The weekend before the July 4th holiday at Brainerd International Raceway came with tests from both drivers and mother nature. Friday night a large storm system was bearing down on the track causing some damage to the Jenkins Racing paddock. After a quick recovery we moved into racing form and performed well in practice and qualifying on Saturday. The Spec Miata field was very tight with the top 5 cars running within one second. The Bühler sponsored number 21 qualified in 5th. The day one race had a disappointing start. When the green flag dropped a car further up in the formation missed a shift causing us to lose our momentum and drop several positions. After racing hard we climbed from 9th back to our 5th place grid position by the checkered flag.
Sunday, day two, started with a wet morning. The first qualifying session was done on rain tires. Many of the other teams skipped Qualifying 1 and gambled that the weather would clear. The sun came out as Qualifying 2 approached, but the track was still wet when the session started. We adapted to the changing conditions and drove the session on slick tires. Unfortunately there was too much water on the race track to improve our time much. By race time the track was fully dry and conditions were good. The car ran well and there was a constant battle for 3rd position. After a long fight number 21 took the checkered tailing the bumper of the number 81 car for a 4th place finish.
The Bühler BCube IoT sensor performed flawlessly. The hardware is rated for industrial environments and the wet, high temperature, racing conditions weren’t an issue. The high resolution data produced by the BCube is a great way to capture real time operating conditions of any piece of machinery, even a race car!
Learn more about Bühler innovations.
