Quick update: Today was the first of two qualifying race days for Sunday’s championship race. The Green Baron Motorsports Neon qualified in fourth place out of 14 thanks to my remarkably light and deft touch in the rain. The competition had Hoosier Rains; we had Toyo R888s, but with a little luck we were still able to get a decent qualifying run.

In the race, we fell back to seventh place after four hard-fought laps. I literally couldn’t figure out how my competition was carrying so much speed into Turn Six… but when two of the cars ahead of me went off the track at full speed, hitting each other and tossing bodywork into the air, as the guy behind me brake-locked right into my rear bumper, I realized that nobody could carry that much speed. A little bit of luck allowed me to make the turn safely in full Tokyo Drift mode while the guy behind me ran off into “China Beach” as well.

That put us in fifth… but wait! It turns out that the fellow who made a stirring run from eighth place to victory did it mostly by passing other cars under yellow-flag conditions. That’s a no-no. So we’re probably in fourth place as of tonight.

The two cars which hit in China Beach, piloted by Kevin Fandozzi and our friend/garagemate Faisal Ahmad, are on the way to emergency sessions on frame racks. They’ll be back in time to race tomorrow, as crazy as that sounds!

The good news: it’s going to keep raining. We don’t have the power to win this Championship – but in the rain, we might have the luck. Keep your fingers crossed!