Slimer towed the new trailer and POS13 just fine over the WV mountain pass, being a solid 1000+ pounds lighter, and having good modulating brakes made all the difference!
So I rolled into the morning of Day 2 of the double header and found some free paddock space:
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It was great to be out at the event, chat with folks I hadn't seen in a while, and test out the few changes I'd made in the off season. We were on the 'other' side of the hill than I've typically run in the past, and that meant the surface was a bit rougher, but there were more straights, some real braking zones, and some higher speed offset gates.
Our group was up first, and it was immediately apparent that the gearing changes and locked diff were a huge improvement over last year. I was in the meat of 2nd for the whole run, and it had plenty of torque even up the hill from the pivot turn. It was like I was in that mythical 2nd gear in an STi 6speed. Having working front brakes made a noticeable difference, on the first couple runs, I was too timid with braking, and was bleeding speed too early. Certainly leaving some time on the table with my driving there.
Since this event was a bit faster with transitions, I needed all the front end bite I could get... but with the balder tires up front, and newfound grip out back, I was struggling with placing the car and fighting a bit of understeer. My runs were dirty, my driving was rusty, but I think the times were ~81s raw, which isn't terrible.
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I was also overwhelming the new powersteering fluid reservoir with all the back and forth, so I should likely try to plumb in a cooler in the future.
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At the start of the 3rd run, I was chatting with my passenger, and when it came my turn to pull up to the start line, I realized that hey, my car wasn't running?! I always let it run between runs with the fans on, and on this 100 degree day, it needed all the cooling it could get! The straight piped Commanche grided next to me was so loud I didn't notice that my car had died.
No idea what happened, but my turn to get up to the start line, I hopped out quickly and ran up to the engine. The Antigravity battery I have has a 'restart' function to self-jump itself. So I hit the button, dash lights were back on, and it fired right up. Headed up to the start line, get the nod from the starter, and rev it up... Dead. All the electrons left the building. Obviously, something is wrong, so pointed downhill and I just pushed it out of the way at the start and went back to get my multimeter.
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Battery sitting at 0.8V, and I was getting flashbacks to the previous battery issues I was having. So I said some prayers to the car gods, sacrificed some animals at the alter of Ohm, and pressed the restart button again, this got me enough electric juju to drive just off the course to an unused section, and point myself downhill.
At the lunch break, Slimer navigated out onto the course to rescue the stricken car. (I hit 5 less cones with the trailer than I did with the car!)
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I got most of the way onto the trailer with gravity, but then I got my trusty jump pack out, and paralleled it with the battery, and was able to fire up the car OK, multimeter still only showed 12.04 V, so I'm guessing the alternator decided it was too damn hot and dusty to whirly gig it's way to a flow of electrons.
After that it was just another day at the beach:
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I left early after working my afternoon shift, and the tow back was uneventful, other than being greeted by the now typical scrape up the driveway.
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As SWMBO asked: Was all this time, money, and drama worth it for two runs? Nope, probably not. Will I do it all over again for the next one? Absolutely.