Vintage Vees @ Grattan w/ VSCDA
Posted by mike on August 17th, 2008 filed in UncategorizedComment now »
Overall this was a successful event for us. The weather was great (our first time in Michigan), Grattan is a fantastic track (although a tad rough), and the car was reliable, requiring only a few minor tweaks. We learned that the FormCar is slow compared to other cars in the pack - it is pretty much stock 1962, while everyone else has a tad more oomph, as you’ll see on the video down the main straight. That’ll change soon enough with new exhaust and some fan belt ‘modifications’.
I will mention that while we had a good time on the track, the weekend was marred by an on-track fatality at turn one, which I won’t go into now. Both Don and myself are thinking the next $1,000 we spend on racing will be for a HANS (or HANS similar) device for safety. If you’re on a track, you need one. I’ve always been told that, but now I’ve seen the situation without one up close and real, and it changed the priority of obtaining a HANS setup.
Here’s a video of Don during qualifying (sorry, screwed up the audio, but you can hum along). More to follow when I get some free time to write.
Lola prep for Firecracker Regional
Posted by mike on July 6th, 2008 filed in car work, formula fordComment now »
The last few weeks have been busy, both under and around the Formula Ford, and with our paypal accounts and AmEx cards… Lots of things on our list to fix, and some new candidates popped up.
In summary, our accomplishments include:
This should be all we need to run a stress-free (err, less-stress) weekend at Blackhawk this Friday-Sunday.
New tow and track car
Posted by mike on June 29th, 2008 filed in car workComment now »
You might chalk it up to another impulse buy of a vehicle, but, we waited an entire day before committing to buying the latest automobile… Don found a 1994 27′ RV near his house for a real decent price.
At first I was skeptical of A) Don finding any more cars to buy (given the “race ready” Formula Ford find) and 2) throwing more money into this “hobby”. Well, apparently, Don should go into sales and I should buy some waterfront property in Kansas.
We each are 1/2 proud owners of this shiney RV with 30k 10mpg miles on it. Spectacular. It even has floral print window valences. Bling!
Why?
There is some logic in saving money by not staying at hotels. However, we’ve yet to whip up an excel spreadsheet on this, because I’m not sure the Saturday-afternoon math we did on the phone works out. More to follow. Or not. I think we’ll brush this subject under the rug.
The biggest benefits of having this 7.3liter-studio-apartment-on-wheels is the abilty to store all our tents, chairs, tools, equipment, etc in one place (lots of storage compartments on the outside bottom of the RV), as well as being able to stay on the track - eliminating the 6am drives from scummy hotels after taking showers wearing flip-flops to keep the ecoli at bay. This will also come in handy when I cannot make my mortgage payments due to racing expenses.
Don’s first VSCDA event
Posted by mike on June 15th, 2008 filed in UncategorizedComment now »
The weekend of June 13th brought Don and myself back to Blackhawk Farms, this time for a VSCDA event with Don’s 1962 Formcar Formula Vee. This car is the 2nd Formula Vee ever made.This car hasn’t been run in just about 20 years. What’s the worst that could happen? In general, the inappropriate but normal answer is, you die in a fiery crash.
This weekend, that was about the norm.
Friday
On Friday, I met Don out at Blackhawk just as he was gettting out of the car in the paddock (our favorite spot, the wonderful garage spot next to Tom’s office). He had just finished his first session of the test day.
Not to sound like a broken record, or a record that is playing the Formula Ford song - but Don hops out of a car that is dripping oil. OIL! No no no no no no, this must be a mistake. Don must have kicked over a can of oil. Or….not…. Oil leaks - This seems to be typical with anything we try to put on a track at Blackhawk.
It seems that the valve covers that came on this Formula Vee (which, by the way, was another impulse race car purchase by Don) are incorrect. There is a cut-out on the top of the valve cover, that apparently needs to be the right size in order to let the cork valve cover seal make, well, a seal.
