And We're Back

We arrived at the track for the second day of the Rolex 24 about an hour ago and passed the Children's Tumor Foundation No. 85 car on an infield road as it was travelling on the track (or rather it passed us). We noticed the driver's side seemed to be a bit charred and the "8" on the 85 was all but gone. We talked with some of the race die-hards, who've been here all night, and they said that a little past 3 in the morning the car blew a tire, the drivers side front tire, and as a result the radiator went (your faithful blogger is uniquely familiar with radiator problems having cracked one on a pothole during a ski trip in Vermont). The Farnbacher Loles crew took the car back to the garage and about an hour later it was back on the track.

This is a very, very long race and car troubles are bound to happen along the way. Thankfully the CTF No. 85 car has the services of a very talented (and genuinely nice) crew of technicians who were able to get it back on the track in good time. We had been up to 8th place but we dropped to 20th following the troubles. Michael Gomez, a doctor who sees patients with NF -when not flying around a racetrack at ungodly speeds - has us back up to 17th place and climbing. Over the radio I just heard the pit say that he's on lap 21 of his 30 lap stint. When Dr. Gomez initially went out the pit was encouraging him to remain cautious and focus on taking the turns carefully. "Lets make sure we bring this guy in," said one of the crew members. I think this speaks to the challenge of keeping a race car on a track for 24 straight hours. The team is on the precipice of accomplishing a true feat and do not want to compromise it at this point. We'll be back soon with more pictures.