Saturday, I got to the
track early and re-opened the passenger side door, the old man and
step-old man were coming to the track so I wanted to take them for a
ride. Got to the track at 7:45 am, fixed the door, removed the
ballast from the passenger side and then checked the timing (valve
and ignition). The car has been running like a pig all year. After
a tweak of the air induction system, the car had balls. Doesn't
idle worth beans but pulls hard, as the Class 1 people discovered
this weekend. I guess the warm air induction off the heat stove
made that much of a difference, I was just trying to avoid a
problematic carburetor icing issue. However, since I had to replace
the original carb 2nd weekend, I guess it was the old carb that
caused me grief as I had no problems. Saturday was my fastest
driving all season, racking up 1sts and 2nds.
Sunday however was a
different story. Was rocking the LTB Shootout until I got mixed up
with the fwd leaders. Now, this one was totally my
fault. Turn 1 after the straight saw (I think, the tim hortons) car
pass me. As we are lined up 3 cars in a row close to the banks
where there was excellent grip, the Hortons car slowed much faster
than I ever could in the turn. In order to avoid a rear end I had
to brake hard (probably too hard, a "tap" would have been
preferred), which caused me to understear and on a gradual slope,
get sucked into the bank for my 1st of 3 stuffings that day. While
there car 47 was in a pickle and right behind me and ended up
hitting the same back corner that was hit the previous weekend by
the Audi. I felt bad for Eric Neilson is it? Sorry man. I think
the radiator was being replaced when I pulled up to Mr. G in car
30. Him and I had an arrangement to exchange cars for practice.
While I was running in his Civic, he was in my Chevette. All I can
say about that car is Twitchy! Splurge on some brake pads for the
back G, that thing locks up like mad!
Funny thing about somone
else driving your car, they don't know something is wrong with it
when they are driving it. G came back all excited on how well
balanced and grippy my car was, so he said. However, when I took it
for the first race with passenger, I noticed right away somehting
was completly FUBAR. Apparently the last hit pushed in the
attachment for the pan hard rod. For those not familiar with solid
rear axles, a pan hard rod connects the body to the rear axle to
help keep the axle located when turning "hard". It was pushed
forward and above the attachment point for the shock absorber! (no
coil-overs in this thing). Basically, it took all my rear spring
away, all I had was the tire for rear suspensoin! But... The car
however was even faster than Saturday! It was slammed right down, I
guess making the center of gravity that much lower. Anyway, it
worked. It is also what got me into trouble sunday as sometimes
when the car leaned enough when turning right, it would unhook, and
upset the car, then toss me into the bank. Dispite taking a chain
to the back end and running forward with the other end attached to a
tree, it kept getting slammed back down. I knew how to fix it, but
on the last day.. meh.
Excellent weekend,
thanks to all. Thanks to car 47, I would have never thought
lowering my car like that would have such a large impact on the
handling. Looks like I'll be tubbing the car and slamming it all
around. Not too far though. Should take me about 4 weeks to get
the car back into descent shape, then it's onto another one. On
another note, class 11 was a pretty small class this year. If class
11 went away, I would take up SS1 in addition to 1.
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