The culprit was the cut-out on the valve covers currently on the 1200cc stock VW motor are too small. After 30 minutes of walking around trying to find a Formula Vee racer with a spare, we find Tom and his bench grinder. 10 minutes later and some metal shavings on the floor, Don has the problem solved.
Don gets suited up, I stuff him in the car, and he gets out for the last test session of the day. He got a little late, and it was a short session - so he only got about 8 laps in. He was somewhat slow on the straight, which is caused by the car refusing to rev over 4,000rpm due to (most likely) the transaxle fluid being the consistency of molasses. We’re planning on changing this - tomorrow looks good.
So, I pulled out my stopwatch, but found that it rolled over by the time Don came around. So, I pulled out my sun-dial and was able to get a semi-accurate lap time of 1:39. In all fairness, Don’s 40hp 40+ year old car running 3/4 power is still faster than your street car around a race track 
The car ran good - handled well per Don, and was overall a good 12 minutes of track driving after 7 months of prep work (no, really, this one only required about 2 months of work). It seemed that the races tomorrow would go well. Then, Don $&@*@D everything up on our departure from the track by saying “What could go wrong now?” (I’ve now learned to kick him everytime he says that, in hopes that pavlovian response will make him stop saying that).
Saturday
We made it to the track about 9:30am, just in time to start our checklist of things to do before putting the car on track. Don got to checking fasteners and I was putting gas in the car. The fuel filler neck felt a little soft when I removed the fuel cap. The cap isn’t bolted to the container, but rather is attached to the soft fuel bladder, so a little wiggle is expected. I filled up the fuel tank in anticipation that Don will actually finish a race. About 5 gallons, which should be plenty.
At this point, we should note that Don filled up the fuel cell to the top and let it sit for a month, to ensure there were no leaks. No leaks. Keep that in mind as you continue reading, before you say “those morons took a leaky fuel tank to the track.”
Don gets suited up and in the car for the 30 minute qualifing session. Today, the car that now is not leaking any oil. This is a first for us. And yes, there is oil in the car (at one point in the past, I declared victory to a oil-leaking Porsche, when in fact the oil had been drained from it. Mr Bush, can I get a “mission accomplished”?). The car fires right up (this car, differing from the Formula Ford, has a working starter!) and Don drives over to the grid.
- Don on track 0:00 - I walk over to the pit area in preparation to see Don come around the track after a couple of minutes.
- Don on track 0:30 - I finally figure out to make my phone act as a stopwatch. Start timer.
- Don on track 1:30 -At speed, Don should do a lap around 1:35-1:39. Should be coming around any time now!
- Don on track 1:40 - Hmm. Its the first lap. He must be taking it easy.
- Don on track 2:00 - He’s taking it REAL easy. Hurry up, slacker.
- Don on track 2:30 - I discard the stopwatch and setup my sundial for timing.
- Don on track 3:10 - I discard the sundial and tack a calendar to the post in the pit.
- Don on track 3:30 - I see the safety truck on the track around turn 4 behind us. That’s not good for anyone.
- Don on track 3:45- Don’s not on the track anymore. Don pulled off the track. I hop in the Jeep find him near turn 5. I find Don and the car smelling of fuel. Lots of fuel. For safety reasons, I put my cigarette on the tire before leaning in to talk to him.. The entire cockpit area is slick with fuel and filled with gas vapor. Fun.
What happened? The fuel cell is old. Maybe even older than Don. The car is over 40 years old, and hasn’t been raced in 20 years. So the fuel cell is most likely original (ack!) or 20-25 years old. The bladder itself is fine, but the bonding agent used to attach the fuel filler neck broke down, seemingly in a few hours of fuel being in contact with it. The fuel filler neck become unattached/unsealed to the fuel cell bladder, resulting in copious amounts of fuel sloshing around all into the cockpit. Here is a picture of where the tank was:
Those fuel lines used to connect to the fuel cell. We took it out in hope we could get the thing sealed back up….
