The Story of Foocar, an auto biography Sept '89 thinking about renting FF, for about the same could prep the Tuna. Build car while auditing a grad. course at ucsc, no sleep 4 days before what is supposed to be first race, something comes up, the ground. Drive to enduro drive in regional drive home bets against car even finishing the enduro. May '90 Easter race, aerobatics Enduro '90 This weekend was blissfully uneventfull. Due to administrative screwups, I ended up NOT running the IT regional on saturday and went up for a testing session on Friday instead. Many Many Many thanks to our crew, and the turn workers. My co-driver was Jeffs Moms SO, a guy by the name of Sam Spade. Neat guy! As part of the deal, now I get to go down south and drive his race car sometime! :) Heck of a deal. You know how some people will swap houses for vacations? Swapping race cars so you can drive at different tracks without hauling yours all of the way across the country. I think I finally turned as fast of a lap in my racecar as I have in my Honda Station Wagon. Foocar ran beautifully during the race. There is a disturbing clunk from the front end, and the diff has started to howl, but nothing happened that caused me to lose anytime in the pits. Andy and Sam (Sjogren) were not so lucky. They had some minor throttle cable problems which lost them several minutes in the pits. That and the fact that they made 3 pitstops versus 2 for Foocar means that they passed us 5 times on the track, but we passed them 6 times in the pits. Final result Foocar 91 laps, Andys MG 90 laps. Well, you know what they say about old age and treachery vs. youth and enthusiasm. :) Neener, Neener Neener. Once they fixed the fuel problems from friday, Sam crawls out of Andys car on Saturday after his first full speed practice session and exclaims "How am I ever supposed to drive on street tires again?!" My favorite quote of the weekend was when the anouncer referred to timing and scoring as "The souls that time mens tries". Thanks again crew and workers. We'd love to hear your reports of what happened this weekend. Larry ==================================================================== THE RACE WEEKEND FROM HELL I first started getting a clue that this was going to be a special weekend when on wednesday, in trying to put the engine and tranny back into the race car, while the job usually takes me about an hour, working pretty much alone, with help, it took several. It also turned out that the tranny with the nice gear ratios, doesn't just bolt in, so I didn't have the time to make it fit for this weekend. Thursday night, I discovered a new way to tell if you are working on your race car. Are you washing your hands, so that you don't get the engine compartment dirty? Friday, there was still way too much left to do. That afternoon, Andy took the RV home with him to San Jose, leaving me with the tow vehicle and trailer. The plan being, when the car was done, I would load it onto the trailer, and we would caravan up to the track. 10 PM: Remember that I need my logbook. Spend 20 minutes looking for the briefcase that I keep the logbook in. give up. Call Andy, have him look in the RV. He calls back, he found the brief case. But the logbook isn't in it. I dimly remember taking it out so I wouldn't lose it at the formula Vee race. Look through most likely pile. No luck. Look elsewhere. No luck. Look through most likely pile again. no luck. Look everywhere else again, no luck. Very carefully look through most likely pile. Luck. Only lost 1/2 hour, 45 minutes at the most. 1 AM: The car is done! With luck will get to track by 4AM, in time for about 3 hours sleep. Attempt to load it onto the trailer. discover that with race tires, it is wider than the trailer. This leaves two options. Either put on street tires, tow it up, and change tires back. Or use another trailer. When Don mentioned that I'd have to carry the tires in the truck, I decided to just swap trailers. 45 minutes later, load car on trailer. Start packing. 3 AM: Leave for San Jose. Might still get a couple of hours of sleep. 4 AM: Meet Andy at the designated spot. Where's the RV? Dead in front of Andys. Drive to Andy's, load stuff from the RV into the pickup. The good news is, I will get a chance to sleep a bit on the drive up. Which I do, a very refreshing 45 minutes or hours worth. At least we will be getting to the track before the paddock is totally filled up. 6:15 AM: Get to track, just about enough time to unload the truck and still get to tech when it opens at 7. Gate guard politely informs us that the paddock filled up several hours previously, we have to go wait at registration, they'll think of someplace to put us. 7:00 AM: Register, return to the track, end up paddocking outside of the outside gates. Long wait for tech. Car passes tech no problem. 