NASA Great Lakes “Race to Remember”
Fast Farmer Autosport Race 2
NASA GL Race to Remember
Mid Ohio Sportscar Course
May 22-24 2026
Thursday
Load-in for this event was pretty un-eventful, nothing really of note once we actually made it to the track. The drive there, on the other hand…. YIKES! Once we got into Ohio on US 30, we were faced with a steady 25mph crosswind. Our 27 foot enclosed trailer acted like a giant sail, causing the truck to be tossed all over the road. About the fastest speed I could manage and still stay in my lane was 63mph, and even that was sketchy at times. I think the trip ended up taking 30-45 minutes longer than normal, and I was exhausted from having to put real work in driving. But, we made it with no calamities, and once we had a good supper, and I had base camp all set up, I slept soundly.
Friday
Practice day for most NASA weekends, and I usually try to get at least 3 sessions on track, mainly to get myself fully prepped mentally. This time, however, I decided to sit out Friday. After how my NASA season opener went a month before, I just wanted a “clean” weekend where I could put the car in the trailer Sunday afternoon in better condition than when it rolled off the trailer Thursday evening. I also still had some minor repair work that needed done to the car to make it track worthy, so sitting out let me tackle that at my leisure. The biggest repair that needed done was welding a new brace to the rear bumper that had been damaged beyond repair in April. Derek Moorehead was kind enough to lend his fabricating and welding expertise to the project, and had everything back in order in less than 30 minutes. Friday evening, as a show of gratitude, my wife and I treated the entire Thunder Roadster group to a pizza party in one of the empty garages, since it was raining steadily. This was a “thank you” for all the help they gave me at the April event to get my blown engine swapped out with a good one in 4 hours' time Friday evening, so I could race on Saturday. Everyone enjoyed the warm food and being able to hang out in a dry, somewhat warm area together.
Saturday
While no longer raining hard, Saturday morning saw a steady drizzle combined with a very soggy track making the first several sessions dicey. We all affixed our rain tires before going out for the warmup session, and I was looking forward to getting some good track time to help move past April mentally. Unfortunately, after the first lap, I realized I had a problem. Every corner I went through, left, right, slow, fast, it didn't matter, I experienced a severe vibration from the right front. I tried fighting through it, hoping maybe it was just a stone stuck in the tire tread, or maybe excess rubber build up in the wheel and would clear itself up with time. Unfortunately, it just got worse, so I had to pull off and return to the paddock area. I didn’t feel like getting soaked trying to figure out the problem, so waited around a half hour until the rain stopped to investigate the car. My thought while on track was maybe I had forgot to torque down the lug nuts on that wheel, but they all seemed to be tight. I grabbed the tire and gave it a good shake, and that’s when I realized it had to be something with the suspension. The whole wheel would wobble side to side and top to bottom without much force, at this point I began to suspect a wheel bearing going bad. After jacking up the front of the car, I was able to rule out my hypothesis of a bearing going bad, but that left me with no clues as to what was going on, so I grabbed a couple of the other guys to get different view points and more eyes on the issue. We went through possible causes and eliminated them one after another, until someone noticed that the jam nut on the upper control arm was loose. After repositioning the ball joint, and tightening the jam nut, the wheel no longer wobbled, problem solved! Unfortunately, by the time I got everything buttoned back up, there were only 5 minutes left until we hit the track for our qualifying session, and since I still needed to put all my race gear on, I would miss out. Luckily, there were a couple of others that also didn’t go out for quali, and with my warmup time, I was able to start ahead of them in the race. By start time for our race Saturday afternoon, we had a mostly dry track, but very iffy weather in the forecast during the race. Everyone else decided to run their dry tires, but I stayed with the rains. I made that decision knowing it was a huge gamble, and if the track continued to dry, I wouldn’t have near the pace as everyone else, but there was a near 50% chance of rain about 10 minutes after the race would start, since I was starting near the back of a 17 car field, I decided it was worth the risk to potentially have a BIG advantage on everyone else, IF that rain shower ended up hitting the track. For the first couple of laps, I was able to hold my own, and actually had a little bit of an advantage in one section of track that was still fairly damp. Unfortunately, during lap 3, we were put under a full course caution that lasted multiple laps. By the time we went back to green, the sun had come out and even the wet sections of track were rapidly drying. By the last 2 laps of the race, my tires had given up, and I had to limp to the finish. BUT, I FINISHED! That was the first race I had finished in the Thunder Roadster, without mechanical issues, since August of the previous season. I also wasn’t last, due to 3 cars retiring early due to mechanical failures, and a couple more being disqualified for passing under yellow. After relishing a good result in the race, I got the car prepped for Sunday morning’s race, including putting my DRY tires on! For our evening’s entertainment, the majority of the group supervised some repair work being done on one of the cars. It was a good time, lol. After the sun went down, it got a bit chilly, so several of us took shelter between a couple of trailers, and rigged up a tv to watch the afternoon’s F1 sprint race and qualifying. After that, we retired to our trailer so I could rest up for the two Sunday races.
Sunday
When I exited the trailer Sunday morning, I was greeted with an absolutely beautiful morning. Our 10:30 race was going to be fun! We ran a “reverse” grid for the morning race, which means the faster cars from the last race start at the rear of the field, which put me in P3. I fell back to mid pack by the second lap, but seemed to be settling in at that spot, until once again, out of class cars caused a full course caution. Unfortunately, this time we would not get the green flag to resume the race, and after 5 laps at parade speed, the checkered flag flew, ending the race. To say I was bummed is a severe understatement, I really wanted a full race to get more seat time in the car. But, on the bright side, it was another clean finish to a race, making me 2 for 2 so far on the weekend. That left one final race for the weekend scheduled for 2:30 in the afternoon, giving me plenty of time to get most of our things packed up. Around 1:30, I started getting myself ready to race again, but the weather had started to turn for the worse once more. After some back and forth with myself, I decided to go ahead and load up my wet tires, leaving only the dry’s that were already on the car as my tire option. If it rained before our race, I simply wouldn’t go out, and get my clean weekend I so desperately needed. By the time I had suited up, a light mist had started falling, but it was so light that had it stopped, there would have been no impact to grip levels of the track, so I went to my grid spot and waited to go on track. Unfortunately, while sitting on grid, that light mist changed at first to a heavy sprinkle, then finally a steady drizzle as we were being released onto track. About halfway around the pace lap, I encountered a couple of places where the car just wouldn’t turn and I thought I was going to go off even at pace speed. Faced with those conditions and running dry tires, me and a couple of the others pulled off when we came back around to pit road. It just wasn’t worth ruining a weekend where nothing had broke by trying to race on a slick track with the wrong tire compound.
While it was far from a great weekend racing, it was successful, in that my car suffered no mechanical failures, and I finished both races I started. Next up is NASA’s annual June visit to GingerMan Raceway on the shores of beautiful Lake Michigan, followed by a trip to the Sunshine State for a 12 hour overnight endurance race at Sebring with Open Throttle.
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