After Mary's excellent showing on at the BMW Performance Center last night we hit the highway for what we were hoping was going to be an uneventful if not late night drive to Daytona. The trip certainly got off well, with Mary getting us though South Carolina and well in to Georgia without a hitch. The car was running well and both of us were feeling remarkably good.
Some time after 11 PM with Mary at the wheel and me dozing in the passenger seat Mary shouts out... Well, never mind what she actually shouted out, you can use your imagination..
"I hit a raccoon," she exclaimed, "the bugger was in the other lane and ran right in front of me. I think I caught him with the splitter."
The car seemed ok after the bump but we were through the better part of a tank of fuel so we pulled in to the next available gas station for an inspection, a fill up, an a driver swap.
The inspection wasn't great... The raccoon had indeed hit the splitter on the passenger side - hard enough to break one of the support struts. ouch. No real damage but definitely a hard hit. When we got to the back of the car we were greeted with a film of gear oil costing the trailer, tail light panel, and gas tank. A quick inspection didn't reveal anything obvious so we filled up, ley everything cool off a bit and continued down the road, hoping that the non stop miles had simply overheated rear end and it was venting a bit of fluid.
About an hour down the road, just north of the Florida state line, we were cruising comfortably when the car shuttered and we heard what at first sounded like a tire rapidly going flat. Given the fact that we have run flats and the car was not shaking or pulling I quickly pulled over and we jumped out, hoping that it was a trailer tire. No such luck... All of the tires were up and the drivers side quarter panel was coated with yellowish gear oil, as was he wheel, the tire, and the underside of the car.
It is now 130 in the morning and we are calling triple A for a lift. While we wait for. Flat deck we start reaching out via the internet - forums, emails, social networking - to try to track down help for what feels like a serious issue. The tow truck arrived around 330 and we rolled in to Gainesville - the farthest we could get him to bring us - around 530.
We caught a couple of hours of sleep and at 830 our phones started ringing with offers to help.
We quickly decided to tow the car to Prodigy Customs just outside of Orlando. Frank and his team are some of the most respected builders in the business so we are hopeful that they cn help us get back on the road.
Which brings us to right now. We are in another flat deck just a few miles from Prodigy and hopefully moving towards getting back on the road.
We are down at this point, but not out. Daytona Motor Speedway was one of the highlights for both Mary and I on this trip and it hurts to be so close but not be able to run on the high banks. Hopefully we can get this together today and rejoin the race in New Orleans tomorrow... We will keep you posted.
James and Mary
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