8:00 AM: Akkana shows up. A little grumpy because she only got 5 hours of sleep. She fails to get any sympathy, just envy. 8:55 AM: First practice session. They were going to run group two with group 8 but there are too many cars. It gets split into two 10 minute sessions rather than one 25 minute session. (allowing 5 minutes to clear the track) The first two laps are on a full course yellow while the carnage from the previous session is removed. This is not as major of a hardship as it seems. In previous races I had kludged a stiffer swaybar by hose clamping a second swaybar to the stock swaybar. In hopes of putting in a REAL swaybar, I had disconnected the second one (it bound up on the swaybar mounts). When time ran short, I decided to just run with the stock setup. I thought that I was going to get road rash on my door handles. Towards the end of the first lap on green, my clutch pedal went all the way to the floor, without any resistance. Drive the last lap and the cool down lap without using the clutch. Coming off of course, I end up having to come to a complete stop. Start the car in gear and drive off in search of a place wide enough to turn around without backing. Driving without nearly enough swaybar is very educational, I can really tell when I am trying to make the car do things that it doesn't want to. I make come out to a testing day and disconnect the swaybar, just for the practice in driving smoothly. 11:55 Even with a clutch I am driving very slowly in qualifying. I could probably go faster but it is too scary, besides what is the point, I am going to be starting from the back end of the pack anyways, so just go out, stay out of peoples way, and practice being smooth. Take a break for lunch (dinner) and some shopping. Return to track and find out 1) Only 62 cars will be allowed on course at a time. 2) I qualified 63rd. Will the weekend have been for naught? Will Larry actually get to run the race? to be continued ... The race weekend from hell, Part II Race day installed sway bar slept somene dropped out 4 seconds/lap faster Spun in carosel could have played a roundof pinocle with guy in datsun drove bkwds off drivers left, kinda hard onto the hill go into 7, brake pedal goes to the foor things to remember things.wrong thank don andy akkana scott sam chances of a clean IT race past turn two how racing mellows you, noticing that I didn't even say oh shit when the car wouldn't fit on the trailer. team.net almost.hel 11/26/1990 10:22 It wasn't the race weekend from hell, but it sure tried. We finished prepping the car friday night. The plan was to get the van and trailer saturday morning, load up and stop by to hassle the autocross people on our way past saturday afternoon. Somehow we ended up running a couple of hours behind schedule and passed through pleasanton about 1/2 hour after dark. Michael, my pit crew, and I decided that we should just head straight up to the track. My first clue that this weekend would be special was when we were unloading the car off of the trailer and one of the ramps came off. So here we are the left rear of the car resting on the leafspring mount. The car is too high off of the ground to put my little floor jack on, and to low to the trailer to put the jack under it. Seeing an open door and lights at Huffaker, I wander over there to ask if they have a large jack I can borrow. We end up just lifting the rear of the car back up on the trailer. We get stuff unpacked and claim an excellent paddock spot, on pregrid, right across from the entrance to the hot pits. This choice of paddock area was to come in VERY handy during the race. Despite it being dark and cold, it wasn't all that late when we were done uloading for the night, so we headed over to Eric and Julies. When we got there, the place was dark and empty, fortunately we have a key. After Star Trek, they still hadn't shown up, and we were getting hungry so we went into town for dinner and provisions. Got back to the E & J hotel about 10, still no sign of them so we just went to bed. Eric and Julie showed up at about 11:30, we chatted briefly, unfortunately they weren't going to be able to show up for the fun on sunday. 4:30 sunday morning, I wake up. Wired, this is race day! I finally get back to sleep, just a few minutes before the alarm goes off at 5:30 (or so it seemed). Shower, dress and head back to the track. If we get there at 6:30 we can unpack the rest of the stuff in the van before going to reg and tech inspection. When we get to the track (at 6:30) the gates are locked! The poor girl that arrived to stand gate duty had gotten called the night before to come to work at 7 AM. She didn't have a key, didn't have the waivers, just had a bunch of impatient racers lined up outside the gate she was being paid to guard. While we were waiting Frank Eubel made a couple of amusing comments on the "pole guard" mentality. "I may not have much power, but I'll be damned if I'll give up what little I have." "That's Assistant Paddock Weight to you mister". We finally get in, get registered, get the car tech. Find out how "pretty" it has to be made by next season. The first practice sessions comes, I'm actually doing pretty well. I don't have much power or handling but the track is damp and slick and noone else can make much use of theirs. Besides my BFG's seem to work better in the wet than the A008s that most everyone else is running. I'm actually caught behind an ITA Rx3, who doesn't pull over to let me past, so I decide to pass him in 11. This is when I learn about 1) being smooth with the throttle on a damp track and 2) getting off of the (dry) line on a damp track. I loop it into the infield, very nicely thank you, wave to Michael who watched the whole maneuver and continue up to turn 2, where I do it again. darn. In turn 8, my left wheels find the pavement at the late apex that is starting to crack off. This upsets the car. The car spins. Next time