As I usually give a race report after I run a race, here it is, "GGLLAAARRRGGHH ". After I settle down and actually find out how we did, I will give you guys a blow by blow. When I left the track I still had no idea as to our finishing position. Joe at RPM sure builds a tough motor. We spent 3 hours detonating the beast at least 10 times a lap.

All I can say at this point is that we finished the whole 3 Hour race. The car restarted after running out of fuel pulling into the pits at the end of the race. The day was crazy and we had tons of fun and anguish.

Eric

 

So the make shift wheel studs worked after all!

 

Just one part of the story for now> I won't have time for the full blow by blow until Friday.

2 wheel studs broke while Tony Morris JR was trying to qualify the car. He felt a vibration in 9 and quickly pulled off the track. Wee looked at the right rear and couldn't see anything wrong, but to be safe I told him to pull the car back into the pits. As he backed into our pit area one stud fell out of the wheel and as we looked at the wheel, a second one fell out.

Thats 2 opposing studs that broke off. Immediately we started looking for new studs. Tony and I drove down to the Knuckle Tire in Bowmanville and they were no help. We came back to the track and the guys from Can Saf tried to help out with some Protege studs but they were too small. I went to the guys at Gateway at the track and lets just say that they were less than helpful. Finally, one of my crew guys, Mark Clyde, noticed his cousinn hanging out with the Simone team. He asked if they had some studs and low and behold he had a few Nissan 200 studs. They were somewhat small for the hub stud openning, but we locked them in place with tie wire and some small pieces of sheet metal. We buttoned it all up and I got in the car 4 laps down after the start. I had no idea if the tires would hold and the engine, tires and brakes were still cold, but I had to get flying right from the start.

So I pulled out of the pits right after the first place Krikorian car flew past. I spent the next couple of laps trying to warm the tires, warm the brakes and motor and not get clobbered by the really fast cars hammering past. At the same time my heart was in my mouth with the jury rigged wheel studs hoping that they would hold.

They did a great job and we ended up in 21st place out of 38 cars that started. I will discuss later how some idiot on the team left the car 2 inches higher than stock on the front suspension after changeing the front springs (me), how we had to drive around a really bad detonation issue that had us using only about 6,000 rpm and half throttle (in practice I was pulling 7200 rpm in 4th going into turn 8, in the race I could barely get 5,000 rpm in 4th), how we started the race on full tread depth Toyo RA1's that slid and wiggled all over the place (me again) and how our fuel stops were about 2 minutes 2 long compared to the rest.

As well I started running out of fuel with 4 laps to go and I had to nurse the car to the finish and after finishing the race I ran out of fuel pulling back into pit lane. I haven't yet talked about the blown oil line going through 4 and into 5 that sent 3 cars into the turn 5 wall and how \i slid through it or the big crash by Andrew Beares in Turn 9 that ripped a complet front corner off the car and how the wheel was laying in the middle of the track. Or the 4 wide move I made going into 3 that allowed me to pass 4 cars at once or how I happened to pass a really slow car with 2 laps left that after the race finished on the same lap, but only 9 seconds behind me.

All in all a normal enduro. We leave with a bunch of things to do for the next one. If the team owner can get his act together for next year, we should do really well, especially if I could get the car to run an hour on a tank of fuel.

 

Looking forward to the rest of the story Eric.
Also, glad you make me feel like I'm not crazy for having an extra pack of ARP wheel studs in my race track tool set.

 

Eric we really need you tuning properly.

 

Actually, its not so much of a tuning issue, but the fact that we need to run cold race plugs now. After a while running the car at full load and full throttle, the plugs that I am using now (4 trailing) turn into glow plugs, lol. For the first hour, I had no detonation at all. By the time I got back into the car for the third hour, it was pinging like a pig.

We have some cold race plugs and we will use them the next time the car goes out. Thats not to say that we still don't need some fine tuning, but we are pretty close right now.

Eric