But, no go. The entire filler neck is toast. It disintegrated.
At this point, we realized our weekend was over. Tom, our infinetly useful keeper of the track with his office next door to our garage place, offered free beer from his fridge and some consoling words and advice, including “just tape it up”. Did I mention Don was covered in fuel and Tom was smoking? Awesome.
We tore off our red wristbands (which, while wearing, creates frowns while drinking beer) and became spectators.. we watched some great racing, packed up, and headed home.
Photos from April SCCA race
Posted by mike on June 7th, 2008 filed in formula fordComment now »
I promised higher resolution pictures, and finally got around to posting them… Here are some good ones.
These pics were taken by Brad Ellingson (thanks, dude!), my most-awesome instructor at the SCCA school, and who also plays weekend photographer of things that turn dollars into noise on racetracks. He takes a ton of pictures, so chances are if you were at the school he could have a picture of your car. Or 50, like in my case. You can find his website here - http://www.bradellingson.com/ - with his pictures and stories about his race cars, fast women and booze. Or, stories about race cars getting towed by minivans that tote kids to soccer practice during the week - really, pick your fantasy.
The fallout from the race weekend…
Posted by mike on June 7th, 2008 filed in UncategorizedComment now »
It has been a while since I last wrote.. mainly as I’ve been busy with work, and Don’s been busy with work and prepping his vintage Formula Vee for the Blackhawk VSCDA event next weekend (June 14th).
Since the Formula Ford’s first outing, I’ve been exercising the wallet plastic at Pegasus’s website and emptying my paypal account to ApexSpeed members obtaining all the parts and such to make the next race weekend a little, uhm, less stressful.
The major things that need attention after the Blackhawk flogging for 3 days are….
Starter - the old Lucas (yes, that Lucas Electronics) starter and solenoid bit the dust. Rather than replace it with the same setup, I did some research (read as: posted on Apex and let the smart folks tell me what to do, in this thread) and am having someone put together a Nippondenso setup. Hopefully that’ll be in soon.
Valve cover gasket - we had some issues with oil staying inside the engine. After most on-track sessions, the engine compartment looked like the oil-equivalent of a monkey at a zoo flinging poo around. Lots of oil. Lots of $9/quart oil, I might add.
We determined the leak is coming from the valve cover.. the valve cover itself is probably not straight anymore, and it is missing a valve cover gasket hold-down. Pegasus has the hold downs for cheap, and a new-to-the-car valve cover from another racer will be installed soon.
Wheels - During one session I cracked the left rear rim. Luckily, it held together until we realized it had zero-pressure (which, otherwise would have made for a really really bad day) and was able to swap the rear tires to the rain rims.. But, the rim is toast for now (might be repairable). Two spare rims are getting blasted and powder coated (gray, to match the uncracked front rims) for the next race.
Hopefully, all this stuff will come together in the next few weeks in order to be ready for the next race. Which race, you might ask? The next race is the Firecracker Double-Regional @ Blackhawk Farms on July 12th and 13th.
First Race
Posted by mike on April 27th, 2008 filed in auto links, formula ford, scca3 Comments »
Don and myself’s original goal was to run the school, get my license, and anything other than that was a bonus. So far, the entire cost of bringing the car up to spec, the school and race entry fees, and other misc things is less than a weekend at Skip Barber that would net me the same license (the same one Don has, as he went to SB and ragged on their cars).
Soooo…The idea of racing on Sunday left me more excited than a senator in an airport bathroom, namely that this is my first wheel-to-wheel race, with other drivers actually trying to win (rather than the less-aggressive school days).
The day started as usual - remove the spark plugs, use a blow-torch on them to get them hot, push start car and let it warm up. It takes a while for the car to warm up, as today is about 45 degrees with a high of only 55. There was talk of snow on the forecast a few days ago, but it seems to have passed. This is a good thing, given my issues with rain tires and slicks, I don’t need any other complications.
