I don't want to brake for corner 1, but every part of me knows she'll push wide if I don't. Lifting at the last possible moment and tapping the brakes lightly the car comes down on the curbing, bounces over it and I mash the throttle as the road falls away downhill and every ounce of focus goes toward the left rear tire. Many cars have met the concrete wall by applying too much power too early here. The first shift light comes on and I'm really flying at 110 mph - the car has never experienced this much speed approaching corner 2. I know I'm really pushing it now.
When the second shift light comes on a few moments later, I can't help but smile as I approach the best part of the track: turn 2. I turn in with the utmost of delicacy and see the road dip down. Any twitch of the steering wheel will cause the car to slide, potentially right into the tire wall - not something I want to do, especially since Yukes hasn't even had a chance to drive. I finish off a few more laps and realize I'd better cool it because things are heating up a bit too fast for an early morning practice session.
Next session, Yukes goes out and gets comfortable. He comes back and admits he loves Mosport and is already trying to find all the speed possible. You can tell he's passionate about racing because every spare moment is spent looking at data or watching video comparing where the speed is, how a certain corner drops off or where a deceiving apex is. Imagine how difficult it would be to strap into a car you've never driven, on the wrong side, at one of the most treacherous tracks in the world, knowing you had one day to get it all sorted before your race. That's the situation Yukes had to deal with.
During Saturday qualifying the car feels even better than the Friday morning practice session. My goal for the weekend was a 1:29.00 lap, which I achieved on the very first lap. Needless to say, in qualifying trim with the front bumper all taped up and the wing trimmed out, we had shaved a full second off our expectations. My new optimistic goal was to hit 1:28.00, and sure enough, I put down a 1:28.576 in qualifying. The car had more grip than I could have ever hoped for; I was literally riding the fourth gear rev limiter (now set to 7400 rpm, bumped 200 rpm from previous because we were revving out everywhere) down corner 4. And when I say "riding," I mean the entire chassis was bucking down the hill (when it feels that good, your eyes get lazy and you rest your helmet against the seat's head support and enjoy the ride).
But there's one problem with running the engine to 7400 rpm - it's a bone-stock, non-revup VQ, which has a factory rev limit of 6600 rpm. And they are known to throw rods above 7200. For that reason, we lowered the limit to 7000 rpm for the three-hour enduro race. Finishing was the name of the game, and this wasn't the time to get cocky.
With an excellent qualifying time, we placed first in class and second overall to a Viper Competition Coupe with a great deal more power, tire and aero. We decided Yukes would start the race and run until the car was damn near out of fuel, where we would pit for fuel and tires and switch drivers. For the three-hour race we were hoping we'd be able to do just one stop, but after calculating the fuel used on a few practice laps, it didn't look good. To make it work there would have to be an extended full-course yellow, and even then it would be tight. If we could one-stop it, we knew we stood a good chance of overall victory; the Viper would need to stop twice at the absolute minimum.
Being a semi-pro team, all the hired guns aren't so much - hired. They're more like good friends volunteering. With only a few late-night practice sessions at the shop, we were far from a well-seasoned endurance race team. Regardless, we had the energy and the passion. We also had a pretty decent pit setup with the potential to be very efficient.