Day 3 Fireball Run

Of all the days of our cross country rally, this one, I was the most concerned.

Drag racing and road course racing are two entirely different things and about the only thing they have in common is high speed.

At any rate, a couple of the veteran CannonBallers suggested that I carefully study the layout of the track, which had been described as a bit tricky.

Fortunately MSR Houston has a comprehensive web site which include track diagrams and in-car videos to enable us newbies to the track at least some familiarity of it before we even arrive.

Roy was set to run in the second half of the race, while I was set to go in the morning.

Prior to the race, all of the drivers spent a considerable amount of time going over the vehicle.

I topped some fluids off, check the suspension, and the integrity of the tires that were mounted on my vehicle. If there was an embedded nail or screw, now was the time to find that out.

My goal of today was not to attempt to "win" the time runs (especially when one consider the competitor cars included one supercar, the Aston Martin Vanquish, Ray and Leon's super hopped-up Shelby Mustang making 600bhp at the rear wheels and 750 at the crank!)

Since the road course was new to me, I didn't want to put the car into the wall at turn 17 so I decided not to really push things or do anything stupid (imagine that?).

As it was during one of my hot-laps the car didn't feel to be operating at top-performance. I began feeling a shudder during the back straightaway, so my goal was just to finish the race with a least a respectable point total and live to fight another day.

When I pulled off from my lap times, the car's shuddering increased to a level that had me very concerned. Fortunately Leon's co-driver, Ray from Full Throttle Kustomz came over and gave his expert assistance. The engine had thrown a code, which he attempted to read with his measurement diagnostic tools.

Ray believe the shuddering to stem from an overheated transmission with a real possibility of blowing the seals. So we powered the vehicle down to let the fluid flow back down into the transmission, cool down, and thicken-up.

I was glad that I didn't push the car on the track, because the last thing I wanted was to be faced with the prospect of towing this vehicle 2200 miles back home.

Roy went out and had his track event and handled the car in fine fashion...demonstrating his expert driving training from this law enforcement days.

A the end of this very long day, we made are way back to Driver Source outside of Houston where our teams gathered for a fine meal and a look at some of the finest and sexiest automobiles to ever bless this earth.

When I got back to our hotel in Houston, I was expecting to go out country dancing with a new friend I have made, a movie stunt man (driver of the silver Viper), but when I hit the bed, I literally passed out and was done for the evening.

Today was the most exhausting and taxing day of our trip so far.

Tomorrow we head to Dallas and then to Oklahoma City in a large convoy!

Now that should be a pretty sight!

Veil Guy (aka Bandit)