Qualifying
The day has 5 groups/classes of cars, each with their own 35 minute qualifying session, and 22-lap race. My qualifying is just after 9:30am. Qualifying is a little more relaxed, in that, I can show up a few minutes late, wave to the grid-starters and just drive out into the pit and onto the track.. Given our starting issue (lack therof starter), this is nice as I don’t have to stop the car, and risk the chance of stalling it.
I head out for qualifying, just behind the big group of cars that were lined up waiting. We all have cold tires, and my car isn’t fully warmed up yet. Driving cold slicks on a cold track is much like ice skating. You don’t steer the car so much as you suggest which way you’d like it to go, then eventually, maybe, or not, it will go that direction. Or, it will snap around on you before you can say “hitting-that-wall-is-gonna-cost-alot”.
I feel good during qualifying. My only hiccup was that even though I taped over part of the front radiator intake, in order to get the engine temperature higher on this cold day, I still didn’t get the car above 150f degrees. The engine really needs 180-190 to be able to blip the throttle as required during downshifts. This resulted in some squirrelly downshifts - where the engine would drag the rear tires down pretty quickly, upsetting the traction on the rear of the car. Some corners left me looking more like a Ricer-Drift-Central video game than road racing.
Anyhow, I qualified with a 121.something. That put me 12th position out of 26 cars. Not too bad!
Race
My run group, group 4, gets to race around 3:30pm. Group 4 includes Formula 500, Formula Vee, Formula First, Formula Ford, and Club Formula Ford (me). Most of the cars are equally matched with just a few seconds difference in laptimes. It makes for some close racing, which is always good with open-wheeled cars that will flip/do crazy things when you touch wheels with each other. Most generally avoid doing that. Those who don’t avoid touching other cars wheels generally only do it once.
I will write more about the actual race when I get some spare time.. For now, look at the pretty pictures. I should also have some better race pictures up, courtesy of my instructor who has a camera that costs as much as our race car.
Out of the 26 cars in group 4, I started 12th, and finished 10th. My fastest lap time was a 120.6xx. Which, I think is respectable for my first time out. A well prepped car and good driver could do 1:15-1:16. Not too bad for 1.95 miles (avg 84-86mph).
If you’d like a signed poster of this, let me know. No, really.
Bruce Lindstrand drove this car (customer car, I recall) amazingly quick, even without a clutch.
SCCA School, Day 2
Posted by mike on April 26th, 2008 filed in formula ford, sccaComment now »
Yesterday evening, we found the guy that seems to know everything at the Blackhawk, Tom, and got us into a nice paddock spot. Given the issues we had on the car, and have to work them out in the mud in the grass paddock, the $100 or so was an easy decision to have easy access to electric, air, lighting, and pavement to drop stuff on rather than 1″ of muddy water. I’d highly recommend paying the $ and shacking up here to anyone that doesn’t have a full rig to work on.
This was a good decision, given what happened during the day and the work we had to do on the car, and, that it was 39 degrees out and windy. Mind you, this is the end of April and it is near freezing. Crazy.
In summary, here is what happened:
- Car won’t start. Remove starter wiring and push start.
- Run 1st session. Good.
- Run 2nd session. Good.
- Run 3rd session. Crack rear rim.
- Mount rear tires on rain rims in a hurry.
- Realize throwout bearing destroyed in last session. No need to hurry now. Car is broke.
- Miss 4th and 5th sessions. But, I still get signed off on the school (yay).
- Decide to fix car tonight and race tomorrow.
- Drink beer to gain confidence in mechanical skills.
- Rip apart rearend of car, installed new bearing, reassemble
In detail, the day went as follows:
1st Session
After being confident we had resolved the starting issues last night, the starter will not turn over this morning. Profanity ensues from both Don and myself. We blow-torch the plugs to get them hot, push start the car and make it to the first session, just a few minutes late. I was a tad nervous without a starter, however, if I spun or had to stop and the engine stalled I would be out of luck to get the engine going again.
