Small story from the E Stock camp...
After bragging to a bunch of non-autocrossers last week about the durability of the Old Bull MR2, the curse of bragging caused the mount for the sway bar end link to be ripped from it's moorings on the left front strut. This happened on the first or second practice run Friday afternoon, and caused us to scramble like crazy to get it repaired before Saturday morning. Luckily we found a shop not far from the site (thanks to Tony Espinoza and the other CP guys) that made the necessary weld repair and straightened the pretzel-shaped end link for us. A quick reassemble in the parking lot and we thought we were good to go.
1st and 2nd runs on Saturday morning went well, but by the third run the car was oversteering much more than usual. By the time the Old Bull made his last run he looked like Sammy Swindell out there dirt-tracking his way through every corner. Seems the straightened end link was weakened significantly, and it assumed it's previous pretzel shape sometime during our runs. This left the front bar completely disabled, explaining the sudden urge to drive sideways.
A run to a couple of local Toyota dealers lightened our wallets by a bunch, but produced a new end link that was at least twice the thickness of the one we bent. Seems we're not the first ones to twist an MR2 end link into a new shape. Sunday's runs went off without a hitch.
We're not sure why it chose that moment to let go, but it may have had something to do with the brand new front tires combined with old tires on the rear putting larger than normal forces on the front bar. It ripped the bracket on the strut into 3 seperate pieces. Jimmie tells me this is not an uncommon thing for MR2's, so maybe the tires had nothing to do with it...
It was rewarding to solve the problems thrown at us and still drive pretty well, but it would've been much more fun to be able to spend some time cheering other folks on instead of scrambling around trying to get the car fixed.