For some reason this was the only picture we got of the Killer Rabbit; we parked next to them at Gingerman. It really was a cool Rabbit, and we learned that there were some clever tricks underneath, just nothing in the way of power adders (yet). Apparently Joshua Paashaus from NLS had used an Audi TT transmission to convert it from FWD to AWD, using a rear axle from a Golf R32.
Photo: Highland Design Studio
With the mid-30's finishes in the rain at Dominion we had jumped up into the high 40's overall, so were all but assured of the top-50 finish that we thought might be possible on Day 2. We were now in a very close race with one of the HHR SSs in the overall standings and our times at Gingerman would be incredibly close. In the morning, my total time was 5:39.667, which was a little under 0.3 seconds faster, and one position (5 points) better. I barely dropped any time in the afternoon, but the HHR got about a second faster, so they got us by one position. We left Gingerman trailing them by 10 points.
You could tell from the atmosphere in the paddock that some people were sensing the adventure was almost over...plus with the short transit that evening back to South Bend, nobody felt rushed. We walked around and chatted with a few other teams and took a closer look at some of the cars. There were a few talented autocrossers in the One Lap this year, including Chris in the VTAK MR2 and Matt in the Lazy Dog Corvette. It was another beautiful day. Overall, the weather for this One Lap had been better for any of our previous One Laps, and much better than 2016, which looked like it had been rainy for the first 3 or 4 days based on pictures from the event.
We wrapped up so early that Brock opened up the track for fun laps. This gave Chris a chance to see the track and led to our one mechanical issue all week. A few laps in, while shifting up from 3rd to 4th, the car suddenly lost power and the intake noise changed. I recognized the sound from popping intercooler hoses off in my MR2 years ago. In the MR2 with the MAF ahead of the turbo, this mean the engine stalled. The Fiesta kept running, so we drove it to the paddock, found the offending hose, and re-attached it. We couldn't believe how lucky we had been that it hadn't happened during one of the timed runs or transits!
That evening back at the Waterford Estates Lodge, Chris and I met Andy and Ann Hollis. Andy had driven an Econo car - the One Lap CRX - to 4th overall in 2014, but they were driving a bone stock GT-R this year. He writes for Grassroots Motorsports, and his articles on tire testing are generally the first thing I read when I get a new edition. Plus, he and Ann had been helping out as crew members for local autocrosser-turned-pro-driver and all around nice guy, Tom O'Gorman...so I had been wanting to talk with Andy, but the opportunity hadn't presented itself until now. We chatted about - what else - tires, One Lap cars, and TOMO. They were meeting up with Tom for the next weekend in Canada, which turned out to be an exciting one; it started with being collected in an accident on Saturday morning with no spare parts for repairs, but ended with a win on Sunday morning - check out that story here!
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