Lost cause.
Gentlemen,
In any organization, the amount of grief that management is willing to put up with from any team member is directly proportional to that member's value to the firm. Performance Power Racing has been cut a lot of slack because they built an amazingly fast Ford GT. I really hoped that they would come around and become a part of the Ford GT community. But even an exceptional talent can exceed the allowable threshold of ungentlemanly behavior. Disappointing, but it is what it is.
When Jason Heffner was building my TT GT, I asked him where Ray's car would be running for the first time. He told me they were working hard to get it ready for the Texas Mile. Why drive 1000 miles all the way to Texas? Why not just run here in Florida? Jason told me that the Texas Mile was the established standard. That if Ray ran a big number somewhere else, there would always be a "Yeah but...." attached to that number.
Performance Power ran 252 at an event in Florida that was attended by quite a few cars that had also run at the Texas Mile. Almost everybody ran 10 mph faster in Florida than they did in Texas? Was there some type of break in the time space continuum that made cars that much faster after traveling 1000 miles to the East? Perhaps it was a very low humidity day, with very high barometric pressure, very low temps, and a very big direct tail wind. Perhaps it was the timing equipment at that event. We'll never know and almost nobody cares because everybody was there to have a good time.
Could Performance Power have run a 249 at the last Texas Mile? In my opinion, no. Would Hofman Motorsports have run faster than 253 at the first Florida event if he had been there? Without a doubt. At the first event that both cars attended, using the same timing equipment, whether or not it was reading high or low for all attendees, the Hofman car smoked the Performance Power car by a double-digit margin.
Don't like that result? No problem. Texas is coming up.
This whole thing is unseemly and 180° out of phase with the character of this Forum. We have some very competitive and very serious one-mile racers here. But they operate in a very different manner than Performance Power. Not one single member was trying to "beat me" at the Texas Mile. Every one of our members were trying to help me go faster, and I was trying to do the same for them.
Jason Stevens has gone 226 mph. Before most of my runs he was kneeling at my open car window telling me what he had observed on my last run and giving me some tips to help me improve. If he had managed to get me to 227, he would have shaken my hand and then told me how I could go 228. Jason's behavior is not exceptional here, it is the norm.
I would not be a bit surprised if Performance Power failed to show up at the next Texas Mile. But whether they do or don't, their chapter as regards this Forum is closed. Oh yeah, one more thing. Performance Power Racings request to become a supporting vendor, is denied. :biggrin
All the best.
Chip
