Wishing

everyone a

safe and fun

Halloween

Trick

Or

 Treat!!

Before I begin expressing our “glee” over our recent sweep of the Johnson Valley series, I would like to offer thanks from the Patterson family to everyone that recently called to check on us or offer help.  I returned Sunday from the RallyX in JV to find my family under a recommended evacuation due to the fires near our residence.  We have since returned to our home and were amazed to find everything just as we left it. (Well, maybe a little sootier…)

THANK YOU FROM THE PATTERSON FAMILY

On to happier subjects…

After significant repairs to the sub-frame of the Neon, we were ecstatic with the performance the car turned out for us on Sunday.  (Gorman took a lot out of us mentally and physically, not to mention the giant holes in the undercarriage…of the car. Not us.  We were told a number of times, if we could make it through Gorman, we could make it through any Rally out there. We certainly agree now!) 

While Johnson Valley was not a full-fledged, multi-day Rally, it certainly offered us a viable testing ground for our welds/repairs. Everything held up though and we should be set for a while. We tried to over-engineer the “flawed” design of the cross-member mounting bolts and it looks like it worked. Again, many thanks are to due to Kris Marciniak (Team RallyNotes) for all his guidance on this project. The first-hand experience with similar problems or situations really cuts down on the workload and aggravation.

Coming into the weekend, we had a pretty good idea of our standings in the Johnson Valley series.  Up until the last moment we were surveying the registration site, watching for either Mark Anton or Mike Malsed, but neither made it to the event to challenge our scores.  Their absense certainly relieved some of the pressures of pushing the newly repaired car beyond its limits just for a win, though you wouldn’t have known it by the times the two of us were able to turn in.

All-in-all, it was a great day. We both enjoyed the two courses (not too many key-hole, double/triple hairpin loop-d-loops).  Each course was very well laid out for a series championship, with lots of wide open and long butt-draggin’ sweepers.  Props to Jayson for not only the layout, but also for putting together a great event and championship wrap-up.  I think everybody out there had a blast no matter how they fared.

The one-two punch of the WTF Racing team rolled through with a 1st/2nd overall for the JV series. Kevin took first and Jake took second in the series. Not to be outdone for the day, Jake took the fastest lap time on the second course by nearly 2 seconds. Kevin laid the fastest lap time for the first course, on top of a dangerously tight race with the Team’s mentor, Kris Marciniak in his Rallynotes Neon.  By the end of the day, Kevin managed to take second place for JV 5 with the slightest of margins behind Kris…0.7 seconds in a total race range of 300 seconds.

Nippin’ at the heels!!!