THis is a fairly long account of the my racing weekend in an MGB. If
you aren't interested in racing, or have see it already, my
apologies.
-------
This past weekend, all the work on the car finally got tested. The
Watts link that I had discussed here several weeks ago finally got
put together, as did the trailing arm enhancement. So the car had
about as much Trick Suspension Shit ((R) - GFHRGBaCDC) as you'll
find on the back end of an MGB. This, and other bits of love poured
into my car by various Bay Area car enthusiasts made me ready for
the weekend.
Truck and trailer loaded (actually overloaded), I made flight from
San Jose about 11:30 Friday morning. With one stop to gas up the
truck and add another 250 pounds of gas to an already taxing
load, I made it to Sear Point around 2:00. Being the first to
arrive, I staked out paddock space for the two cars and two support
vehicles.
A nice voice on the PA system mentioned that pre-grid was open for a
practice session involing, among other classes, E Production, which
the BGT runs in. I hopped on the bike, rode down to Race Central,
and paid my fee to get on track. Back on the paddock, I got the car
off the trailer and suited up. The cars were already on course, but
I figured I could get in at least a few laps of practice. I torqued
down the Yokohamas; Sam had the jack so I couldn't get slicks on the
car before he arrived. I was sitting in the car, strapped in and
helmet on looking through the windshield at the kill switch in the
OFF position when the announcement was made that the checker had
fallen on the practice session.
Sam arrived shortly after that, followed not long after by Larry. I
told Sam what had happened, and recommended that he take the final
practice session of the afternoon, about an hour and a half later.
He went down to change the name and competition license number on
the entry form while I worked on changing tires on both my car and
Larry's car, which Sam had towed up.
They went out in the same practice session while I spent some time
setting up camp. I didn't see too much of Larry, but noticed that
Sam was lapping well off what I would consider a reasonable speed
for the car. He came in a few laps later, complaining of a lack of
power and asked me to top off the tank. Once done he headed back
out, still significantly off the pace. He mentioned when he came in
that it felt like the engine was straving and the brakes needed to
be pumped up to work effectively.
After practice was over for the day, we headed away from the track
for dinner and weekend shopping. We got back to the track around
10:00, and fired up the propane heaters and any light sources we
could get our hands on, and attacked the fuel flow problem. Quick
dissassembly and inspection showed some crud in the float valves.
We cleaned them and blew out the crud and reassembled the carbs.
Bleeding the brakes was the next step. After finally finding a
wrench that would fit on the rear bleed nipples, this went quickly.
But we got no air nor dirty fluid out. Our next guess was that the
rear brakes were out of adjustment. I decided to wait till morning
to adjust them, since it was well past midnight.
Morning came a little too soon for my tastes. I got up, sucked down
a couple cups of coffee, thanks to Sam bringing a generator and
coffee maker, and attacked the brakes. They didn't require a lot of
adjustment, but apparently enough to make a difference. Tech went
quickly and painlessly. I had to tape up a few holes in the floor
of the passenger compartment, but other than that, the car checked
out fine. Morning practice was half an hour starting at 8:30. Sam
and I decided since he had taken Friday afternoon, I would take
Saturday morning practice.
Practice went well. I hadn't been on track since early June, and
hadn't been at Sears or raced since the middle of April. It took me
a few laps to settle down to the line and get a feel for the car. In
the entire half hour, I didn't feel as if I turned a really good lap,
but, as I would find out later, I came within a second of my previous
best on the course. The car had all the power it ever had, and the
brakes felt much better than I remembered. New slicks were certainly
a treat, feeling much better than Yokos or the ancient slicks I had
driven on before.
On the last lap of practice, I heard something in the rear suspension
snap, and felt the rear end jump a couple inches. Bcak in the
paddock, I told the crew, which now included Craig, Liz, Michael, and
Chris, Jeff, Jill and Maryjane, as well as the four drivers. We had
the back end of the car up in the air in a couple minutes checking
things out. All the rod ends and attaching points looked fine. All
the welds were in fine shape. The only thing we noticed wrong was
the pipe connecting to the fuel pump had a very slight leak in it.
