DivaSpeed at WERC series at Buttonwillow Raceway

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April 26, 2008;
Buttonwillow with Donna and Glory

Well, it has been a while since I have updated the website and a lot has
happened my friends!

Divaspeed had their 2nd race of the WERC series at Buttonwillow Raceway on
April 26th.

The very beautiful Glory came out from Puerto Rico to race with me and we
had a very challenging weekend. Glory has never been to this track before so
she had the challenging task of learning a new track all over again. Ron
Carroll our regular Crew chief had a World Challenge race so he could not
make it to our enduro. Ron Cortez from Aim Tires and also one of our
sponsors hauled the car down for us and we used his trailer. Greg Toucan did
the mechanical work on our car.

We decided as a team that I would qualify the car since I am more familiar
with the track. I had a super run going and was 2 seconds up on my fastest
time at the 3/4 mark. Well, I caught Steve Borlik at the back section of the
track and unfortunately, I lost all that time I was up on a screamer. I
ended up posting a qualifying time of 2:03.5. If I would have had that great
clean lap, it would have been a low 2:01 for sure and overall pole position!

We ended up qualifying 1st in class by several positions and 3rd overall!

Glory started the race and did another great job keeping the car in one
piece.

She lost a couple of positions to Jeremy Croiset and Benny the Frenchman.
But they had to come in for fuel sooner than we did, so she made up a
position and handed the car over to me in 2nd place in E2.

We did our driver change at the halfway mark and it went smoothly. In
Glory's turn behind the wheel, she reported on the radio that their was a
pretty bad vibration in the car but did not know what it was. Well, when I
got in the car and felt the vibration I was afraid what it was. The CV joint
on the right front wheel was going out on us. It was all we could do to keep
the car running and just try to hang on and finish the race. 4 laps into my
stint, the right front drive shaft proceeded to finish breaking going into
T2. And it was one wild spin! Right as it broke, the boot spewed all the
grease in the drive shaft, then suddenly, wham, I was totally sideways
slipping on the grease trying to save the spin! We ended this enduro
finishing, but back in class, unfortunately due to mechanical breakdown. Had
we not had mechanical issues, we surely would have won this enduro, for
sure!

Stay tuned for more exciting Divaspeed racing! -Donna Gilio