I pass start fininsh they are pointing this stick covered with crumpled black cloth at me. BAD BOY. Yeah, like I really MEANT to spin 3 times on one lap. Oh well, it was my second time out on a wet track (yes Andy, in the 4 years since I first drove Sears Point, it was only my second wet session) and the first time I drove Foocar on a wet track. I decide to change to the rains in the 1/2 hour before my next session. Unfortunately there had been a lapse in communication and rather than lugnuts of the same thread but a shorter shaft, an entire set of identical lugnuts, which were too long for the wheels, were bought. Oh well, it's not THAT wet. Second session saw a lot of improvement in my driving, I'm getting better at smoothly applying throttle, my lap times are dropping. I spin once at two, but catch it before disaster several other times. After the 2nd session we have a couple of hours for lunch, the formula car enduro and setup. We decide to check Frey for some lugnuts that will work, and they have them. When I blanche at $3 apiece for lugnuts (the BFG's aren't THAT bad in the rain) he sells me 16 for $20. While we are changing to the rains, some clouds clear, blue sky shows and I am thinking "It worked! putting the rains on, cleared up the weather!". Five minutes later it starts RAINING. Maybe not as bad as the first weekend of drivers school, but then this time I'm inside the van, not outside getting soaked. We are talking tall cows and flat rocks. I feel sorry for the poor shmoes in the formula cars. I also hope that the rain let's up for my race. The rain does let up, a little. While I am waiting on pre-grid, one of the stewards comes up to me and tells me that I don't have anyone at timing and scoring to time for me. Huh? what's this? Oh well, I can make it the two hours without fuel, I can do without a pit crew if absolutely necessary. So when the race starts, Mike heads down to timing and scoring. It has also started raining fairly heavily. All I can see is spray, foam and an occasional running light. (they had us run with our running lights on). About 3 laps into the race they show me the meatball. I didn't have anyone in timing and scoring when I went out onto track (mike showed up about 1 minute later). Rather than DQing me, they let me off with a three (or so) minute penalty. "It was in the supps" they say. "They never gave me a copy of the supps" I say. They don't hear me. They don't care. It's not their job. It could have been annoying. They finally let me back out, a couple laps later, there is a pace car situation. After several laps under yellow, I finally catch up with the pack, just in time for the green. Everyone goes whizzing past me, and I actually get some clear track for a while. 5 seconds after the leader passes me in 11, the pace car comes back out. So rather than having a whole lap of clear track to have fun catching up in, I am stuck 2 cars back of the pace car with the whole field in back of me. When the green comes out, I try driving a bit harder, just so I am not holding up traffic so badly. I am doing just fine until turn 8 when all of a sudden I just totally lose it. I end up backing into the hill on drivers left, with my bumper caught in the dirt and my rear wheels in the air. I did't stall the motor though, but I can't get any traction so it doesn't do me much good. The turn worker can't get me free so they call a tow truck, the tow crew picks up the rear of the car, gets me free and I'm off. Or am I, the car just won't go. No power. The towtruck gives me a push and I slog up to the pit. My first suspicion was confirmed, the tailpipe has a good solid plug of mud in it. I take a quick run up to the van, conveniently parked close by, get my big screwdriver and unplug it. Before driving off, I decide to see if foocar is running any better. Better, but not well, the tailpipe is nicely crimped in two places. Run back to the van for the hacksaw, jack and something to lie on other than the wet pavement. About this time Michael shows up to lend a hand. Just as we are almost done, the 10 minute fuel stop occurs and we have to stop working on the car. We can add fuel (which we don't need) and change drivers, but that is it, until the first car is back on course. At the end of the stop, I get in the car and buckle in. By the time everyone has left, Mike is done getting the car ready and I drive off. I get about 5 laps in the second half of the race before they give it an early checker. Packing up goes fairly quick and easy, we hadn't unpacked much. Loading the car onto the trailer, we find that the hitch hadn't latched properly so the trailer tries to "Brownie Charles" the van. After the worker beer comes the drive home. Don't get me wrong, Liz's van is a wonderful machine. It has enough power and mass to tow. It has lots of wonderful space inside. It also needs to get it's steering fixed. The steering wheel has about 180 degrees of play. Yup, 1/2 a revolution. Towing, on wet roads, was a chore. It was actually more draining than racing in dry weather. At least when you are racing you can catch your breath on the straight sections. We got back to my place at about 8:30, unloaded the car and took the trailer up to Jeffs. With Al's help we put the trailer back in it's corner. We had some difficulty while I had to explain to Michael that I wanted him to JACK the TONGUE, but other