Well, I wrote you a longer report, but this road-based email program is hard for me. I think I erased it before it got sent. I'll try again in brief.
Today was a driver's consistency course - lots of long, level runs. That's better for a big car. We tried a new method for timing the corners, as we were not satisfied with our peformance so far. We were ragged, working out the details on the fly, and then we missed a timing mark on the last leg. So we got a 1:24, about the same as before. Still, we are encouraged by that (we didn't get worse, even when learning a new way), so we'll do it that way tomorrow, too - we WILL break the one-minute mark. For today, though, we fell in the ranks again - to 15th in Rookies and 70th overall.
No rain today. We ran from Indianapolis IN, to St. Louis, MO. We did our park and show on the famous Eads bridge over the Mississippi, closed just for us. I got a great photo of the Imp on the brdige with the Gateway Arch behind, as the sun set. Still, the small towns are more fun. They really come out for us and Vandalia, IN is my favorite so far!
A big car is tough in this run, but we don't have it the worst. There's a team of two fellows running a 1922 Rolls Royce - mechanical brakes on the rear only. Manual spark advance. Wow, what a job to horse that around. So, they;re really just touring - but they still managed a 43-second score today!
The Imp is running well. A little lope at idle (fouled plug or vacuum leaks?), but strong and smooth under power. The brake pedal is lower than when we atarted, but still firm. The new method we dopted today uses timing of the decel and accel half-speed points, rather than pre-measured tables of speed-change times. That allows a gentler driving style as the half is the half whether the braking and accels are hard or not. I think we can get the brakes all the way to California this way!
We haven't seen any IMLers since Jeff Cantor in Philly. I know we aren't coming to every town in America, but if we're near you, we'd love to meet. How oftern do you see a racing Imperial after all?
til tomorrow, jc
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