Just days after Savanna returned home from filming the Hot Wheels show, we set off on our next big adventure: the 8fiftyone East Coast Tour 2023!
Our first objective just a mere 24 hour drive away in New York. We already knew Watkins Glen was a track to get stoked on, and to expect bad weather at... It did not disappoint on either
front. Nick had been putting in hours on the sim fortunately, as it would turn out our only dry session was the first one on Friday. With those lovely blue guard rails embracing the entire track, we figured we would aim to have clean, uneventful races with the 50 car GLTC field that has become common place with GRIDLIFE race weekends. We left the weekend with a still shiny car, a bit of hardware (Nick was awarded the Spirit of GLTC Award), and hope that next year will bring fairer weather so we can really enjoy that beautiful place!
Well we already drove all the way to New York, why not stay a bit longer and find another race track to check off the list? Surely we didn't find a viable excuse, so off we went to S2K TakeOver at the obscure New York Safety Track in upstate New York the following week. The track was interesting, twisty, blind, and very green with multiple configurations. The
atmosphere of all the like minded track
prepped S2000 owners was fun, and it reminded us of the simplicity of having a street car you can drive to and from the track. That notion was particularly not lost on us while pulling the transmission to replace a damaged clutch fork. Even with a few "race car problems" it was great to connect with the S2K community on the East Coast and get some seat time at a new track!
Next stop: Global Time Attack x Formula Drift Road Atlanta. Plus a detour (or two?) to pick up Savanna's mom's Corvette C8 and a new Ram 3500. Our trusty 350k mile work horse had about enough of our shenanigans, so while she was at the dealer getting some TLC we went ahead and cruised the used car lot. Oddly enough they had a low mileage 2019 Ram 3500 DRW Big Horn on the lot, so we went ahead and bought it. We hooked that bad boy up to our 48' Gooseneck and sent it on down to Georgia just in time for load in.
Neither the S2000 or the C8 are set up for time attack, but it was fun to revisit our old home track and see what the cars could do. Surprisingly, Savanna was able to put the bone stock C8 top five in Limited Class at the end of the weekend. More importantly both cars performed reliably and stayed shiny, so that left us wondering: Where to next?
Barber! Of course. If you road race and haven't been, believe the hype, and make the trip because Barber is rad. We killed a week at Mom's house in the North Carolina mountains, and off we went to Barber with the S2000 and C8 in tow. It was a fun track day for both of us to get out to one of our favorite tracks and get some more seat time. Nick decided to install an upgraded radiator he bought when we were in NY, and unfortunately, it would turn out to be clogged, which resulted in a blown head gasket on the K24.
So we took the C8 back to NC and then set off for our next race in Daytona, Florida. First we stopped by a JDM engine importer in Orlando, and bought 6 JDM K24A's off of them. Then, we headed out to see our racing family at Enjuku Racing, who kindly offered us a lift to
replace the engine! We swapped the engine out, nut and bolt checked, got the car on the alignment machine and corner balanced just in time to head south to Daytona for 14 hours of racing!
Nick was super excited to spend his birthday weekend racing at Daytona! Practice and qualifying went super well, and we left the track friday night feeling the best we have
ever felt about that car and the effort our team put in. As racing often does, we were humbled early on in the first hour of the race with an incident resulting in serious damage to our left front corner and left rear suspension. We had every spare to get the car back on track, we noticed that the frame was a bit tweaked, but we were able to get the car aligned enough we felt comfortable getting back out there for the experience and seat time for our other drivers. At some point a piece inside the transmission gave way, eventually locking out 4th gear and then 3rd gear, forcing us to retire with only a few hours left. It was certainly a weekend of highs and lows, but that is the nature of this sport.
So, where does that leave us? With a whole lot of work to restore this car to its former glory and some pretty rad memories from 7 weeks of living on the East Coast out of our race rig. We didn't even really get into all the adventures we had in-between races like rock climbing, surfing, hiking, kitties, fishing and hanging with friends and family. Savanna's sister called us "race car dirt baggers", and we wouldn't have it any other way.
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