I wrote mjb, john lye, roget garnett, and Chris K. about my shiny new
racecar
last week, just before heading out for a weekend of driver's school and racing
@ Lime Rock...
The rest, as they say, is history.
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->
->You slimebag! A nice shiny racecar, indeed. Boy, am I jealous. Good luck,
->wish you could bring it to Seattle.
->
I wish I could bring it to seattle, but after friday, it looks like
I'll be lucky to get ME to seattle...Read On.
->
->Should I call someone in Seattle about having them make up an "Asphalt
->Agony" trophy? Can we all agree that no one in this group gets it?
->Did you pay for the last one all by yourself, Bob?
->
Yes, I paid for the last one. $54.00 worth. Plus the piston of
course... :-} I'd be happy to make the other half, or half of a newly
fractured one available....Read On...
->I wanna do more than spend a VTR convention *under* a Triumph! Then
->again, if my '66 Chevy truck breaks down...
->
I don't do American trucks Mark...Read On...
->
->Yah, let's get an official trophy made up. Of course, that probably
->means that at least one of us needs to go to the banquet to present it.
->
->And I'm doing my damndest not to earn it again!
->
Well, if my weekend is like the rest of the summer is gonna be...
->Wait. isn't this a .030 Motor Sports Car? This is a contridiction in terms!
->
The car was in fact all together at least 4 hours prior to the actual
departure time...In fact, the car was ready to leave 4 hours before departing
to and/from the track...Read On...
->> it is Ready To Go.
->
->And another!
->
I'll give you that one...
->> I'm nervous about going through Tech, but just because I don't know
->> what they're gonna look for.
->
->EVERYTHING- it's your first outing. The more they find, the harder they'll
->look, and vice-versa.
->
Actually, they looked at the cage, made me drill no holes after they
heard who built it and saw it had a stamp on it. Tech went very quickly
in fact. No notes in the logbook, no hard time about anything. One of the
easiest parts of the day...Read On.
->I think sombody's excited. And, they're even predicting nice weather for
->this corner of the country this weekend.
->
The weather was terrific. It rained after leaving the track, I got
a decent tan over 3 days of racing, and I had alot of fun driving the Golf...
Read On...
-> GoBobGo
Well, I guess I can't put it off any longer, So here goes. I'm
gonna give ya'll the abbreviated version and write the whole sad tale
up for w2w during the week.
Early June:
@ garage every night till > 1:00am working on car. Ordered parts that I
needed, got everything lined up. Made dozens of lists, stuff I needed,
stuff that was optional, stuff I'd forget, things to remember, etc.
Much wrenching on the car, mostly cosmetic, but going over the
suspension and driveline to insure continued attachment if not
reliability...
Thursday:
Left work at noon to go put the finishing touches on the car. Got held
up trying to get lunch with the DTC (Designated Travelling Companion),
picked up air cleaners, some other goodies @ the house ,got to the
garage 2 hours late. Took care of a couple of small details, loaded up
the car, noticed that the water temp guage was dead. Bad guage.
Electrical gremlin crops up. No run, no start, no nothin. Fiddle for a
few minutes, debate gutting the electrical system, skip it when I find
a bad battery connection. Head out. Go back for forgotten rain tires.
Now over 2 hours late. Go back to house for forgotten helmet. Head for
crew's place to pick him up. Call from car phone. They (Crew, different
from last Tusty, Reliable Crew...) are in middle of serious fight.
She's being irrational. (ed: *VERY* irrational) Truck dies. Stalls
like it's out of gas. Begin to wonder about weekend. Play with tank
switch, truck restarts.
Arrive @ crew hq. (30 minutes in *OTHER* direction mind you.) Need to
be at driver's meeting @ 8:30pm. Is now 6:45, and an hour and 40
minutes to the track. Pick up forgotten items, wait to see if he is
going. 7:15: He (wisely) isn't going. She won't even come downstairs.
He says he'll be down tonight. I'm starting to get annoyed. Get in
truck. Leave. Stop for gas and oil. Projected arrival time: 9:00pm.
