The Firecracker Bonneau Double Divisional event brought about challenges that many spectators rarely hear about. Logistical challenges. Blackhawk Farms Raceway is a 370 mile journey from Central Minnesota. Jenkins Racing was scheduled for testing at the race track all day Friday. Our tow vehicle left Minnesota around 3pm Thursday. What should of been a six hour trip turned into a twenty-nine hour marathon of trailer repairs. Luckily racing teams operate well under pressure (and a trailer full of tools doesn’t hurt either). After fixing a broken wheel bearing and a flat tire we finally arrived at Blackhawk in time for both days of racing. Unfortunately the testing will have to wait until next time.
Saturday started with rain and ended dry. We guessed on the car setup as we do not have a lot of data for this track. Qualifying went well with several good laps without traffic even though there was 26 cars in the group. The Buhler Group number 21 qualified 8th in class out of 16 cars. The race later in the afternoon was hot with a lot of exciting action. We were able to gain a position and finish the twenty two lap race in 7th place.
Day two weather was better with slightly cooler track temps. We were also better prepared with tire pressures for the conditions after reviewing the previous days data. These improvements netted qualifying in 6th place. The final race of the weekend had an intense start after the green flag in turn one. After dodging through several spinning cars we stayed with the leaders for half the race until the tires started to give in to the hot weather. At the checkered flag we finished in 4th place out of 15 Spec Miatas which makes the hardships worth it.
We thank everyone for their support over the weekend. Even though we missed testing, we collected a lot of data thanks to the Bühler BCube sensor. Having a digital presence in racing is a necessity; the same is true for modern manufacturing. Having Bühler technology backing us up is a real advantage.
Check out Bühler’s digital solutions at https://digital.buhlergroup.com/ .
