Nor Cal Honda Challenge Round 2 by Devin Raynal

	Race Results per MyLaps.com   March 8th, 2008 March 9th, 2008 Photo Gallery Click here to view the gallery!

It feels like I start out every race report with a "Wow" type of entry because of a crazy weekend. Well, I guess racing is just crazy in general. This weekend of March 8-9th was no exception. We need to take a step back on this one to the conclusion of the last race on Sunday Feb. 11th. If you remember correctly I was t-boned in turn 7 at Infineon Raceway on the final lap. That weekend ended on a very bad note. Once we got back from the track the car was down at the body shop the next day.

Since the car was at the body shop getting fixed we obviously could not work on it. In the meantime we got to work on my teammate's car. Now our team consists of three Honda Challenge cars. With only a month in between the races we were a little worried as to when we would get my car back. We got the car back with a week to spare. We proceeded to give the car a complete once over. Everything checked out well. We were even surprised that all of my suspension settings had not been changed by the accident. Whew! We dodged an expensive bullet there. All I had to do now was clean off all the body shop dust and put on all the stickers on the passenger side of the car that were damaged in the wreck.

It was time to head to the track on Friday March 7th. My parents towed the car to the track early on Friday with me traveling up later due to me unfortunately having to work. Gotta work to play. I arrived at the track at about 7:30pm. The sun was going down and it was getting cold. I then put on a few more last minute stickers and then headed to the hotel for some rest before a action packed weekend.

We got to the track early to get some last minute tech inspections and registration taken care of. Our practice session was at 8am sharp. I was still a bit concerned that something was going to be wrong with my car because of the previous accident. I was pleasantly surprised with the car. Everything worked awesome. I was a bit perturbed with the session though due to the ridiculous amount of cars that were on the track. There was over 90 cars in our run group. No, that is not a typo. It was really 90 cars. It was crazy out there. There was absolutely no opportunity for any car to get an open lap to get some good lap times. Nonetheless, we were able to put down the 4th fastest lap time out of 16 Honda Challenge cars. I was happy with this because we were faster than several other cars that had 30 to 40 more horsepower and torque than my little old stock type r.

Everything was good with the car after the practice session so we were ready for qualifying. Our qualifying session was at 10:30am. Over 90 cars in a qualifying session is gonna mean some slow lap times. This was the case. My lap time was a second slower than my previous fastest lap at Thunderhill Raceway. However, I was still gridded up on the front row for the race. I was to be in the second position. I was excited about this because the last time I started out on the front row I won the race. As far as how the car was doing it was good. My only complaint was about my new wing on Thunderhill's long straights. It feels like my car struggles halfway down the straights due to the added down force created by the wing. Oh well, I will just have to deal with it until I get a bigger and more powerful motor(coming next race).

Race time! Our race group was thankfully reduced to about 60 cars. That is still a huge amount of cars but much better than 90. We gridded up behind one other run group. There was to be two separate green flag starts. This would have been very cool but unfortunately my teammate jumped the start when the first green dropped. This disqualified him from the race. As our green dropped I got a great start and took the lead into turn 1. Coming out of turn 1 the 2 cars with all that power and torque got by me coming into turn 2. I hung with the front runners for about 3 laps until we encountered lapped traffic. I pulled away to a 30 second gap in between me and the 4th place car. That is how we all finished. We were on the podium again! This was awesome since the first race of the season we had some bad luck that kept us off the podium. The race was good and so was the car. We checked it all over and nothing was wrong. Can't wait for Sunday's race.

Sunday started off nicely. We did not have our practice session until 9:30am. We did not have to go out on a cold and slick track like we normally do when we go out at 8am. The practice session was not that good due the the 90 plus cars out on the track again. We went out for about 6 laps just to get the car fully up to temp and to scrub in some tires that we were running for the first time of the weekend. All was good. We were fourth fastest again just like Saturday. We checked out the car after the practice and everything checked out good like usual. Now we can look forward to a hectic qualifying.

Qualifying was absolutely ridiculous! We were only able to get in 2 laps of qualifying before another car rolled over in turn 2 putting an end to our session. We did however manage to get ourselves gridded in the 3rd position for the race. It was a good thing that we only did two laps because my transmission started to grind really bad on up shifts and down shifts. After the session we changed the tranny fluid, bled the clutch, and checked the shift linkage. All we could do now was cross our fingers and hope that the tranny would hold on for the whole race.

Sunday's race was to be just like Saturday's with the two separate green flag starts. Today was much better. No one jumped the start in our run group. On the drop of the green I was able to get up to 2nd place but by turn 2 one of the big motor cars got by me by turn 2. I was able to stay with the leaders until a very unfortunate thing happened to a very good friend of mine and competitor. Coming into turn 5 the leader clipped a lapped traffic car and flipped his car 4 times on the infield outside of turn 5. This collected the second place driver as well. I was able to get by the incident without harm. Due to the severity of the crash the race was red flagged after only completing 5 laps. This gave me the victory. I never want to win that way. Luckily my friend was okay and just badly bruised up. With how the wreck looked I thought the worst may have happened. It was truly a scary moment. On a lighter note I was on the podium once more and now only 30 points out of first in the championship and only 10 points out of second. Things are definitely heating up. This all just in time for my new bigger and more powerful motor. I will miss my little engine that could. Who would have thought that a stock type r with cams could win 3 times against K24's, K20's, H22's, and B20 vtecs? Let's see how we do with comparable power now.

Thank you so much for all your support. I truly could never do this without the help and support from my family and sponsors. I am forever grateful for all your help in our successes. The championship is right there. Let's go get it!

Sincerely,

Devin Raynal
Raynal Racing Civic Si #6