well Round 2 didn't go so super for us this weekend. We got out there feeling pretty confident, but during Friday practice Alex felt like the brakes were getting pretty bad, so the decision was made to change out the pads and bleed the brakes before the race Saturday morning. In retrospect I should have sent her out for saturday AM practice but we chose not to. As soon as she took off from the start and braked for the first turn she yelled over the comms that she had barely any pedal feel. The track was also still pretty slick being the first race of the day, with people sliding and spinning out almost right from the getgo. She got about halfway through the first lap, and went off a jump and came down a little sideways and went into the berm and flopped over. She did good turning the car off and getting herself out, and looked at the car after it was righted. Seeing there was no damage she decided to finish the heat just in case anybody broke or DNF'd but had to go pretty slow due to no brakes.
After her race Lorelei was up in the RZR 250 Production class. I changed her sprocket gearing substantially based on suggestions from my buddy Jariel up in the East coast and right away she had way more acceleration and speed in the turns. She made a good pass for 3rd place and kept that all the way to the finish line with no drama.
We called my buddies at 3P Offroad about Alex's brakes and they suggested we gravity bleed her brakes, so we did that and swapped out the mud tires for her Hoosiers as the track appeared to be drying out nicely. She went out, checked the brakes in the field and said they were much better. At the start line for heat 2 the marshals warned the girls that the track had been watered and was very slippery, which i knew would mess with Alex's head. She went slow off the start and I knew it'd be a battle to pass the 2 slower girls in front of her. Once she was able to pass them, I noticed that she was catching up to the 3rd place girl, who is pretty legitimately fast in a honda talon like
SLOWPOKE693 . We lost comms on lap 4, but i'd mentioned her lap time was a little over a second faster and if she pushed harder she might just catch 3rd before the finish. Lap 5 Alex was on a mission and driving faster than I've ever seen her go, and was quickly reeling 3rd place in.
A few turns before the finish line, her talent tank (shout out to Wyatt) ran dry and over she went on a tricky off camber right turn.
I don't think I've ever seen her so disappointed before because she knew she was on a legit lap (my guess is somewhere around 3:28-3:30) but luckily the car was undamaged and that was the end of the race. After making sure all was good with Alex, I had to haul ass back to the start to get Lorelei ready for heat 2. She took off on her race, and ran a great race until the last lap where her chain came off the sprockets (it's my fault, i should have adjusted the chain just a little tighter) but luckily someone else had already broken so she still finished 3rd overall and is in 2nd in points for the season in 250 Production.
Alex is sitting in 3rd in points for the season in Womens Expert, and now she's determined to get more practice and get better at her launches and turns before the next race April 17th.