than that it went smoothly. We went back to my place where we unloaded the rest of the stuff from the van. I then got to drive Mike home where I dropped off the van and picked up my motorcycle. Leaving me with an interesting (read cold and slippery) ride home to finish the day. A couple of observations: On a damp track it is very important to keep your outside wheels in the line (dry track). If you stray, you are hosed. It is absolutely imperative to be smooth. Both with the steering and with the gas. When it is wet, don't try to apply the gas while you are still turning. For passes, you must go in deep and apex very late so that you can get on the gas as early as possible. Watch for pavement irregularities. You aren't cornering nearly as hard, so bumps that your inside wheels won't even touch in the dry will cause your car to do nasty things in the wet. There is a wonderfull rough patch of pavement at the apex of turn 7, no matter how wet it is, the car seems to get full traction. Be carefull, though as your front wheels will get traction before the rear. Driving in the wet requires amazing amounts of concentration. If I could maintain that level of concentration even when racing in the dry, I could probably knock a couple of seconds off of my lap times. I haven't decided whether or not I LIKE racing in the wet. It is a wonderfull equalizer. At least mechanically. It places a lot more emphasis on driver skill than on car preparation. It is also an excellant opportunity to learn a LOT about driving technique. On the other hand it is cold, wet and miserable. Especially if something goes wrong. And there are a LOT more incidents, though none of them seemed very serious. For the first time in my life, my need to go racing is sated. I don't even want to see another racetrack for at least a week. The following is the story of my summer. It is told in several parts, each one written following a different race over the period from May through August 1992. During this time, I drove on 4 racetracks in 3 different states, got laid off, knocked a cumulative 7 seconds over previous lap times, built a new motor, rebuilt the motor, found a new job and in general had one hell of an interesting summer. These stories were written to be read by various friends that I know through electronic mailing lists. The premise being that a computer is set up to forward electronic mail to everyone on a list. People with similar interests set up these mailing lists and exchange mail on the topic of interest. The first story takes place in may. I drove in a race at Laguna Seca. ================================================================== It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the day of powerfull new motors, it was the day of expensive grenades, it was the morning of new paint jobs, it was the afternoon of crumpled fenders, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to the Winners Circle, we were all going back to the paddock on the end of the rope - in short is was a race just like any other race. I had high hopes for the day, Foocar (the '68 Cortina GT that I race in Improved Touring) had a freshly rebuilt motor, a tranny with better ratios, a locked differential and the rear sway bar was hooked back up. The only time that I had driven the car at Laguna was teaching at one of the Capri Club schools last february, I only had about one hot lap session, and I had a passsenger in the car for that session. I therefore had no idea of what sort of lap times to expect. My main goal was to get the car running well enough that I was running with the pack and would have the chance for some good dicing. Also, since my excuse for running this weekend rather than waiting until June was the fact that I had just bought a G-analyst, I hoped that I would get some good data that would help improve my driving. By late wednesday evening everything was hooked up. I tried cranking the motor to get oil pressure. It didn't come up quick and easy so I went to bed and decided to try again in the morning. Thursday morning I spent a while priming the oil pump and getting pressure. After getting pressure I hooked everything up and was extremely pleased when it fired right up on the very first try. After running it in until warm, then letting it cool down a couple of times I decided to take the car for a shake down cruise. It ran beautifully, for about a mile, then it started missing, I turned around and headed home to check out the problem. It didn't make it. A quick check showed about 1/4 inch of gap between the rocker and the valve. Fearing the worst, I readjusted the valve, whereupon the car ran fine, almost all of the way home. A bit of study revealed the following symptoms: Valve clearances would open up until the car would not run anymore. The adjuster screws were tight. The lifters were not busted. There were no metal bits in the oil. As I was composing a quick (desperate) query to the net, the answer occured to me. I'll mention the answer at the end of the story. I drove the car around a bit thursday and friday, ran some errands, and got a little extra break in driving it down to Laguna friday evening. The car ran and sounded great. I finished loading up Jack's ambulance and hooking up the trailer friday night. After arriving at the track, and getting the car teched, we took care of all of the basics. Checking tire