Shakedown Cruise

Saturday morning started with a trip out to Wide Open Baja's Horsepower Ranch to find PCI radios so that we could get the race channel programmed into the radios in the car and the two chase trucks. While we were there, we ran into Dave Feldkamp, an old friend of Nikki's from the Atlantic car racing world and told him that we were racing and raising money for kids with disabilities. He offered to help us out by spreading the word. An email message to Kathy Jolliff and Mitchell Stauber, part of our home base crew, and the wonders of modern technology made it possible for Dave to download and print off the flyers he wants, right here in Baja. Wow!
After we got the radios programmed, we split up: Team 1 went to go get their tourist visas. I'll have to let them tell that story. Team 2 headed over to Estero Beach for Pit Distribution. When we got there, Rod, who had been there with Trackside Performance and the JSMDA crew for an hour already, was heavy in the action of helping to set up areas where the various cars and motorcycle for the JSMDA contingent could put their pit signs, fuel cans, water and spare tires for the various pit crews to pick up and take on down the peninsula. That process took about 5 hours and maybe 10-30 bodies.
When Team 1 joined us at Estero Beach, we pulled the car off the trailer. John took Gabe out for his introductory spin in the car. Then Gabe and Jake got their first seat time at a little dirt track, right there at Estero Beach. They said it runs well and strong, but we discovered that the front end shimmy we thought we had fixed, isn't really fixed. That could be a big problem for us. Dave, Tony, and Keith set to work to create a makeshift alignment table, using the trailer, some slabs of wood, and a tape measure and started to experiment. Nancy and Tony got in the car, so Nancy could learn a little about how the car handles. She's certainly not afraid of the car, after a few minutes of getting a feel for it, she was ripping around the corners and launching the car over the jumps! John and Rodney are working on the 21st version of the logistics plan- it changes by the minute.
We're getting excited though and the team is starting to gel a little more.