Saabmarine Summer Track Day // MSR Houston // July 2019

In July of 2019 one of my best friends, Phil, came down from North Carolina to do a [blazing hot] track day in the Saab at MSR Houston. It was a single day HPDE put on by Chin Motorsports.

I think it was Phil’s first track day ever? But he has a long history in motorsports, so he had a pretty good idea of what was going on.

After a requisite stop at Bucee’s, we unloaded in the paddock. I promise, he was happy to be there.

Second track outing for the BFGoodrich Rivals (remember those?).

Phil and I were double driving, each in a different run group, so the car was getting a good workout.

On the final session before lunch, Phil brought the car in a little early saying he smelled coolant.

Good call, the radiator fan had chewed a hole in the upper radiator hose.

Not sure if it was bad installation by me, or the motor mounts were moving under braking, but either way we needed a new hose.

Another friend, Nik (owner of the shop where all the original work was going on, and previous owner of this car), came down just to hang out and showed up right around lunch. It was perfect timing; we got lunch and drove to a couple of auto parts stores, eventually finding a replacement upper hose.

It’s easy to get to, so it was a fast repair. We filled it back up and went out a few more times.

I actually skipped my last session because it was so hot. I was hot, the car was hot.

We did rotate the tires front to back (the fronts were wearing quite a bit faster) and Phil completed all his sessions.

After a pretty miserable drive back home in stop and go Houston traffic, I parked the car back on the street so we could track down some cold beverages.

It was a pretty successful day, all things considered.

The one thing that I’m particularly unsatisfied with the car is IT’S TOO SLOW.

It wasn’t so bad at MSR Houston, a normal track with normal cars, but I swear I’m not going back to CoTA until the car has more power.

So, Phil hooked us up…