On-track, everything seems to go well. The car feels good and I didn’t run it off the track. That’s success in our book at this point.
2nd and 3rd Sessions
These sessions were uneventful, other than the (now normal) push starting the car. The SCCA grid folks were very helpful and accommodating to me. I even stalled it once on the grid, waiting to go out to the track, and some nice ladies helped get me going. I am sure they make fun of me when I’m not looking.
4th Session
This one was a good on-track experience. Lots of cars, got into some traffic, dropped my lap times down considerably (was running 1:35ish in the prior sessions) to a best of 1:25.8. Not too bad for my newness…
Upon completion of the session, I pulled into the pits to get off track and heard this ‘worrblely’ noise. I knew there was a car behind me from my mirrors, and I thought “wow, that guys car sounds horrible”. As I proceeded out of the pits into the paddock area, I realized that the nasty noise was coming from my car. Doh!
The car smelled horrible (even worse than our hotel room after 2 days of eating carnival-like track food). It smelled like burnt clutch disc. I didn’t have any clutch slipping during the session, so we agreed to run the car again without any changes - we couldn’t see anything broken, and we weren’t going to replace a clutch disc in the 30 minutes before the next session anyhow. We found out later that this was most likely the rear brakes being cooked from me driving the car harder (clutch disc and brake are the same material, and smell the same).
5th Session
Problem 1
We had an hour break for lunch before the next to last on-track session of the day. It was now about 55 degrees and sunny. Much nicer than the morning.. And much nicer than the rain yesterday. We begin our pre-race checking that Don compiled (and that we’ve added a ton of things to this weekend), everything seems to be going ok - fuel up the car, battery is charged, oil is good, etc, then a snag - left rear tire pressure is zero. 0. nothing. zilch. not pressurized. Uck oh.
We quickly take the wheel off the car, and, with our new paddock digs being so close to the on-track tire guys, we have the wheel to them in a few minutes in hopes they can find the leak. At this point, we both think I ran over something and punctured the tire. I hover over the tire dude while he fills the tire to 60psi and wets it down with soap (if there is a leak, the air will create bubbles in the soapy water on the tire and you can easily spot the leak). There is no leak in the tire, he says. What?! Has to be!
Next, he sprays down the back of the rim. Uck oh - it becomes apparent now - there is a hairline crack in the rim that runs 4-5″ around. That’s a show stopper. The rim could (will) come apart at the hub, crash into the suspension, and generally make the car uncontrollable, ruining my day and probably a few dollars worth of car parts, too.
Our solution is to
- dismount the rear rain tires (yes, the ones we just got mounted yesterday to race in the rain)
- dismount the rear slicks
- mount the rear slicks onto the rain tire rims (which, are heavy steel, and ugly too)
We get all this done just as the next on-track session is beginning… We think we’re all set. So I gear up and hop in the car…The car that now has 2 front gray racing wheels, and two ugly yellow rear wheels. Yay.
Problem 2
Don and Michelle stuff me in the car, and we get our usual push-starting process going. This is a complex process that involves, well, Don pushing the car, people staring at us thinking we’re crazy, me popping the clutch in 2nd gear, and the car starting. If this doesn’t work, we repeat these steps except there are more people looking at us, and some feel bad enough to offer to help.
This time, Don starts pushing, I pull my foot off the clutch pedal, and nothing happens. I realize this, but Don yells at me to let go of the clutch. I did! No! Yes. No! Stop! For some reason, the clutch is not engaging. Uck oh.
I abandon ship to inspect the car, which, given my status similar to the Michelin Man when wearing a driving suit and helmet, takes a few minutes.. We can’t figure anything out. We work the clutch pedal and it becomes hard as a rock. Something is clearly wrong between the engine and the transmission.
