Today was the big day out, the car was running like a wet dream and I was so excited to get behind the wheel, driving at Laguna Seca was the most exciting thing I had done in a long time. I was nervous, I had the shakes because I had never driven there and the thought of crashing the Rx7 scared me, it gave me the chills thinking about it, but this was something that I needed to get over very fast like the next hour fast. I went to the trailer and talked to my brother, he reassured me that everything that happened on the track today was going to be amazing and he calmed me down in 20 minutes, he has a way of calming me down all while being a smartass, that was my brother for you. We had to get the car out and go through everything. Temp was under control, it made made boost which we might have to add more into it as it was only at 25 lbs right now, and everything was tight. The last thing we did before hitting the track was checked all the fluids, and I am glad we did because there was no coolant, if we didn’t catch that then we could have blown up a car worth $100,000. We started her up and she sounded angry, the three rotor brapped away sounding like a giant wasp nest, you could smell the Ignite racing fuel being burned as it ran, I loved it and the smell pumped me up, we revved it up to 10k rpm’s and the turbo’s spooled up and we let off and it shot flames from the exhaust. The car was ready, most of all I was ready, ready to tear up the track and ready to set an amazing lap time.
We went out for one test lap to make sure everything was tuned to the perfect specs, I took it slow at first but I couldn’t help but lay into it, feeling all 1258 horsepower was a better rush than a crackhead getting his high. The Rx7 got a little sideways around some corners and that was an issue, we needed to put the front spoiler on. We shelled out a lot of money for a full G-Face aero kit, it kept the car planted to the ground around the corners, sometimes we can run it without the front spoiler but it is much safer with it on. Coming around the final bend I slowed down and pulled off the track, all the other cars out there are going to give me a run for my money, but I could out drive any of them and I set my mind to it, Gage was waiting there and he was amazed by how great the time was for a practice run.
After we got the spoiler on we set out to get it set up even better and had a lot more downforce for the corners, then we put on the bigger and better tires it was going to run an amazing time. We topped off the fuel one last time before putting in some laps and I took back off for officially timed laps, I was ready for the rush. I came to hit a lap time goal of 1 minute and 10 seconds, but I also want to beat my rival Brandon Shoemane in his Honda S2000, I had my work cut out for me. Hitting the track on the new tires was amazing, I went around corners with ease and I didn’t break traction which improved my 1 minute 35 second practice lap by a full 10 seconds on the first try, that felt amazing but if wanted to reach my goal I would need to push it harder. Coming around the third corner, I seen Brandon coming up on me, Gage had told me on the radio that he had ran a 1.20 lap just before he came up on me, I really had to start pushing the RX7 harder than before if I wanted to beat that time. Brandon drove really angrily, he wasn’t afraid to clip into you if you got in his way, he was the reason I totaled my last car a Honda Civic with a K20 Motor swap. I truly don’t think he did it on purpose, he apologized so fast and he even tried paying for the damages but the Civic was far too gone. There was one driver who had it out for the both of us though, his name was Jason Saintclair and he drove like a real asshat, he was worse than Brandon, he never should’ve had his license and he was always jealous of us winning over him. Sometimes we caught him in our pits stealing parts, or tools that are worth more than his car a cheap rusty Mazda Miata, you could see the envy in his eyes as he drove past even Gage seen it.
As this lap was finishing, I seen Brandon in my rearview mirror and he was close, riding my bumper almost and behind him I seen Jason and he was coming up fast, but there was a hard corner coming up and he was going far too fast. I slowed down and so did Brandon, we let Jason pass and he had no time to slow down because his breaks were terrible, he slammed into the concrete barrier going at least 120 mph, it was a horrific crash and you could hear the metal crunching as it hit the wall I thought he was dead. I slammed on the breaks and Brandon was way ahead of me, I got out and ran to his car with my fire extinguisher just in case his car went ablaze, Brandon was right by me and he pulled Jason out, his motor caught on fire and I decided to actually use the extinguisher for once, I pulled the pin and shot the foam that was inside it all over the engine bay.
It was the craziest day at the track I had since the accident with the Civic, I sat down with Brandon and Gage after and he swears to god that he had nothing to do with it, his breaks were tampered with and Jason had been around his pit 20 minutes before he had gone onto the track. The more you thought about it, the more it made sense, Jason had been stealing from us and we had caught him doing it so we were going to talk to the staff at the track, he would’ve been arrested and barred from the track. While we were gone he must have cut Brandons break lines trying to get him hurt so he could win a race for once, it was evil and it hurt to think about it too. It was almost too good to be true, but it was true and it was something that could be proven too, we had a drone camera over the track that day and recorded the pits for a YouTube video, going through the footage now shows that Jason snipped Brandons Break lines.
The craziest day on the track ended with only one lap and my fire extinguisher being completely used up, and possibly one of the craziest racers on the track to be sent to jail. As much as we hate him, we never wanted him to get in that accident, that we did feel bad over as he was just trying to keep up with us and run our lines, he crashed because we slowed down. Only, we didn’t feel as bad, when we looked under the hood he had stolen a spare turbo from Brandon’s trailer and an intercooler, he stole a blow off valve from my trailer and a wastegate, it made me realise that he didn’t have a real passion for racing. He couldn’t just work as hard as he could like Brandon and I had, he stole $3,000 worth of parts from our trailer and totaled his car, I can’t lie he deserved it and karma knew that too.