The suspension looked fine. Sam attacked the leaking fuel line.
Around this kind of time, Kirk Buecher, in town on business from
Greeley, CO, showed up. He said they didn't have his name at will
call, so he had to pay for an overbuy to get into the track. This
didn't sound right, so I offered to go back over with him and clear
things up. On our way out of the paddock, I stopped by the Pickett
Racing trailer, in hopes of meeting Bill Lester. Steve Petty was
there, and after a little prompting, he remembered me from his class
in drivers' school last winter. We spent a while discussing how to
set up my car to be more comfortable, how to approach a long race,
and racing in general. He told me some about his prsopects for next
year, and re-introduced me to Larry Park, who would be codriving the
4 hour enduro with him. His bad news of the morning was that his
times were suffiecient to put him on the fron row for Saturday
afternoon's GT regional, but his times had been disallowed because of
a sound violation. He eventually ended up not running the race.
Kirk and I made our way to registration. Once that got squared away,
we headed to turn two to watch some of the action. As we walked up
to the corner, Kirk commented that it looked familiar. He had seen
video tape of Larry's aerobatics in his Cortina at this corner. I
commented that turn two was a favorite meeting place for IT cars and
tire walls and a favorite testing ground for roll cages. As we got
closer, sure enough, and ITC Datsun 510 launched off the berm at the
inside of the corner, headed straight across the track, and nosed
hard into the tire wall. It landed on its wheels, but there was a
moment when we were both certain it would end up on its side or roof.
We watched the rest of the IT qualifying, then headed down to the
carousel, a long, sweeping, downhill left hander. Kirk determined,
by just watching forula cars going through it, that there were a wide
variety of lines through it that yielded about the same results. As
far as I can tell, he's right.
We headed back to the paddock for a drivers meeting at noon. Kirk
tagged along to see if they were much different than those held for
vintage racers. He said they weren't. What to do in yellow flag
situations, what violations would get you black flagged, and, as
always in the mixed bag fields, tell everyone that Sports Racers are
almost invisible to sedan drivers.
The big excitement of the weekend was when the reas suspension on a
Super Production Corvette broke on the fastest corner of the track.
He hit the tire wall hard, spewing tires everywhere and flipping the
car, end over end, once. He scrambled out quickly and looked ok.
About three minutes later, we saw him waving and yelling wildly to
the corner workers. We also saw the heat rising off the car. By the
time the corner worker had picked up the bottle and started running
toward the car, flames were evident from the roof of the car. The
fire went out quickly, but I'm sure it was a rude end to his weekend.
We ended up putting a fuel line band-aid over the leaking fuel pipe
and were ready for afternoon practice well ahead of time. This would
be the first time Sam and I would try a driver change. Sam took the
car out first, and I suited up and trotted down to the pits. Sam
turned some good laps, besting my times by quite a margin. In about
half an hour, he brought the car in, crying things like "Wow!" and
"How am I ever going to drive on street tires again?" I took the car
out. The exhaust note was notably different, and heading out with a
warm car is a little different that starting out cold. I felt I was
being more consistant and testing the limits of the car a little more
this time out. It paid off to the tune of 6 seconds a lap over
morning practice. The only incident of note was when a sports racer
cut across my bow as I was turning in for a corner. I avoided him by
goin four wheels off on the opposite side of the track, but recovered
and got back on track. Coming in from the session, I got waved inot
impound. Apparently there were sparks coming from the center of the
car. One of the tech folks looked under the car and told me "Your
exhaust is bottoming out. Just thought you'd like to know." and sent
me on my way.
Back on the paddock, we discussed what we should do. The thought of
wearing a hole on the tail end of the header or exhaust pipe wasn't too
pleasing. We decided to weld some plate on the bottom of the header
collector and exhaust pipe, and just let that wear down instead.