Hope they'll give me a break. Trip non-eventful. Arrive @8:58pm. Walk
into start of meeting. Meeting old stuff for licensed flagger. Drink
lots of iced tea, talk to other drivers I know, phone home. Wished
I'd stopped for dinner.
Plan is to stay @ local B&B, was told is 'close to track'. Don't have
directions. Realize don't have shirt other than one on back. Call and
ask for directions and shirts @ break. Get machine. Assume this means
he has left as per new plan. Go back to meeting. Know basic set of
directions, but no distances. head out after meeting breaks up about
11:00pm. Head in general direction of B&B, hoping I'll see sign. Nada.
Call house hoping to get directions. He answers. Not A Good Sign. Get
directions. `Close To Track' means 20 miles....Get to B&B I was assured
would have plenty of space to park. Has plenty of space to park...a
Midget maybe, but a 27 foot long flatbed?!?! Park in field near house.
go in, shower, climb into bed ~1:00am, with alarm set for 6:00am so I
can hit registration and tech when they open @ 7:30.
Alarm goes off. Get up (too early for 2nd B of B&B) head for track.
Get to track, get in line for registration. (not open yet) Get registered,
head in, get paddock space. Can't get car off truck. Went on just fine when
parked on hill...Guy next door helps, car comes off. Tighten down oil pan
bolts after viewing oil on truck. Tighten down oil pan drain after viewing
drip on pan. (glad I painted it white...Thanks for the suggestion Paul)
Put car in line for tech. Means pushing it since there are no race
engines allowed before 10 am on Fridays. Long push alone. No sign of
crew. Long line for tech. Very long. Wonder how I'm going to get car
to tech *and* make 8:30 driver's meeting. Fortunatly tech line goes
through middle of driver's meeting...Crew arrives. Get last of roll bar
padding put on, seat belts clipped in, misc details taken care of. Crew
rolls car through tech while I fret in driver's meeting. More old
stuff. Car gets to Tech. Sails through tech in fact. Afraid it failed
it went so fast. Thought they'd want to look at all sorts of stuff.
Nope. Gave it an annual sticker and sent it on it's merry way. Crew
roll car back to paddock.
Driver's meeting over. Meet with instructor who hasn't driven track
since repaving. Starts asking me questions about what it's like when
finds out that I've driven it. Got a Good Feeling about School...
Change, move battery from truck to race car. (dead) Start car, head
over to false grid, line up. Worried about lack of temp guage, but
triple checked coolant. Looks good. Get flag, and head out to track.
Car handles really well. Engine is happy up to about 7 grand. Start
working my way around, concentrating on hitting the apexes. Notice that
I'm actually keeping up with the FP and SR cars. Wow! Pass 2 out of 4
FP cars! Pass a spec racer or two. Take the checker and head in. Stuck
in traffic trying to get out of Pit. Worried about Temp. Get stuck
again by timing tower who wants to talk to me about #. Shut car down.
Won't restart. Push back to paddock space. Turns out to be an
electrical connection. Find out I turned some 1:15's, 1:13's. Not bad
for a short session where I thought I needed to brake in the downhill.
Meet instructor who is very complementary. Wants me to move apex point
in 2nd half of 2 a little but not much. Head back to car to worry why
it won't start. Find bad cable to starter. Add Coolant. Was leaking.
Looks like there's a pinhole in the radiator. Start up, head for false
grid.
Head out for 2nd session. Car still feels great. Wish I had a temp
guage though. Watching oil pressure guage carefully. Lap 4 or 5, hard
braking & downshifing for Big Bend, let out clutch, wheels slide,
locked up. Clutch in! Try again. Same thing. Park it in a nice safe
place at station 3. Say hello to friends flagging. One is wife of cage
builder...Mention lack of blue flags. Stations very shorthanded.
Offered Blue flag. About to accept when spec racer spins @ station.
Grab gloves, at the ready. Not needed. SR continues. Session ends. Come
back on the hook.
