The LoveFab Enviate: Picking Up The Pieces
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Just like every day during practice week, we woke up ungodly early on the first practice day to get into position in time. I left the rest of the team at the start line to help prep the car while I headed up the stage to get some photos of all the cars. Generally you should be in place about a half hour before sunrise, which is usually around 4:30AM.
During practice sessions the stages are much less crowded than during the race itself, you might only share a corner with a dozen people during practice week. Struggling through the maddeningly early mornings become somewhat worthwhile once the beautiful Colorado sunrise begins to peek over the horizon.
As the first few cars came roaring up the mountain, my anticipation began to mount. This would be the first opportunity for the Enviate to really stretch it’s legs, so to say I was excited to see it come flying past would have been a massive understatement.
About the time that Pat Doran whizzed past in his Monster Energy RS200 I received a text from one of our guys at the start line saying that we were already done for the day. Details weren’t very clear to begin with, as no one had really seen the extent of the damage. Early reports were saying that there was a minor off road excursion and we might be able to repair the car before raceday, and that a small fire had damaged some of the bodywork. Never before have I heard such a major understatement.
Before too long the Enviate had been brought back to the pit area, and based on the amount of exclamation points in the texts I was receiving I knew we wouldn’t be competing during the race. While lamenting our situation I noticed there was an unhappy Pat Doran sitting across the road from me, I brought him a bottle of water and we brooded over our misfortunes until all of the cars were finished running.
