Think Racing

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