Mike Kojima posted on April 22, 2010 22:00
Bleary eyed and filled with caffeine, a few hours later the crew began staging the cars for Qualifying. The entire session had been shortened, as it was to be split, with the GT cars going the first 12 minutes, and the TC and GTS cars heading out for the second 12. As they went out on track, Gardner constantly watched his gauges, radioing back to the crew the status. Things were looking good, but the entire session was spent with an eagle eye on the dash, looking for anything that could cost the team another motor.
Gardner was working on a decent flier when he caught the Mazda RX-8 of Eric Meyer doing a cool down lap going into Turn 1. That would put an end to the flier, but the car looked to be in good shape…frustrating, but some good news was to come. When the results came in, Stout had barely gotten edged out by Nick Wittmer in the RealTime Civic Si. The difference was the same two-tenths from the second practice, but this time it had gone RealTime’s way. Still, the team now sat with the 18 and 36 cars, second and fourth on grid respectively.
The race was to take place that afternoon. The 18 car was looking good, but the 36 showed some minor signs of detonation. World-Class tuner Shawn Church of Church Automotive Testing sprung into action, analyzing the logs and emailing Gardner a tweaked map for the new motor. This was to be the final step of the motor swap.
As the race approached, both cars took their starting spots and prepared for the standing start. The light boxes extinguished and both Scions churned their front tires, boiling a bit, but launching hard forward. Stout mostly held his line, as Gardner made a move to the inside up against the wall. He passed a few cars and then situated on the back bumper of the 18 car, on the outside of Turn 1. GTS and TC cars were now intermingled and it looked like the cars would go 3 or 4 wide into the first turn. Gardner moved to the inside, and then moments later got rammed by Meyer’s Mazda, putting a hole in the Scion, and tearing off the RX-8s front bumper.
Stout stood his ground and followed Wittmer’s Civic through the mayhem, holding onto the second spot, as Gardner moved up into third. Coming back around and entering the hairpin, the RealTime Civic got a bad exit, allowing both Stout and Gardner to make a run on the leader. Stout motored by before start-finish, but Gardner would see Wittmer make his one move hard to the inside to thwart Gardner from getting around. As Gardner swung to the outside, the Civic made another move down the straight to block that lane, then weaved a bit, until bailing out to go track right in preparation for Turn 1.
Gardner stayed inside, late-braked, bounced of the apex and moved track right. On the way to the Fountain, Wittmer crashed into Gardner, causing the Scion to lose a mirror, but Gardner stood his ground and took the position. Stout and Gardner were now 1-2. The Civic started to slow, and the team would later learn he had flattened his tire after making contact with Gardner. As the Civic pulled into the pits, Meyer took over third and began hunting down Gardner. All the while, Stout started to pull away.
