Welcome to the second day of 2007 World Finals!

April 15, 2007

Competition Day number one! We were up early today, wakeup call was 530am, breakfast started early and we were to be on the bus to the Dunlop Factory by 730. After a quick European style breakfast, all of the teams met up in the lobby.

And then on to the bus...

The city of Hanu was very cooperative with the event. They were gracious enough to close down the main city square, give us the police escort and then provided these buses. They were easy to move the luggage in an out of and were fairly comfortable.

Once we arrived back at the Dunlop factory, it was time to load the car with our luggage for 10 days worth of rally and special stages.

After the car was packed, it was a short walk
across the factory to the briefing room where we were given our road books, introduced to the instructors for the trip and given the format for the events.

These are our fearless leaders. These brave souls will be our guides for the next 10 days as we travel from Hanu to Malaga. They take care of every detail: racing, routes between events, lodging, food and of course the safety of 70 people moving 3200km

Also at the briefing we found out that in the afternoon there would be a demonstration of the off road vehicles, a motorcycle stunt show and a two kart races. There was one kart race for the DDC participants and another race that I understand was some kind of local finals in another contest where the winners were awarded with tickets to the DTM race at Hockenheim the next weekend. That sounds like a pretty cool contest and award.

The first thing we did was check out the off road course. There were two events in that area. First there was a precision throttle / brake exercise where there was platform with a watering can hanging from the top on a pivot of some kind, filled with water and clear glass tube underneath. Attached to the watering can was string that was tied to a tow hook on the front of a Nissan Murano. The Murano was parked on an incline with the back end of it pointed up hill. The goal of the exercise was to use the throttle and brake together and back the Murano up the hill just far enough to tilt the watering can far enough to fill the tube. Sounds easy, right? I thought so too! This was one of the hardest things we did all week. Due to the construction of the platform it was very difficult to see the angle of the watering can and hard to see where the stream of water was going.

The second event at the off road course was a team event. Dunlop laid out a course in a small field and the goal was to drive one lap. Oh, and the driver was blindfolded and had to listen to verbal instructions from his teammate about turning and accelerating / braking. It's hard to describe the sensation of driving with out seeing and having to listen to some one else's instructions for how to drive and just trusting their judgment.

Egon and I had a lot of fun with these two events and realized exactly how important communication is between teammates. There is one event like this during the competition and now we have an idea of the commands we need to use.

After playing at the off road area it was time to get started on the kart racing. While we were not scoring any points in this event it was used as the deciding factor for position on the road when leaving the dunlop factory for our first nights transit to Hockenheim for our first night on the road.

The format was one open practice / qualifying, session one sprint race and then a final. During the practice / qualifying session, a pit stop with a driver change was required. The fastest lap per team was used to grid for the sprint race.

For practice the competitors were split into two groups by finishing time and each group ran a sprint race. From each of these sprint races the top three teams were sent to the final.

We did pretty well in the qualifier and sprint race
and were able to qualify for the final. In the final there were six really quick teams. Our plan went like this: that I would try my hand at starting and see if I could pick up a few positions before handing off the kart to Egon to bring it home. Here Egon and I talk about pit strategy. Stop as far foreward in the pits as possible, get out to the right, in from the left, and the guy that just got out give the other one a push-start.

The start went well and I went from 5^th to 2^nd by the first turn and then it went all wrong for me. I got tangled in some traffic and was spun out a few laps in. I picked up ground on the people in front of me during my remaining laps and handed the kart to Egon. He was blindingly fast and able to pick up a couple a of places and by time the 15laps were over we made it back up to 4^th place. Although it doesn't mean anything points wise, it was nice to be on the road early. As you can see, the racing the was really tight. This was one of our first indications that the racing was going to be really tough.

Action in the pits!

Egon and I felt that it was very important to have a solid plan for the pit stops. We worked out signals for when to pit, how to tell the driver they are going fast enough or need to go faster or if they felt like they could go a few laps further. I'm not sure how much faster it was than what everyone else did, but it was very nice to be organized about the non-driving part of the competition and concentrate solely on the driving. We used the same process at the second

karting event in Spain and it paid off!

Now that place on the road was set, we had some time to watch the ATV and Sport Bike stunt show.

The guy was pretty good, doing 12 o'clocks (wheelies that are straight up) on both bikes:

But everybody has their moments and this guy had a back side dismount he wasn't hurt and was back up and riding again in seconds. I'm always impressed by these stunt guys and their sense of balance.

We then got packed back in the 350Z's and headed to the main gate of the factory for the official start of the race.

Then it was on to the Autobahn for our first taste of driving on these famed German roads. Thankfully the trip was uneventful and the whole crew arrived in Stuttgart safely. What is in Stuttgart you ask? Why none other than the famed home of the German F1 race at the Hockenheim Ring!!

It was quite the sight when we showed up to check in with a parking lot full of Nissan's:

Hotel Motodrom, our home for the night:

After a quick briefing in the hotel lobby it was time to unpack and head in for a much needed dinner

Lastly there was time for a little exploring before bed. I wandered down the access road for the track and hotel and found some cool stuff.

A Museum that wasn't open.

And an ad for an upcoming event at the track

And the thing that made me happiest, an open gate to the stands. It seemed liked an invitation to head right on it and have a look around.

So I sat right here: and watched the sun set behind the Baden-Wurttemberg Center

For reference, I was sitting in the red section of seating in this picture. I was all the way at the top, in the right corner.

At this point it was late and I was really tired so it was back to the room for as much sleep as I could muster and then up early for stretching and running on the track.

Stay tuned, more updates to come :-)