Inspection reveals nothing. Play with electrical connection, engine
starts. Bad knock @ rear of engine. Debate it for a while. Decide to
go back out next session, try to baby it, get through school. Bad Idea.
Go talk to instructor who is impressed with line through left hander.
Very nice to hear. Tell him story. Tells me to try to get the time on
the track.
Line up for next session. Go out. Short shift, never higher than
5K rpm. Still can hear knock. 40 LBS of pressure. Make it as far as the
bottom of the uphill, about 1/2 a lap. Feel something kinda die. Look @
guage. Oil pressure @ 20 and dropping. Hit Big Red Switch. Engine then
detonates right at the top of the hill. SR on the right. Neutral,
coasting, tring to move to the right to get off line. SR, she no move.
into West bend, well off to the L, can't pull off here, impact zone.
try to turn through West Bend. Now 5 quarts of oil on rear wheels.
Manage to slide off to the right as SR trys to pass through the oil on
the right. Park across the track @ the base of the bridge. Looks @
engine. Hole the size of a quarter in oilpan...Oh well. Back to the
paddock through the grass, on the hook again. Park it, tell crew to put
it on the truck. Tell instructor what happened. Gonna go scrounge a
ride.
O'connor's have offered the use of the Golf for the remainder of the
school. Rent/Borrow that, get through school. Call Kim's Import Motors
about new engine, leave message. Get signed off. I have my license, but
nothing to race the next day. Pack up, go check out of the B&B, go
home. About 3/4 of the way home, the starter on the truck decides to
turn on. Irregardless of the state of the key. Pull over. Yank on
positive cable hoping to rip it out. Starter stops. Get back in. Truck
starts. Press On Regardless. Want to get home and go to sleep.
Arrive in cell phone range. Call Home. Discover DTC, who's company
hires me as a trainer *ALOT* is among the unemployed. Company will
probably not be requiring my services anymore... Tosses my future
employ into some doubt. Good News all over. Go home. Party going on
there. Message from Kim. Found new engine. Pick up clothes, head for
DTC's house. She keeps me up till 2:30 crying about job, me, and life
in general. (I said `No' again...) Get 6 hours of bad sleep.
2 day autox @ big local lot we get once or twice a year Sat & Sun.
Figure to take the TR-6 out and enjoy a pleasant day. Run T&S all day
off the trunk lid of the TR. Go out and thrash. Take a 1st place. No
Surprise. Make plans to take DTC out to dinner and Jurassic Park. Movie
starts in 40 minutes. Get to theatre #1. Sold Out. Go across town (10
mi) to other theatre. Notice steadily dropping oil pressure. Down to
~15 lbs @ 3500 by the time we arrive. Sold Out. Bought tix for 9:40
show. Look at dipstick. My aren't all those metal flakes on the
distick pretty? Isn't all that oil blowing out of every engine orifice
terrific smelling? Curse alot. Decide to limp it back to garage (~5
mi.) My night to get stuck in slow traffic. Make it to garage. Park
car. Get in Chevy. Leave stuff I need to run T&S in TR-6...(discovered
in am...) Go to dinner. Drink 0.5 beers, decide that more beer would be
A Bad Idea. Eat 0.5 of burger. Go to movie. Have fun tormenting DTC
for remainder of night with dino-noises...
And Sunday wasn't much better...Can I have a new decade?
Irregardless of all that, I'd like to extend a major thanks to all the
folks who helped out getting me ready for the weekend. Lenny for the
garage space, Paul for the advice, Richard and Allison, thanks again
for crewing in New Hampshire, klm for general support, Rik for dragging
himself out of bed @ 5:00 am and driving down to Lime Rock to tend a
broken car, Kim's Import Motors for helping to secure a new engine,
Dave Furiani @ Very British for hanging on to all the Triumph parts I
need, sometimes for years. Special Thanks go to the O'connor brothers
of Dragonslayer fame and Thom for coming to the rescue with the Golf.
And of course the folks at the office, who put up with me sucking down
2 parking spaces in our crowded little lot for a couple of days...
iii
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