Between Don and myself troubleshooting, we think the problem could be with:
- Clutch disc
- Clutch hydraulics - master/slave cylinder
- Throw-out bearing (likely candidate, as it was making noise before this. Did we mention that already?)
- Transaxle (highly unlikely, as it was working fine before)
We venture out to find someone who knows more about this stuff than we do… We come across Bruce Lindstrand from Lindstrand Motorsports (http://www.lindstrandmotorsports.com). We determine he knows more than us from these little observations:
- He has multiple racecars
- He has these racecars in front of his really, really big trailer
- This trailer has tools and parts for racecars
- He isn’t as dirty as we are, so he must have more reliable racecars and work on them less
Bruce listens to what we have to say, and explains how things work inside the bellhousing assembly (which, we cannot see, have never seen, and really don’t think we can crack open and see at the track). He confirms our suspicion that the throw-out bearing is the culprit, however, you can’t be sure unless you take the trans out of the car (ick..).
At this point, I figure my racing is over for the day. And, since I’m missing 2 sessions for the day, I will not get signed off for the school, not get my license, and not be able to race tomorrow even if I could fix the car tonight. At some point after the first session I missed, my instructor (Brad for those following from yesterday) comes over to find out what happened. I explained my concern that if I don’t get my school signed off for the day, I can’t race (which I need 2 races to get my regional license), and will generally screw up all of our plans for the next month or two.
At some point in the near future, Brad returns with a certificate much like the one I received yesterday (the school I passed). Apparently, I’m not a moron on the track (its good they can only see me from one corner at the time) and didn’t piss anyone off. So, they signed me off. While the school completion is huge, and really our must-do goal of the weekend, we now have motivation to fix the car and actually race the car tomorrow.
Fixing the car
The toughest decision of the weekend comes around 4:30pm today. Here is what we know:
- I passed both school days, so I can race tomorrow
- The racecar is broke, seriously broke
- We don’t exactly know what is wrong with the car
- We don’t have parts to fix the car, even if we do find out what it is
- I need a running car to race tomorrow
- There is free beer
So, if we can fix the car, I can race tomorrow. Fix car. Free beer. Fix car. Free beer. Free beer + fix car. Decision made.
Disassembly
First, we want to make sure we have the parts to fix the car if we take it all apart. This could drastically change our decision on beer consumption.
We find Bruce again, and he has a new throwout bearing which is most likely the culprit. We get the bearing, some instruction from Bruce, and a weird look when we tell him we’re going to change it now, at the track, and race tomorrow. The reason he thinks we’re crazy is, because, the throwout bearing is in between the engine and transmission (see technical drawing picture below).
In order to get to this area, the rear suspension has to come out, and the transaxle.
So, with this thrilling news, we head to the pavilion to socialize a while and build our confidence in working on race cars (read as: drink beer, oh, and there’s fried chicken, too!).
After an hour or three, we grab another box of friend chicken and head to the car. By now, it is about 45 degrees out and windy. Perfect time to work on the car outside.
So, while I wrench on the car…
Since we do not have a manual on the car (and one probably does not exist), we get to yanking out bolts that we think hold the rear of the car together. Within an hour we have this:
We quickly confirm it is the throwout bearing. This thingy should be in ONE piece, and not dangling like a hoop earring from 1984.
Reassembly
Bruce was nice enough to interrupt his wine party (ok, that’s a big of an exaggeration, but whenever you bring wine and wine glasses to a race track, you’re gonna get some flak) to check out our situation. He confirmed our only issue was probably the bearing…Good news.
We cleaned up the bellhousing of the transaxle, which was quite messy after the bearing had committed suicide in there, and put in our new bearing. Reassembly is just reverse of disassembly - and we didn’t run into any issues. Well, I take that back, Brad and Joe stopped by to heckle us, then offered to get us a beer when they were heading to get their own. It seems they proceeded to head to the pavilion, only to find about 15 corner workers (aren’t these the guys that are going to save my ass tomorrow when the car burst into flames? Uhm right) yelling “Toga” and empty kegs. They don’t come back to tell us, but instead head to Lindstrand’s rig where there is beer.
