It's OK. We'll just all wait here for you.

Bobby Rahal made a good point at the last American Le Mans Series Stakeholders Meeting. Bobby made the point that for those who do not go to Le Mans in June, that entire month is wasted not racing and we, as participants of the series, lose mindshare of race fans during the hiatus. Makes perfect sense. I read into Bobby’s statement that perhaps we don’t need to have such a hectic August if we utilized the month of June for racing (or even July)!

As Helmut mentioned below, the month of August is nuts. We’ve got three race weekends in the month (Mid Ohio, Road America, Mosport). That is truly nuts. What’s really crazy is that I booked a business trip during one of the free weekends in August (Aug 22 & 23) thus I’ve got no time to spend at home which puts me in a dangerous negative wife-equity position. Suggestions welcomed in increasing my husband value, but please refrain from any PG-13/R-rated comments…

As for the next race, at Mosport, I will be accompanied by the famous and talented Sam Mitani of Road and Track. There are those who say they cannot tell us apart, based on our imposing physique. Sam will be doing a very interesting article that you’ll see in his Countersteer column in R&T. Stay tuned.

Modern Cowboys

Cup of bacon, cup of coffee.

Cowboys didn’t die, they just moved to motorsports.

Roaming the country, working from sunup to sundown, and enjoying the after hours.

That is the life for me.

And boy-howdy has this month been a haul. Three races in four weeks, from Ohio to Wisconsin to Canada. So far two down and one to go. So here is the mid-stride recap:

Mid-Ohio – Thanks to the ALMS Vitesse Program, I got a chance to see the track from behind the windshield. This was a drastic change from the usual vantage point of behind the pit box screens during the races. Thanks again, ALMS. The track is short, but rather complex with a number of blind corners. My hats off to the drivers since they are hard to see in a production car, let alone a VERY LOW race car. Oh and there was a race too. Here is the play-by-play.

Road America – Before the race weekend officially started,

I donned a different Helmut to check out the track with the Tour de Road America. The Tour is connected to the Livestrong Foundation and raises money for numerous charities. And what a way to see the track! On a bike, hills are longer and steeper, surface changes are much more noticeable and apexes can be found much easier. So when the rain started to come down during the weekend, I already knew where the problems would occur. And there was a few, fortunately no one was seriously hurt. Be sure to catch all the action next week when it airs on SPEED.

And to show that it is possible to have world peace, here is Yokohama’s very own Ad visoR playing football with a representative of an unnamed-tire-company.

Look forward to another post from C-EH-N-EH-D-EH in a few weeks.

KC Highlights Midnight Special

It's the middle of the summer during the hottest time of the year in the desert and yet we still go out and race off-road. Thank goodness this was a night race and the temperature Gods were with us. The Yokohama Off-Road racing team was out in full force this weekend and claimed the overall victory with Class 1 racer Josh Daniel. Josh's race car is fitted with the Geolandar A/T-S-R purpose built off-road racing tire. Josh had no flat tires and started and finished on all four original tires. Cameron brought Josh on board the Yokohama team and he is a very talented driver. We are getting very close with this project tire and thanks to Cameron and Josh for giving these tires a thorough workout. All the miles put on these tires will pay off soon. We will continue to make improvements to the tire as we add more race vehicles to our testing stable.

The race started at 7:00pm and the team leader Cameron Steele started 3rd off the line. Shortly after the first lap of the 44 mile course Cameron passed the first two trucks and took the lead with Josh 1 minute behind in second place. Cameron was stretching out his lead over the rest of the pack when on lap 3 he called in over the radio to the main pit that there was fluid spraying all over the floor and on the dash board of the truck. Fluid spraying inside the cab of the truck is never a good sign but after they realized it was transmission fluid and not motor oil there was a small sigh of relief. It took a couple hours but they were able to change the transmission in the middle of the desert at night and finish the race.

The Yokohama main pit was full of activity all night as we were providing main pit support for 7 different race vehicles. Team Yokohama/Desert Assassins/Ashcraft Racing/Dailey Motorsports/Danzio Performance were all battling for overall and class wins. Of the 7 cars, 4 won their class.

Josh Daniel (overall)

Pat Dailey/ Cody Agee (5-1600)

Adam Ashcraft (1/2-1600)

Trey Piersall/Cody Stuart (unlimited sportsman)

Next race, Primm 300