pressure, oil, water, bolts for tightness etc. I borrowed Jeffie's timing light and determined that the timing was retarded by a few degrees. I decided to be easy on the motor, and wait until after the practice/qualifying session to advance the timing. I used the remaining time before my session to mount my G-analyst in the car. With the locked rear end and the rear sway bar, the car felt much different. I think that the swaybar helped to compensate a little for the understeer caused by the welded rear end. I didn't notice a lot more understeer. What I did notice was that the car's handling had become a bit more treacherous. There was more handling there to use, but it was a lot more willing to bite back. Sometimes the front end would wash out, sometimes the rear end would start to come around. After about 20 minutes, I finally started to get a feel for the beast and decided to put everything together and go for a qualifying run. The one thing that I tried to do differently was to take turn 6 flat out. I had done so before, both in the Cortina and the Honda. I had only been lifting briefly, so I figured that I could take 6 flat today as well. You can usually tell when you are going to spin. You may realize that there is nothing you can do, the car is going to get away from you, so you might as well straighten the wheel and catch it as it comes around. All I had a chance to do was look up, see the wall coming at the side of my car and think "This is going to hurt (my checkbook)". The flagger came down, made sure I was okay, pulled the fender out of the tire and waved me on my way. The car felt OK, but I decided to pull into the pits to check it out anyways. While I was in the pits, the checkered came out, so I drove it to impound, checked out all of the other crunched IT cars and took it back to the paddock for some quick bodywork. During lunch, the Team Fizzball Paddock was a frenzy of activity, Jeffie was fixing his brakes, Andy his suspension and I had a fair amount of pounding and pulling to do. Many thanks to Dick and Ix who did the majority of the work, while I wound down from my session and ate a sandwich. Once the fenders were finally straight (enough) we had the interesting problem of shutting the bonnet. The front of the bodywork had been moved about an inch to the left. The bonnet latch did not line up with the hole. A little bit more work and the bonnet would shut. I took it by tech to make sure that I wouldn't get a mechanical black flag for anything during the race. They told me to wire the bonnet shut, "and by the way, you will fix the bodywork before the next race won't you?" The race was fairly uneventfull, I had a pretty good dice going with Gary Wunder in his 510. I was faster than him in the turns, but he had more power. I would get inside of him on the entrance, but he would come down and by the time I remembered that my fender was already crumpled I had already yielded the line to him. About halfway through the race both my brakes and my brain started fading, and I never did run as fast of a lap as I did in practice. I did manage to get the car up on two wheels going through the corkscrew which was an interesting sensation. On the cooldown lap, I took a look at the dualguage from a spridget that I use for oil temp and noted that it was reading 80. That is the temperature guage had wrapped around and was pointing at the 80 PSI mark on the oil pressure side of the guage. I quickly decided that it is time to buy an oil cooler for the cortina. The uphill back stretch at Laguna found the cortina wound out in 3rd, but only turning about 4 grand in fourth. I am eagerly awaiting a 4.25 rear end to replace the current 3.90. This was the first time I had ever driven a car with a welded diff that I had driven with an open diff. I think that the handling problems that I had were due in part to unfamiliarity with the new setup, and partly to the low level of preparation of the suspension in general. My feeling is that a locked rear end is a little bit more difficult to drive, yet once you learn how to use it, the car will go a lot faster. It is a really nice feeling when the rear tires hook up accelerating out of a turn. Since I had never raced the Cortina at Laguna, I can only use how I finished in relation to other people to guage improvements in my lap times. I would guess that I ran about 5-7 seconds a lap faster than I did before. My driving was poor and inconsistant enough to probably account for another 2-3 seconds a lap. I do not like the two session race day. I understand the time constraints at Laguna but one half hour session simply isn't enough time for me to learn the handling quirks of a new car setup enough to get a good laptime out of it. With luck, if I can get the bodywork and some more suspension improvements done in time for the June 14th race, I figure the car will be capable of running solidly mid pack. After partying late at Ruth's birthday party Saturday night, I woke up on Sunday morning planning on being sensible and upacking and such. I then realized that I had time to get to Laguna in time to flag the afternoon sessions. When I arrived at my assigned corner, the TM saw my Fizzball shirt and commented on Andy's mishap the day before. When I went out to work the exit station for the last session, I noticed a bit of cast iron painted a familiar shade of pink. Sure enough, the