Great Race Day 2

Today was exciting for its own reasons. Our scores were pretty good for most of the legs. We did score an Ace for the fourth leg. However, due to things like a pick up truck exploding on the road ahead of us getting us rattled,  our final leg was 34 seconds off. Hopefully, this will work out to be one of the five they throw out for Rookies.

We slid down to eighth of forty overall in the Rookie division and 52nd overall. This is using raw scores. The final results are far from in.

Unfortunately, it looks like fourteen cars are having trouble or have abandoned. The June Bug continues to run strongly.

We will see what tomorrow brings.

Great Race Day 1

WOW! I don't have the energy to describe our Great Race Day 1. Thousands of people saw us off in Kirkwood. The sun shone brightly all day.

Hundreds of people came out in Rolla at the lunch stop.

Best of all, we finished first in our division. We are competing against thirty nine other  .  Rookie teams. We  even had a perfect score on the first leg. We sit at 20th of 117 overall at the end of day one. Tomorrow we start again.

WOW

Warm up Rally Today

Well today was the Warm up half day rally. The rally is called the Hagerty Trophy Run. We rallied in Illinois on Route 66. Pretty cool. By doing it that way we will rally in all of the states Route 66 passed through.

Team June Bug's goal was met. We learned a lot and came in with pretty good times for four of five legs. We ranged from a one second error to five second error. One of the legs was not so good. That's okay. Today was all about learning. And learn we did.

Tomorrow we start in earnest.

Got through tech inspection no sweat

We are in the program.

We cruised through tech inspection with no issues. The June Bug is official in every way. They even deflated our tires and refilled them with nitrogen for free.

We made it to the start

We made it to the start at Kirkwood.  Today was all about getting here.
Our mentors met us in the hotel lobby. Nicer people you won't find. I feel so lucky to have them.

When we drove in the car seemed to take me to a parking spot. Right next to the other VW in the rally. I guess June sniffed out her own kind.

Here are some photos of the cars in the rally. Just a small sample. June is the yellow VW.

Twas the night before

Well, tomorrow morning we leave for Kirkwood, Missouri. Tonight we finish packing and sorting out details.

I'm excited and happy to get started.

One week to go!

Well, we are one week away from traveling to the start of The Great Race in Kirkwood, MO.  I have not written for quite a while.  

Many, many things have happened during our preparation.  Dave and I completed three sets of car performance curves.  This is very tedious and boring, but necessary.  The car performed pretty well through all of this driving back and forth.  Each set of curves requires 96 (yep 96) passes to gather data.  We got it done.

We uncovered and fixed three small gasoline leaks.  Smelly and somewhat dangerous.  We also found a transaxle seal leak and had the mechanic fix that.  New tires mounted. Speaking of the mechanic, he is GREAT.  He works out of a small shop in Folletts, Iowa.  Quite a find.  He did all sorts of maintenance for us.  He also installed a new fuel pump and put in electronic ignition.  It seemed everything he did the car made it run better.

We are making piles of things to take along.  I have boxed up the spare parts.  I have my tool set assembled.  We have lots of data and guidance from lots of wonderful people.  Another practice session this Saturday is scheduled.

I guess now it will be up to us to make it happen.