The engine problem got worse with each lap - and then the team got on the radio to ask why I was so slow. I kept trying to talk to them, pushing and pulling all the buttons in the cockpit, but had no communication to the pit, even though the pits could talk to me. We have a 'radio down' plan, where I am asked questions by the team and have to click once for a 'yes' and twice for a 'no'. As you could imagine, they never asked the right bloody question, so I got to thinking how I might achieve this when, suddenly, I came up with a bright idea.
As I came past the pits, I came off the throttle and back on really quickly .... blap, blap, blap!. Then a voice came on the radio asking "do you have an engine problem? Yes, they got it!. A safety car came out and into the pits I went. Typically, as I was coming down pit-lane, the radio sparked into life, causing a mass communication, squeezing everything that had happened into ten seconds.
Anyway, they couldn't fix it and, with the engine getting worse and worse, it was a boring end to the race.
On to Mosport and, if you think Road America was bad, I didn't even drive in the race in Canada! My team-mate, Scotty Maxwell, was all geared up for his home race and was pumped up to do the best he could in front of his adoring family and friends. He got off to a good start and was keeping up with the leading pack when a slow prototype tried to pass down the inside of turn three. Whack! Off they went, and Scott hit the wall hard. End of race.
We had the usual antics afterwards, with each driver blaming the other, but my view is that they both got a little confused as the prototype dived down the inside while Scott was giving it space on the outside, thinking he would go around that way as the faster ones do. The prototype driver probably thinks Scott was blocking him, but that wasn't the case. The prototype driver said in an interview that all the Panoz drivers were 'amateurs'. Maybe myself and the rest of the Panoz drivers have a bit more to do in our careers to become pros!