Once everything was back together, we confirmed that the clutch disc was grabbing and called it a night.
We enjoyed a celebratory beer, courtesy of Bruce Lindstrand. I think he felt sorry for us.
SCCA School, Day 1
Posted by mike on April 25th, 2008 filed in formula ford, sccaComment now »
Note: Once I get pictures from the event.. I’ll post them in here.. Until then, you get my witty banter (or lack of) in text format. Thrilling, I know.
My goal of the weekend was to complete the SCCA drivers school. This will allow me to race in the 2 required regional races and get my regional license (which leads to a national license, if I want). To get signed off, I need to complete both schools (one Friday, one Saturday). If I don’t do anything too stupid, drive somewhat quick, and keep the car running - I should pass.
Friday begins with a few minutes in the classroom at 7:30am. The chief instructor, Jim, gives a few words of advice, mates us up with our instructors, and sends us on our way. We begin with an hour (or less, depending how you count hours) driving around the track @ Blackhawk in my instructor’s truck.
Around the track, round 1
This is my first time around Blackhawk. I’ve been there twice before, but never driven on the track. Seeing the track is interesting, especially from my instructor’s big old truck. I used to think only rednecks had big trucks, but, my new instructor, Brad, has a big truck and doesn’t yet seem to be a redneck. On this note, Brad brings a camouflaged ATV with him also. And, I think he had a camo jacket. This was all very Alabama like, until I read his hat and spoke with him to realize he is former Army. This makes sense now, even if it was 10 years ago and he is a computer geek now. I’m sure he had a gun with him the whole time, in case one of us students went crazy he could shoot one of us. That’s ok, I had a gun the whole time, too.
Rain, rain, go away
The school is split into two groups, 1 and 2. Group 1 is closed wheel cars - mostly consisting of Spec-Miata’s, as well as some Civics, RX-7s, BMW 3-series, etc.. Group 2, my group, is open wheel (formula) cars. Open wheel cars this weekend encompass Formula 500, Formula Vee, Formula First, Formula/Club Ford, and some Formula Continentals.
Group 1 ran first at 9am… and the rain was moving in quickly. My issue was that the rain tires I had were with me, and the tire guys were just across (outside) the track. No one can cross the track while cars are running. So, just before the first session, Don and Michelle took the rain tires and rims to the tire shop and left them there with hope they would understand to mount them up.
Well, this didn’t happen by the first session. So I missed the first session, even after a delay for heavy rain and lightning. The Group 1 cars went out again, and during this time I was able to get and mount the rain tires.
Session 2
This was my first time on track with the Lola. It was raining lightly, and the track still had puddles on the surface, not to mention the mini-ponds all around the track runoff areas.
The first few laps were under double-yellow, which means you can’t pass other cars (not that I was going to) and need to drive cautiously in general. Once we got out of the yellow flag business, I took the car up to speed. I did about 2-3 laps, still timid in the rain, before disaster struck.
Blackhawk is a mild-speed course -
most of the track is done with 2nd or 3rd gear. There is one corner (3D) 1st gear is used, and 4th is used on the straight (bottom of the track map picture) with my car. Some will argue that 4th is used more with the right gearing.
So, at some point during my 2nd to 3rd shifting, or my 3rd to 2nd shifting (all without the clutch, mind you), the shifter had decided to do something I did not want it to do. In fear of something was wrong, I came into the pits rather than destroy the gearbox. Come to find out, the transaxle was stuck in 2nd and wasn’t hurting anything except my ego for going-fast.
Don and I quickly (in the mud) pulled the end-cover of the Hewland, re-aligned the selector fork, and resealed the transaxle. Problem solved.
Session 3
By now, the rain had gone away and it was humid and getting warmer.
