Most from the least

So, I spoke too soon - with about an hour left in the day, we blew a rear main seal and sprayed oil all over the place, leaving the Mystery Machine up on jacks at the end of the race. Much sadness.

However! There's more than one kind of winning, and we took home the "Most from the least" award, which if you'd ever glanced at the engine on the mystery machine, is a wholly appropriate prize. (The oil spray everywhere from the blown rear main blends right in with the existing crust of dried oil and coolant. I'm not kidding when I say it's a miracle it made it onto the track at all.) Mostly, getting the van on the track feels like winning. We're incredibly proud to have been part of such an awesome racing event.

The Mystery Machine drivers, plus Scooby and Scrappy, our mascots:

From mystery machine

Drivers, Left to right: Jinnah, Jared, Jen, and Astrid. (The perfect two guys/two women split was accidental but fortunate. If it had worked out otherwise the guys would have been terrifying in skirts. Jared's got a lot of leg to show.)

We finished in 59th place overall. (We got as high as 42nd before the car blew.)

Thanks, guys. And to everyone who showed up and made the race awesome: you all rock. It was a blast.

(And to Rob and Laz, who put in a lot of late nights helping out on our van when they still had plenty of prep to do on their own car - no thanks are enough. I love you guys.)

PS - for anyone who was wondering, we took off the back gate while racing mostly for visibility. The van has pretty much zero side and rear visibility otherwise, and we wanted a good view of all the cars that were passing us. It was also a serious weight loss - the door is heavy.

Also, the Italian flag was a special Fiat prize awarded just to us, as a model member of the former Chrysler empire.