I jokingly pointed out that we had Larry's Cortina, essentially an
entire car of scrap metal. Larry took exception to this.
We went to nearby Sonoma for dinner with Eric and Julie, some freinds
of ours. Eric gratefully offered a piece of 16 guage mild steel we
could use as skid plates on the exhaust. Mary's, an Italian
restaurant in Sonoma sated our appetites, and we stopped by Eric an
Julies place for a quick shower. We then headed back to the track to
get to work.
The exhaust pipe and header collector came off easily. Sam and Chris
got to work on cutting pieces to weld onto the bottom. This effort
was hampered when we realized that the cutting tip for the torch had
been left back at my place. Kirk and I realized, after a look under
the hood that one of the header pipes had come loose from the head.
Closer inspection showed that the stud was stripped. Kirk, Larry,
and I got the carbs off and the stud removed. Sam cut the plate
steel using an oxidixing flame from a standard welding tip.
We replaced the stud with a bolt that we just torqued into the head.
Sam found out that running a mig welder of the generator was
difficult, but workable, and we had the plates on around midnight.
Putting the pipe back on was a little difficult, but after the right
amount of wiggling and pounding, it was back in place.
SUnday morning went a little better. I took the car out first in
morning practice. I dorve a little more smoothly, and brought the
car in after half an hour without incident. The left front tire was
a little down, so its pressure was brought back up and Sam set out
for practice. His session went equally well, and when he brought the
car in, we charged Chris with checking the tire that was down a
little. He pulled the valve out and cleaned it and the tire held air
fine after that.
By this time, Akkana, Chris Kent and Scott Fisher had arrived. We
tanked up the car and looked it over before the race. Sam safety
wired a stuffed Loch Ness monster to the cage on the passenger side
of the car, for good luck or maybe just poor taste.
We had determined that I would start the race, drive for an hour and
10 minutes, Sam would drive the next hour and 10 minutes, and we
would then split the balance of the 4 hours between us. Akkana
brought us the grid sheet that showed our car in grid position 24 of
a 67 car field. There was no qualifying for the race. Cars were
split into classes, and position within the class was chosen by
drawing. The front of the field had the big Sporsts racers, followed
by over 1700 cc production based cars, then SCCA Spec Racers, then
the under 1700 cc prodcution based cars. The MG, having an 1800 cc
engine fit into the over class (with big bore GT cars, mostly). What
this all boiled down to was that there were probably 30 cars gridded
behind me that were faster than I was, probably 15 of them
significantly faster. This was enough to tie my stomach in knots, but
I figured it would be ok.
After fuel, tires, and tools were transported down to the pit lane, I
took the car to pre-grid. Scott attended to me while we watched the
minutes tick away to noon. The announcers started listing the grid.
I heard them announce the number seven MGB driven by Andy Banta and
Sam Sjogren. Unfortunately, we didn't list our sponsors on the entry
sheet. It would have been nice to hear the "British Motorsports, K*Y
Personal Lubricant MGB" announced. No such luck.
I headed out and took the two pace laps in the pack. Apparently the
field wasn't sufficiently lined up, so the starter sent us on a
third. This time around, the the green flag dropped and we were
racing. I got on the gas and pulled up tight to the right side of
the track. If lots of cars were going to be streaming by, I wanted
to know which side they'd be going by on. If a couple of the slower
cars got by, it would give me some fun in a couple laps. Everyone
got through cleanly, and by half way thru the first lap, things
started to thin out a little. There were, in fact, a couple slower
cars that really didn't provide to much of a challenge. A couple ITB
Rabbits were lotsof fun. They had somewhat better acceleartion than
my stock-engined B, but the slicks allowed me to carry more speed
through the corners and outbrake them with ease into the corners.
I got by one after a couple laps, and he proceeded to disappear in my
mirrors. I came up behind another one that provided more of a fight.
