Formula Dé February race

by Ed Rozmiarek

Super Bowl Sunday found us racing at Elkhart Lake in Wisconsin for the second race of the 2004 season. This track has several very long straights so we all expected lots of 5th and 6th gear action today. We weren't disappointed.

Highlights from this month's race included:

• Lots of 5th and 6th gear action meant the possibility for a lot of engine damage. Interesting enough, no one was knocked out of the race due to engine failure, however a couple of people were close. Susan raced the last lap and a half with 1 engine point left and Dan finished only one point left. Since both of them were in the top half of the pack, most of us were cheering anytime a 20 or 30 was rolled.
• The careful drivers who did not need to pit benefitted from the long front straight at Elkhart Lake. These drivers blazed down the front straight in 5th and 6th gear while those that pitted lost several turns slowing down getting into and out of the pits (thanks to our 4th gear pit entry speed limit house rule).
• After battling for first place with several others during the first lap, Robert skipped the pits and built a big lead for lap 2. Although he did pit after lap 2 and allowed Mark to catch up some, Robert was able to hold the lead for the entire lap 3 and cruised home to his first win.
• In yet another "Opps, what did I roll?" move, Jon rolled the 5th gear die going in to the last corner on the third lap. This caused him to crash just before the finish. Not that it hurt much as he moved from 7th to 9th place and only lost one point for not finishing.
• New paint jobs on several cars including Dan's yellow "Happy Face" car and Roxana's Lady Bug car. If you can't tell, we don't paint our cars based on real Formula One teams.

See our Formula Dé webpage for the detailed results of today's race or visit the picture gallery for the pictures from the race.

Posted by Ed Rozmiarek at February 4, 2004 12:00 PM