[Cobra #3170]

Thanks for all the nice comments guys, we were very happy with the results especially when they declared us in 3rd place after the style judging. The car is not show car pretty but is very functional so we were not surprised when we did not win. After about a week I was called and told that a mistake had been made in scoring the event and that we won after all so it made a fun time even better. It turns out that we beat the invitational entrants as well as all the exhibition cars too.

The rest of the story, (excuses etc.):
Our plan was for Jim to drive the autox course since he is really good and I would drive 0-60-0 and perhaps the road course too. We decided that both of us would practice the car on the road course and then decide who would run based on how the car worked. We were limited on time so all I could do was choose a set of springs that worked for both road & autox courses and adjust the front anti roll bar as necessary. We were the second car in the paddock on Saturday morning (6:00 am) and got all our prep work done before the drivers meeting even started and really thought we had a leg up on most competitors; in short life was good. Jim was the first to take the car out in the practice session and we both agreed it would be prudent to take it easy for a lap or two, unfortunately, Jim came out behind the DSE entry that had about 5 laps under his belt. Jim, in trying to stay with the DSE car on cold tires, spun on the third corner and shot off the track tearing the fuel pump wiring off and shutting the engine down. We were then unable to get any practice laps at all; that coupled with my mentioning the urge to murder him for risking my 44 year old baby, put a damper on our efforts. Jim drove the road course taking very conservative, safe lines. Despite never seeing the entire track before, he still managed a 1:46.8 on his fourth and final lap. He also pulled the ZR1 chase car pretty convincingly down the straights and in fact pulled him in the corners on the cool down lap as he was still learning the course. We figured the car could run in the very low 40's or high 30's if driven to its potential. The car that was second was actually seen testing at the track the week before and several of the drivers went to the track school before the event. At that point we concluded that since I had not driven any practice laps at all and had no feel for the new FI calibration, it would be best for Jim to drive the rest of the event.
Jim was very good in the autox (about 4 seconds faster than the closest car) but told me he did not want to risk touching a pylon so was not going all out. What really surprised us was the 0-60-0 win because many of the cars had ABS brakes. The Cobra was dead stopped at a point on the track where the other cars were applying their brakes so that made a believer out of many of the participants.
The winner is automatically invited back the following year but they asked me to either bring another car or run the Cobra in exhibition class only... quite a compliment.