Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/745887
November / December 2016 17 good. Our regular crew eventually became Al Hess, Eric Peterson, Kris Loveless, and myself with many fill in stints from Wes Mc- Cullough and Mike Lyle. The girls were always supporting us and traveling with us whenever they could, so cookies were typically plentiful, which keeps me happy. #1 rule of endurance racing…. keep Crew Chief #1 happy. Crew Chief #2 was also in the hot pits often, keeping every- one in line. Two barks for pit in, one bark for keep going. Al led the team like Teddy Roosevelt leading the Rough Riders charge up Kettle Hill, always in the hunt. I may have missed a few tracks, but we ran this car numerous times at Iowa Speed- way, MAM, Heartland Park, High Plains Raceway, Brainerd, Texas World Speedway, Hallett, Eagles Canyon, Hastings Motor- sports Park, and wait for it…….Circuit of the Americas. To my last count, I estimate we had over 550 RACE hours on the same engine in the car, let alone countless num- bers of track days, HPDE's and a handful of sprint races. Folks….that's a lot, unheard of actually. Prep for each endurance race was between 10-20 hours, let alone what it took to organize accommodations, travel, etc. to the races. It couldn't have happened without a huge team effort. Over the years, she underwent constant upgrades and modifications, eventually be- coming the first (and still possibly the only) Porsche to win a 1st overall and 1st in class in a Chump Car race, pulling off this enor- mous feat at Hastings. Then we moved her into the World Racing League series, a much stronger, cleaner, and faster series than Chump. The car faithfully came home with a pile of podiums between the two series with very few failures. The paint scheme changed over the years, but the name stayed the same. Her final paint job was Ferrari red on the hood and roof and, well…..I don't know, tractor black on the fenders. With our faithful leader slowing down in the rac- ing scene, we took her out for one last run at Hallett this last weekend with WRL. It wasn't a great weekend for the car, but we had a lot of fun, as fun has always been the #1 priority. An oil cooler bracket broke an hour or two into the race, and scraped a hole in the cool- er. Al drove the car into the pits, and then up to the trailer for repair with ZERO oil in the engine. Kris Loveless and I bypassed the cooler with what parts we had, filled it with an oddball assortment of oil we could muster up, fired it up and set it back out on the track. Ready for Hallett Race in 2015 Ready for MAM Race in 2015