What better way to celebrate the birthday of our beloved Ford Mustang than with a 1st in class, 2nd overall at Buttonwillow, setting a personal best of 1m54s439 on the second lap. Don't know if I can trust the predictive, but it said I had another whole second up until the last turn out of Sunrise. What I can trust, is now that this is the 2nd event where everything just felt really nice, smooth, and really happy where I've got it dialed in. Being the superstitious person I am, yes, that is a vinyl moustache on my visor, and yes, I have a real one underneath. What started out as a dumb April Fool's joke is going to continue on until disaster strikes again. Trust me, it annoys and irritates me equally as much as it does you, the stupid things people will do for a like and subscribe.
Story time?
Perhaps this is why some people asking for advice on the next mod or part, some people answer with "seat time." Taking a quick trip down memory lane, my last time in that configuration was October 2020, my first and last NASA weekend in HPDE 4. It was also the same weekend that I somehow snapped the outer ring off of my flywheel, which spun all around my transmission bellhousing, and in doing so, also ended up grinding my starter's teeth down to the rod. I had run a best of 2m04s5 that weekend, and met a bunch of people that have also continued on their development since then, like Carlos who won a Honda Challenge race, or Andy who was on my tail in his roided out TT3 Miata. For the Albuquerque Stripper, not much has really changed since then, a few sets of tires, my woodworking skills (or not), but yeah... other than replacing parts that broke, that's pretty much it. If you had told me that the next time out I'd be hot on the tail of a Norma M20 FC, I'd definitely ask for what you're smoking.
But I would not inhale.
If you're curious as to how I'm doing this, take a look at my profile for the link to Track Mustangs Online, where you can watch this whole process unfold from the beginning if you so choose, all of our ups and downs, and how I've decided to build her. I try to be pretty active, and it's a great community for all those track rats and racers who've decided that Mustangs are the way to do it. I spent an awful lot of time stalking and trying to limit my mistakes, and (then) one of the few with a 2018 Mustang GT, found out all the little intricacies that make it slightly different from the 15-17 models and the GT 350. It's not easy road racing the MT82-D4, but I guess somebody's got to do it.
Video Timings:
0:00 - Parade/Out Lap
1:16 - First Lap
3:14 - Second Lap (PB)
5:08 - Third Lap
7:02 - Cooldown / Woo-hooing