Just got home from the CVAR Races. A great weekend. Unfortunately we had a
rather light turnout, but the upside was there were garage spaces for almost
anyone who wanted one. Out of sympathy for Kramer I didn't use his. I believe
the prospect of hot Texas weather scared a lot of people off, but the weekend
was light overcast most of both days and that helped keep the heat down.
Still, driving a closed car in that nomex suit was like spending twenty
minutes in a sauna.
I discovered a heretofore unsuspected leaking brake master cylinder the
weekend before the races. Naturally I had to leave on a four-day trip on
Tuesday morning and didn't get home until 11:30 Friday evening. If I didn't
live five miles from the track, Saturday would have been a very long day. Jeff
Sloane at British Auto Specialists was kind enough to have someone hand-carry
a new one to me and I spent Saturday morning before the first session
replacing my leaking one. It completely solved my brake problems. I took Kas
Kastner's advice from the TR-6 Competition Prep book and replaced my 1-3/4"
exhaust pipe with a 2-1/2". Turtle picked up 500 rpm on the straight, better
acceleration out of the corners and the engine seems much more free-revving.
We ran the 1.8 mile short course (new to me). What a challenge! Watch out for
turn 4. I couldn't keep up with the pack since the slowest was about 5 seconds
faster, but I had a great time duking it out with Iturbe's #177 Mini. I could
run away from him on the straight, but he would gain it all back in the
corners. I was running a consistent 1:30 both days. The Caterhams were
indecently fast at an average of about 1:20 and the Z-cars were right in there
with them. The Porches were running at about 1:25. I don't even want to talk
about the E-Type Jag. I can't believe we're in the same class.
The only incident of the weekend occurred when the Kurtis 500 and a Sprite got
together at turn 3. I didn't look at the Sprite, but the Kurtis suffered some
minor fiberglass damage and undetermined suspension damage in the off-track
excursion. The most interesting car was a beautifully restored 1950 Ferrari
212 Export from Monterrey Mexico owned by Pablo Gonzalez. Ken Hardesty (If I
got your name wrong, please excuse me) brought his new TR-3 racer. The car was
built by Ed Barnard and is absolutely gorgeous as well as thoughtfully
prepared. Ed was also available to provide me with some tech support over the
weekend, but his attention was mainly focused on mother-henning his new
creation. Thanks, Ed.
Once again a great racing weekend.
Cheers
John Price
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