What quickly became the final event

It would not be a race weekend without high levels of drama for the Third Wave Advertising team.

First off, it was not a result I had hoped for and certainly not like what we experienced at Barber. I lost the pressure plate/throw out bearing in the second qualifying session on Saturday, so I viewed the group 8 production car race on Sunday from the stands outside of the carousel.

But the drama began long before we arrived at the track. It rained everyday from Thursday through Sunday – Tropical storms hitting the east coast and hurricanes traveling north on the Atlantic. We got as far as Durham, NC and the trailer started swaying. I always will speed it up a bit and pull out of it, but it wouldn't stop. It never sways much with the camper, because the camper just laughs back, but the Explorer is a bit different.

The swaying built up momentum and it was not too long before I realized that I was in trouble. The swaying got so bad that all four trailer wheels locked – they were no longer traveling forward - and you could hear the tires screeching as it swayed 70-80 degrees from side to side. I could see the entire car in my driver's side rearview mirror. Then the passenger side mirror and so on and so forth. The whole time I was slowing thinking I could minimize damage and getting pretty scared. Also envisioning turning on my side and losing both tow and race cars.

My kids were asleep in the back - clueless - and my wife was dead silent, sitting up straight, stiff as a board. By the time I got down to about 40, I hit the gas and pulled it out. From there on we went 55-60 mph with no more issues.

So, early Friday morning mom and I went over to a truck and trailer company in Manassas, Va., and had an equalizer hitch installed which balances out the tongue weight and eliminates the sway – it worked quite well.

After lunch, dad, my brother-in-law and I arrived at the track. We set up our paddock space, renewed my annual tech inspection and got registered before heading off to eat some of the best ribs ever in Winchester at the Cork Street Tavern (family tradition).

Saturday morning was light showers, so my first session was in the wet. This was my first time back since my October school and since then I have installed a new motor, new suspension, etc. So the objectives were to re-learn the line, find the right shift and braking points and get a feel for the suspension set up. I ran my rain tires and set the sway bars on a softer setting. In the wet I was about 15 seconds faster than my school times and found that my new motor had a lot more legs all over the track, especially on the front straight. The only drama was when finding the right braking points, I hit the brakes too soon going into T1 (at 100+ mph) and nearly beached the car in the gravel trap. While going through the gravel, I found second and surfed across, doing a huge donut in the grass on exit and slowly heading back on track praying that I did not lose my fuel lines underneath the car. I pulled into the pits, dad inspected and back out I went. My wife and sister joined us following this session, so they spent the rest of the weekend with us. Mom and the kids joined us on Sunday.

My second session was in the dry. I could tell with two hot laps and temperature in my tires that I was going to be able to post some competitive lap times. I had already knocked off 4 seconds in the dry turning a 1.35 on the two mile course.
On lap four, I came down the long front straight and the throttle stuck pegging the motor at 8 grand for about 1-2 seconds. At the point I pushed in the clutch with the motor pegged I think the revs were too much for the pressure plate or throw-out bearing and I lost all of the gears. I was able to match the revs, find third and limp back to the pits.

I won't know exactly what happened until I get the motor out. We did not attempt to fix it at the track. It had been pouring and we were paddocked in the grass/mud, so we resigned ourselves to a more leisurely weekend.

When the session ended my times netted me P3 in a grid of 6 F cars, but to no avail, my weekend was done. We packed up some ate barbeque, hung out at the worker party and walked the track. We were able to watch Auburn beat Tennessee – War Eagle.

This was a season ender for me. I will have to pull the motor and transmission in order to fix the car and do not want to rush to get that done for the next race weekend. And, other than a set of carbs, I probably won't make any huge investments this winter. This winter will be focused more on disassembling, cleaning, painting and modifying various elements of the car. I will work to improve existing elements such as moving the fuel line out from under the car, getting a new pump, regulator and modifying the battery boxes, as well as corner weighting the car. I have a bunch of other very small ideas for just making the car easier to work on and better looking mechanically.

Thanks to the folks at Third Wave Advertising for their friendship and support. Three races with two seconds are not bad results. Maybe we can get them a win next year.

