's this left hander in a complex of turns leading back onto the oval where, at speed, you just have to have some throttle. I managed to accidentially hit the fuel switch on the way in and right when I needed throttle... DDDDdddoooooo.... With no rotation I'm pushing off course, and hit some tires on the way. Strong as the car is, it might not have been such a big deal, but the tires were full of water from the rain.

Thus was born... Franken nose.

Jim's crew pitched in, for which I'm grateful, right along with Tom, Leroy and the 7's staff to patch the nose up and get the car straight in time for the race.

Now the nose was pretty banged up, but it was just cosmetic, and while it doesn't cost a whole lot to completely replace, much less fix, I wound up running most of '06 and all of '07 with the "temporary" repair. It didn't really have any impact on the car's performance, and I really didn't want to spend any race cash that I didn't have too. But everybody, and Jim's crew especially, never stopped commenting about how great their temporary repair was... "If you're a mile away you can barely see it...", "I bet it barely effects the draft, in the pit lane"... "How cute, Bette duck taped it in matching colors...". Yada... yada... yada and enough is enough.

For awhile I was able to get away with the explaination of the 'already broken nose'. That is, if I fixed it, the car wouldn't be as afraid of walls as it is now and the nose would just wind up broken again. But it is, finally, time.

I'm starting a whole new season, with a whole, newly repaired, nose. This is a new campaign where I'm going to try to get into every single race, all ten points races and just maybe, one or two enduros as well.

This blog is intended to memorialize the 2008 Mazda GT season. Pictures, in car video, stats and points, thoughts and best laid plans; I'm putting all of it down right here. You are invited to follow along but be warned, it might just be a bumpy ol' ride...