Rice-Vigeant Racing Newsletter
5-18-07
Well, we had our first race
of the season, and first for the newly repaired car, two weeks ago, on
May 5th & 6th. This was a two day meet which put a lot
of extra pressure on everyone. Wind was a factor all day, both days,
so the meet ran a bit slower than normal. Since we had not run for
the last couple of years, we were at the back of the line in starting position
#243. Not all competitors were in line though, so we actually ran
a bit earlier than that. Mark Was the designated driver for this
meet, and he took it really easy for the first run, finishing at our planed
speed of 130 mph. The track surface held up well, and we got
in line for a second run on Saturday afternoon, but when we were fourth
from running, a motorcycle racer had an accident, and that shut down the
meet for the day, (the rider was banged up, but didn’t break any bones).
This actually worked to our advantage, since we then got to run forth,
on Sunday morning, with a brand new track, and cool air. Mark
opened up a little faster and finished that run at 160mph. He reported
a vibration coming from the rear axle, and the most likely cause is a rim
we noticed has a slight warp to it. We are getting that straightened
this next week. We decided that there was nothing more to be gained
by making more runs. All-in-all, the meet went well for us, and the
car ran exactly the way we expected. We have several minor issues
to correct, mostly little things that we had left off, such as the data
logger, that we’ll try to have working on the next race, in June.