I got by him in about two laps, but about a lap later, he ducked in
behind a line of faster traffic I was letting by and got by me. This
happened several more times before he peeled into the pits. Most of
the drivers seemed very courteous. Those going significantly slower
pointed me by, those faster didn't push their passing and without
exception, took the side I pointed them by on. I came up behind
Larry in the Cortina. He was running about 10 seconds a lap off my
pace. I met him at turn one and he did a good job of blocking me
thru the upper section of the track. I dropped back at the entrance
to the carousel, and was able to carry and build enough extra speed
through it that I passed him at the exit.
I came in when I was told to. Sam took over driving duty, and once
the car was fueled, he was back on his way. He experienced the first
full course caution of the day. I found out later it was caused when
the bunny I had been dicing with rolled.
The lap that we were going to call Sam in, he came in on his own. He
complained that the throttle wouldn't open entirely. Scott popped
the hood, and we saw that the end of the throttle cable was frayed
and stretched with about three stands still doing the job. I cut the
rest of the cable and pulled it out, then proceeded to cut a couple
inches off the cable housing to give us enough cable to work with.
Scott had loosened the nut that held the cable and we shoved it back
together. I got my helmet on, and climbed in while they finished up
work on the cable and Sam Spade fueled the car. I get the sign to
turn it over. As soon as I hit the started switch, the engine starts
racing toward redline. I immediately shut it down. Scott, Larry,
and Sam futzed under the hood for anotehr minute, and told me to try
it again. This time was better, but the thrid tiem I pressed the
accelerator, it stuck on the floor, and I shut it down again.
Another minute of playing around, and they signal me to try again.
This time it feels ok. Another casualty of this pit stop was the
left front brake ducting.
Back on track, the exhaust noise is back, indicating a leak somewhere
in the system. The car feels ok, though. I run down a few more
cars, many more blow by me. The amount of traffic is significantly
down from the beginning of the race. There was about 50% attrition,
they announced after the race. The lack of cooling caused the brakes
to fade a little and pull right under hard braking. Once I realized
this, compensating wasn't too difficult. The second full course
caution of the day comes out about the time I figure its time to turn
driving over to Sam to finish the race. Great I figured, pit during
the caution and not lose a full lap, hopefully. But as I came
around, I saw the reason for the caution is a car stalled in the pit
entrance. I circulated for a several laps while they clear the
problem and got called in as soon as we're back under greeen.
I mentioned the braking problem to Sam, and headed back out. He ran
the rest of the race at a good pace, but not meeting his personal lap
time goal of the weekend. I get the pleasure of soaking him in
cheap, evil smelling beer (refered to as FizzBeer) sometime because
of this.
Team FizzBall had two finishers in the Ilgen Classic 4 hour enduro.
As soon as the checkered fell, I hiked back to the paddock. Sam
arrived a few minutes later, the radiator boiling over and forcing
liquid into the catch tank.
We celebrated for a while, and got pictures of the team drivers,
cars and crew. As I put street tires back on the car, I finally
found what had snapped Saturday morning. The end link on the right
side of the rear sway bar was gone. The end of the bar flapped in
the breeze, and the attaching point on the axle was bare. Oh well,
things had worked well.
The entire crew did a fantastic job. I can't even begin to remember
who to give credit to for everything, but things went incredibly
smoothly. My, and I'm sure Sam's thanks to MaryJane, Sam Spade,
Chris (whose last name I never got), Chris Kent, Scott Fisher, Jeff
Zurschmeide, Jill Ellis, Kirk Buecher, Michael Adams, Ix Nichols, Liz
Neely, Ruth Colby, Larry Colen, Geoff Banta, and anyone I've
thoughtlessly missed. Also, extra thanks to Linda Waterhouse, who
couldn't make it up this weekend, but who's given me lots of support
in getting the car to this race. The efforts of Robert Keller and
Marciano Pitargue in getting the car prepped are also appreciated.
|