Car 00, affectionately known as Sofia, joined the Leaping Leopard racing team in October 2014. Sofia was a SCCA FP race car that had been stored in a garage in Dallas, TX for over 3 years. After completing some general maintenance tasks Aldora raced Sofia in a few races at the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015. Unfortunately in January of 2015 Sofia blew her head gasket during a test and tune session at MSR Houston.

Blowing the head gasket warped the aluminum head. Various other issues were uncovered while redesigning the new head; these issues led to the complete rebuild of Sofia. This photo journal shows the rebuilding of Sofia (as a SCCA HP car) and prepping her for her first race in August of 2015. Unfortunately as is often the case in racing, Sofia got damaged in the race in August and needed to be repaired for the TWS November 2015 race. During the November 2015 TWS race the shift gate in Sofia’s transmission broke.

Currently Leaping Leopard is waiting on parts to rebuild the transmission and the suspension. Sofia is expected to be ready to race at the SCCA Majors race at MSR in late April 2016.