I will second Chuck's summary that the event was great fun and very
successful. Many thanks to Mark Palmer for his effort in organizing it!
In the true Colin Chapman tradition my Lotus 7 held together until I
crossed the finish line of the last race on Sunday. On the cool down lap
the right rear wire wheel hub broke and I lost the wheel. I am very
thankful that it did not break during the heat of the racing! I also
want to give special thanks to the corner workers who helped me find the
errant wheel. It took about half a dozen workers searching for about 20
minutes to find it. It is amazing how far a spinning wheel will travel.
Now that I have the car back home the biggest effort will be pounding
the rear fender back into shape since the wheel bent it up when exiting
out the rear.
Phil Roettjer
58 Lotus 7
53 Lotus 6
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-vintage-race@autox.team.net
[mailto:owner-vintage-race@autox.team.net] On Behalf Of Charles Christ
Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2002 6:04 PM
To: vintage-race
Subject: we did the turkey bowl in a big way!
well, first off how many participants actually roasted an 11lb. turkey
at
the event? we did! we shared our track side feast with all who stopped
by
saturday .
we felt that was in the spirit of the event?
i took both my orange ultra fast(not really...lol!) 1960 saab and my
H-modified sports racer. this was the first attempt at trying my H mod
car
in a number of years. i did a lap here and a lap there trying to feel
out
things . the car handled horribly! twitchy as could be. i added some
toe
in and finally sunday morning i tried a great reduction in tire
pressures
and finally it started to handle. it still is very-very sensitive to
any
driver input. far more sensitive than anything i have experienced.
but!
this morning i ran a practice session from green to checkerd flag for
the
first time in my father's sports racer! it needs new tires as it was
sliding in the rear quite a bit and the ones i had were too old. but it
ran
consistently around 200 degrees on the temp gauge (how it does in hot
weather will be another story? possibly a smaller restrictor plate to
slow
down the coolant?) and the cooling system now properly flows and does
not
cavitaie the water pump. (previously it overheated and melted 3 pistons
from a cooling system cavitation problem) so major steps in R&D were
acomplished and valuable track time to test the serious changes i had
done
over the last month paid off!
i also shared my orange car with my friend and team mate jon ewing. jon
had
some valuable seat time and i got to thrash my sedan a bit too. it was
a
great weekend! the saturday night dinner at the rustic wayside was
great!
we enjoyed the company of our fellow competitors and after dinner were
suprised to come out to it snowing. by the time we got to winchester it
was
snowing so darn hard it was hard to see on the interstate!
my thanks go out to peter dunn for his generosity, alan pack for some
pit
assistance, jon for his enthusiasm, nick england for the resources to
fabricate the new set of doors, and mark palmer for a great event with
lots
of track time!
we had a great time(very cold friday and sunday) but this event has
helped
me realise a dream of driving the car my father built and last drove
before
his retirement from active sports car racing in 1968. i still have some
bugs to work out but a start to finish session is a great acomplishment
in
my book for "brand X".
i'm still all smiles about this huge step of progress on a car i have
waited
for, for a very long time! i do apologise for boring some of you with
all
this but this experience will keep me excited and motivated through the
long
winter here in the north east untill march when we are preparing
another
multi saab asault on the sebring 12 hour weekend (they're gonna love
us!)
:) . (that's a long wait.......but i believe i will make it....LOL!)
chuck
1967 H-mod "brand X"
1960 saab 93F sedan #25
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