By now, most of you know we returned for battle in St. Louis at Gateway International Raceway for the third round of the North American MINI Cooper Challenge by Phil Wicks. What you don't know, is the full story as told by us!

First off, I want to thank everyone who has helped out our racing endeavors by donating to the Save the Mule fund! It has been an outstanding community effort, and it just gets better (wait until you read the rest of this story). We ended up with over $2000 from enthusiasts, and we ran your names on both cars.

The cars were great - we went out in the first practice session with the Mule and went faster than anyone else on the track for the first 8 or so laps. As I learned the track, I was able to find braking points that worked perfectly to take advantage of passing opportunities. Then it happened on lap 9 or so...

With the 93 car, I was able to lift at the end of the oval straight to turn the car, then I'd blip throttle over the transition and brake HARD for turn one. I wasn't able to do this with any of the other cars I drove this weekend, so I know our car was set up perfectly - I was happy. Then on lap 9, when I was entering turn one, the brakes competely locked - at first I though there was fluid on the track, but I went with the track officials and looked at the track and it was dry - but you could see the skid marks from the car right into the damaged wall. You can surmise from the last sentence that after locking up, I slid directly into the tire barrier with the right front corner. Contrary to some opinions (of one of the other drivers), the brakes were applied at the same point as the last few laps previous (it's just that we were far enough ahead of the car in question to be at an angle impossible for it to be viewed - and I wasn't braking the entire time anywhere on the straight).

I thought the weekend was over, and with it the season. What happened next should go down in MINI legend history. Todd Pearson from White Roof Radio (one of our sponsors) said we could use his street car to enter class three! This was Todd's only transportation. It did have a 15% pulley, but other than that it was bone stock - stock springs, stock shocks, stock brakes, no camber front or rear, no limited slip in an early geared tranny. It had driving lights, a sunroof, a full interior - lots of extra weight! We proceeded to replace the brake pads with some Ferodo DS2500s and put a rear swaybar in it - that's it!!! We then qualified within .02 seconds of the pole for class three. I didn't quite have enough to beat Whalen without the camber, gearing, or LSD and the extra weight, but we still took second out of the four cars! That keeps us in the running for points. The car was outfitted with our sponsors names and some makeshift numbers. We ran in the wet and dry, and it worked flawlessly.

Here's my race recap - I was obviously trying to keep anything from happening to Todd's car, so we had to run a little more conservatively than I would have liked, but I don't know that it would have mattered. Where it did matter was the start on both days. I was inside Way for the start on both days, but didn't want to stick it - and Way may have passed later in the event anyway. The Sunday race was dissappointing as I was all over Steve's car at the start, but after 4 laps or so, the lack of traction from the LSD and the stock brakes were overwhelming. I settled in and ran the rest of the race in second. Waylen actually passed the Madness car (Group 5) with his Group 3 car so we would have had no issue at all winning with the Mule...

Brian took the class win on both days in Group 4, and continues to trail by only 1 point (due to a timing issue at Vegas).


The Mule while it was still happy






"The Mule 2"



Pushing Waylen...



Brian at work

Here's the other really cool news - we will rebuild the car and run at Summit Point. I plan to have some tricks as well. The White Roof boys have started an unbelievable drive that is already over $2000 for the #93, and slick limited edition 93 plaques have been made for donations. Check that out at www.whiteroofradio.com !

In other news, we are building the ultimate MINI for a customer, and will be detailing the build - TurboKompressor, WMS Head, LSD, clutch/flywheel, brakes, wheels, suspension, etc - all for the street. Stay tuned.

I really want to thank everyone in the community for continuing to help us race. You are more of a family than a customer base, and I appreciate your support. I plan to repay you with outstanding new products - some of which have been derived from racing that you support.

Thanks to Waylen for loaning me some parts too!

I also need to thank my sponsors - Unichip, Helix, White Roof Radio, and TCE. You can check them out here:

www.unichip.us
www.helix13.com
www.whiteroofradio.com
www.tceperformanceproducts.com

The Summit Point event is June 29 in West Virginia, so I am going to get back to work on the car! This event will be televised, and more announcements will come at the track...

Thanks again!!!
Randy

Photos courtesy of professorzoom and Cooper.