Session 4
Session 5
Getting to the track
Posted by mike on April 24th, 2008 filed in auto links, formula ford, sccaComment now »
Thursday began my first of two vacation days from work.. And predictably, it began with a conference call for work, then 2 hours of stuff that had to get done before I left, then another 30 minute call to explain what to do in my absence. So much for a full day off.
After finishing up work, I loaded up the car and trailer. It is amazing how much crap you have to bring…Tools (lots of tools), extra parts, tables, tents, fluids, cleaners, funnels (yes, multiple funnels!) and more.
I had picked up a few items during the day, and was just left with filling up 2 fuel jugs with race fuel from the local Mobil, and getting some beef jerky, which is required for all drives more then 30 miles for me.
I stopped to get race gas at a Mobil station that I’d never been to before. A few indicators of how the weekend would progress began here:
- I can’t drive a trailer worth a damn. I’ve never had to. I can pull it around, and back it up in a field, but I’ll admit my backing skills in tight areas simply sucks. So, I pull into the gas station, find the race gas pump, and need to backup. I backup over the gas pump hose, and miss the pump by a good 3 inches.
- I get situated at the pump (by not being parked on the hose) and fill up a 5-gallon container with race gas. $5.99 a gallon. Let’s hear it for foreign oil (insert other political blog link here), whatever. As I go to put it into the back of the Jeep, I spill at least 64 cents of my new shiny fuel all over me, the back of the car, and the stuff inside the car.
Lesson learned: Fill up your new fuel jug with water, and make sure it doesn’t have any leaks, before filling it with gas and expecting it to be watertight.
So I get on the road to head Northwest, with a Jeep smelling like gas and not beef jerky. In my gas-spillage adventure, I forgot about the beef jerky. Oh well. The drive lasted about 30 miles into the 50 mile trip from Don’s house in Crystal Lake to Blackhawk (South Beloit, IL) before started raining. Then it started raining really really hard. I believe this was just after Don, via phone, said “wow, there’s a huge red band on the radar right where <click>.”
I tried finding an overpass or drive-thru to park the car under, as you can see it isn’t covered and the idea of everything being soaked wasn’t too appealing. Alas, I’m in the middle of nowhere with a few grain silos, lots of trees, a tornado here or there, and no cover from the rain. Everything gets wet and dirty.
I got to the track early, but couldn’t get inside as there was a test day going on. My rain tires were inside the track, courtesy of Andy @ Schulz Motorsports, which I planned to get mounted today for the rain tomorrow. A series of unfortunate events led me to not being able to get the tires until after the tire shop near the track was closed. Oops.
The SCCA registration folks were great - I clearly was lost. Marry Ann, Sue and Bob were very patient with me to get everything straight. My novice permit logbook was sent to my PO Box in Ohio, but arrived only after I had left for Chicago. Apparently showing up to race without a license or any paperwork is not cool. But, after a few phone calls, some printouts, and offering my first-born I was ok with the powers that be.
Once inside the track, I started getting things setup. It was rainy, and everything was soaked as expected. I also learned another valuable lesson: Setup everything beforehand to make sure it works. One of the ez-up tents that Don had bought was missing a leg. Luckily, a bungee cord, a tie-down-strap, and the trailer worked to hold it up. Once Don and Michelle arrived, I was clearly explained the downsides of my half-ass-structure-job. I’m not an engineer. Both of them are engineers. Whatever, you dorks, it held up.
After getting everything together at the track, we ventured to the lodging facility Michelle had arranged for us. I refrain from saying motel, or hotel, because I’m not sure what to call this place. In my travels for work, I experience some crappy places to stay. Some have smoky non-smoking rooms, some have loud traffic all night long, some have a lobby that scares me. This place had everything, and everything worse. I’m going to save my writing on this establishment for tripadvisor.com or hotels.com. Let’s just say Michelle wore her flip-flops the entire time while in the room, and no one looked up once I questioned why there was silly string on the ceiling in our room. Uhm…Right.