Officially back in Texas. Sebring is a cursed track to me now.
Wednesday
Started everything off bad on Wednesday. Flight was delayed 3 hours, kids crying the entire way. Get our rental, start heading up from Tampa. Stop off at Burger King to get a bite quick. Guess the "fast" in "fast food" was dropped at this specific Burger King. 45 minutes later, we eat and head back out. Get to the track at about to start jacking cars up and nut-bolt checking everything.
Thursday
Promoter Test day is underway. Bob gets 5 laps in when....
Motor goes. Oil pressure relief spring was bound wide open and boom!! Before the car even was off the flatbed, Bob was on the line with a Chevy dealer getting another crate LS3. $7,500 and 2 hours later, this arrived:
As this was being broken down, the Orange #65 was complaining about rear brake bias. Bled them and was ready for session 2.
The Yellow #99 had an oil pressure sensor failure before it even left the paddock.
Friday
Everyone is tired. Bob's #98 is getting the motor put in, trans stabbed, driveshaft, ect. Tom's #65 is ready for Practice 1, Geoff's #99 is ready for Practice 1, Mel's #53 is ready. Cars roll out.
Tom jumps on the radio screaming "I've lost power!!" Car gets flat bedded in. I look it over to find the oil line from the sump tank to the scavenge in on the oil pump had delaminated and fallen off. I thought, "Oh E36 M3, we've seized it". It still turns over, so we top the tank with oil, new line on and wait for the next practice session.
Geoff hits oil and slides off track. Here is the result:
Session 2 comes up. Bob's car fires up 24 hours later with a new motor built overnight. All 4 cars roll off. Bob turns the 2nd quickest time!! Tom comes on the radio and says "we've done blow'd up..." Motor spun some rods, leading to this:
Out for sure. Geoff's car had burned up a clutch trying to get out of some sand. Mel just kept on motoring.
Get the cars back to the paddock. Tom says to clean up the oil and stick the car on the trailer. New clutch swap is underway on Geoff's car. Bob's and Mel's cars on thru tech and getting nut and bolted.
Saturday
Get to the track at 6:30, laundry list of stuff to do. Getting 3 cars prepped for Quali when Tom comes up and says "I got a motor..."
Ah yea. He got Kurt Roehig's spare for $4,500 under the agreement that if Kurt blew up in quali, he'd take his motor back. If not, we can swap it in.
Quali is under way. Geoff doesn't get a full lap in when he jumps on the radio and says "it's un-driveable!!" Panhard bar got knocked out of position and rubbed on the drive shaft. He's starting 2nd from last. Bob got the 3rd quickest time and says the motor feels like "a Miata, missing 4 cylinders..." Mel starts 14th or 15th.
Roehig comes up and says he's good to go, so we start disassembling the #65 drive train at 4:00. Motor, trans, harness, lines, fluids, ect in. Motor fires at 1 am. Off to bed.
Sunday
First session is the "hardship" session. Geoff and Tom go out. Geoff has, yet again, a clutch failure. Tom does the whole session incident free. Finally a smile on my face.
Geoff's gearbox get ripped out, clutch packs replaced and trans back in in about 25 minutes.
Morning Warmup comes up. All 4 cars go to grid. Session is basically incident free until Geoff's waterpump goes. The pressed in fitting going from the pump to the rad overflow blew right off. Mel, Tom and Bob's cars run.
Race.
We get the cars to pregrid. All 4 cars are cleaned, lined up, drivers finally have smiles on their faces. The crew have artificial smiles. Myself and Kenny (nother crew member) did some calculating and came up to 20 hours at the track the last 2 days. Drivers get in, radios checked, drink bottles topped off, good to go.
Race starts. Tom and Geoff, starting at the back of the TA2 pack instantly get around 5 or 6 cars by turn 1. Tom gets to turn 7 when I get "the car has no berkeleying power!!!!" He comes in, swearing the all the plug wires had fallen off. I check them all (have burn marks on my wrist to prove it), check throttle linkage, ect, send him back out. He does a lap, mostly swear words were used in describing the power, ends up pulling it back to the paddock. Done.
Geoff gets about 5 laps in when going down to turn 5, he gets rubbed up by another car. Their front splitter cuts down Geoff's left front. Brake zone = no brakes. He T-bones another car. Done.
Bob gets a good jump and gets in the lead of the TA2 pack. He and Cameron Lawrence and Kurt Roehig were battling when Bob and Roehig get together. Bob's right front tie-rod collapses. Done.
The only car we had left was old-man-Mel. By attrition alone, he finishes 7th.
Get all the cars back to the paddock. Start tearing down our spot in the paddock, which looks like a bomb went off in. Just as we load the first car on the tailgate of the rig to go up, the left post twists and seizes. At this point, I say "berkeley this". We ended up leaving the tool boxes, cars and tires out and is currently be fixed by a mobile truck repair guy.
This was my weekend in hell, also known as Sebring. 