MARRS this weekend

We are headed to Summit Point Motorsports Park this coming weekend for the DC Region's MARRS 8.

I'm looking forward a real race weekend at the Point - my home track. We are in good shape, and the car is just about ready. Hopefully we will be competitive against a VERY competitive region.

I really enjoyed my time on track during my first school last October. The car is completely different than nearly a year ago when we were there last, so I anticipate much faster lap times. They better be if I am to keep with the leaders.

Here are some pictures from Barber.

My supportive team

I don't talk about my family much, because of the public nature of this forum, but I can't help but to highlight how great they have been through this entire process.

My wife has been unbelievably supportive, even though this is not something that is of great interest to her, allowing me the time I have needed to get the car built, the schools passed and now the first race weekend behind us.

Thank you honey for loving and supporting me.

We made the news.

Link to the Birminham News Web site with a photo of me going through the turn 5 complex.

http://blog.al.com/engine-block/2008/08/scca_alabama_region_at_barber.html

Mission Accomplished!!

I had always been told that I took the hardest path to start racing - build your car – which I did from scratch - and it would take some time to get positive results, well outside of a little early drama, those positive results finally came this weekend and I have qualified for my SCCA regional.

We arrived early Friday afternoon and unloaded the car, set up the paddock space and went through registration and tech.

The first issue we struggled with was timing, one of the first things we did Friday was confirm that the TDC mark was dead on and it was. When we timed the car at where we needed it - 32 BTDC - it was so retarded, it would barely crank and run.

When we got it where we thought it should be, I went out for my first qualifying session on Saturday. I had never been on this track, had the wrong differential gearing and was short shifting in order to properly break in the new motor. The motor had no real time on it to this point.

We had her dialed in for qualifying, but when I went out it would not run and I did my customary three laps and ended up parking it along the second straight getting flat towed back to my paddock space.

We were sure we knew the problem, but when investigating found that the freshly rebuilt #5 rocker arm had snapped. Thought for sure we had bent the push rod and possibly botched the cam lobe.

Luckily when we pulled the pushrod it was straight and the lifter was fine.

Hap and dad were machines. We drained the radiator, loosened the head, pulled the rocker assembly, pulled the carbs, pulled the side vent to check the lifter. Rebuilt the rocker assembly, re-installed everything, adjusted the valves, ran her through a heat cycle. Re-torqued the head, re-adjusted the valves and got her humming. All is three hours. With 10 minutes to spare we headed to the grid. Dad said she sounded the smoothest yet, Hap said he had a good feeling and me - well my previous four outings had me skeptical.

Got the green gridded next to last - I had not posted an official qualifying time - and she sputtered. The pack left me. The carbs cleared out and we were off - good oil pressure and cool water temps.

I had passed 14 people when the checker dropped and finished second in class.

Pretty much after that drama and then having the car run great for the race, we adopted let’s not fix what isn't broken mentality. We did a lot of checking and looking over, but not any changing.

Sunday's qualifying went well, with each session on track I improved on my time, I qualified a little over a second faster than my best time in Saturday’s race.

When the race rolled around and the green dropped the car lost power for the first lap. I pulled into the pits knowing that I had thrown the race away. While on pit lane the carbs cleaned out and it sounded great, so I went back out – still on the same lap – and just started running.

From that point I began to run down several cars and work his way up thru the field again. I finished second when the checkered dropped and my best time in the race was 1.6 seconds faster than the winner and the fastest FP car on the track for the Sunday race.

That last race was hard, because I knew I had a shot. But when I pulled into the pits I also knew I lost it. So when Hap sent me out to run laps (I needed seven to count) I learned vs. know what it means to drive in anger. Honestly, I shed about two tears of frustration and then dialed it in. Four wheel drifts, on the edge, driving the best that I could - and staying out of the way of the baby grands and Spec Racer Fords.

So, with two second place finishes for the weekend and having turned the fastest FP lap for the race, and was within a tenth of the fastest FP lap turned all weekend I am no longer a rookie

Barber Motorsports Park is a awesome facility and is a great handling track with lots of elevation changes. Mr. Barber doesn't do anything slack.

You can read more about it with some pictures at

http://www.mgexperience.net/phorum/read.php?41,890415