flaggers had collected a couple of bits of Andy's motor the day before. An amusing thing happened on the way home from dropping off the ambulance sunday night. I noticed an X1/9 pass me on 280. Then another one. The second one was towing a small trailer with a mountain bike and a set of tires. "It can only be two people in those cars", I thought. Sure enough, it was Mike and Akkana on their way home from an autocross at Crows Landing. The answer to the valve gap puzzle is that the bolts that hold on the rocker shaft loosened up allowing th rocker to back off from the head. I would like to make the usual thanks to everyone. Sharon for giving up her lunch hours for the past two weeks while she ran errands for me. Jeffie, Victim, Ix, Dick and Buddy for lending a hand on the car. Andy for the use of his hoist, Linda for picking up the hoist so I didn't have to deliver it when Andy's tranny died. Jack for use of the most awesome tow vehicle west of the Missippi (and probably east) and everyone who showed up on saturday to help run the three ring monkey and football circus that we call a race team. ==================================================================== Three weeks after the race at Laguna Seca, I got laid off. The following weekend there was a race at Sears Point. I had not been expecting to be able to make it to that race because I had neither the time to prepare the car, nor the cash assets required for a race weekend. Between my suddenly increased amount of free time, and the cash from my severence pay, all of a sudden the race seemed like a possibility. ================================================================== Every thing has two sides to it. One of the good things about getting laid off was that it gave enough free time, and cash, to go racing. I was rather hopefull, my last race at Laguna indicated that the car was much faster, albeit very scary to drive. In my practice session, I drove slower than previously (about 2:24's), and the car was really frightening to drive. About 1 lap before the checkered, I shifted into 4th gear, and Whirrr, no power from engine to wheels. Limped it back into the pits, called up Jeffie to see if he could bring my spare up, called a friend in Martinez, and reached him 5 minutes after he left for santa cruz. Pulled the top off of the tranny, realized there was nothing we could do to fix it before my qualifying session, decided to qualify with 3 speeds, then swap the tranny overnight. It being the "Faire" weekend, I went out at lunch to give spectators rides (and see if I can make it on 3 speeds) and found out that I was down to 2 speeds. Bring the car back in, pull the cover off the tranny, found the problem (a broken roll pin holding a shifter fork to the shifter rod), pull the tranny, drift out the pin, find another pin, put it back together, miss my qualifying session, and get my new tires. When the race came along, I was gridded dead last. The car had been handling lousy the day before, I was on new tires and I didn't trust the tranny. I had a big quandry, I felt that I should take it easy. Learn how the car feels at Sears Point with the Goodyears, a rear swaybar and a locked diff., on the other hand it *was* the race. The point was moot, the car felt great. Amazingly docile. I think that it may have just been old tires. I was able to start pushing it pretty hard right off of the bat. One lap into the race and Melissa stuffs her 510 into the wall at the exit of 11 (a hairpin separating the 2 main straights). note: After I had written this, I found out that Melissa had actually been fairly brutally stuffed into the wall. I see the workers giving a lift tow signal and sure enough the pace car comes out. 3 laps later, the yellows go down, I get past a couple of cars. Meanwhile there are lots of wrecks. It seems that there is a crumpled IT car parked in every turn. Someone else stuffs it big in 11. Another pace car. Half a lap later, coming out of the carosel, the shift lever comes out of the tranny in my hand. Noone had screwed it all of the way in. Pull into the pits, the damn threads are being recalcitrant, spend about a minute fiddling with it. Pull out on course about 300 yards ahead of the leaders (and the pace car) the yellow goes down shortly thereafter and I spend the rest of the race dodging ITA cars. Many thanks to Andy, for showing up on practically no sleep. Thanks to Dick for showing up to crew, then helping to pull and repair a transmission when he had been in the united states something like 12 hours. The poor guy had spent a rough several weeks drinking cheap french wine in Paris. Thanks to Sharon, for helping crew saturday morning rather than going off to play flagger as planned. Thanks to my ex-boss for laying me off so that I'd have time to get my car pretty enough to pass tech, although I don't think that is what he had in mind. Observations on the weekend: The reason for requiring DOT approved tires in IT/SS is becoming moot. My goodyears are all but slicks after 45 minutes of track time (I gave rides sunday at lunch). My guess is that in 2-3 years there will be negigable performance advantage to running real race tires vs. IT tires. Problem is that the IT tires may only last one race. ================================================================== Long before I was laid off, our team had been planning a roadtrip to race in Portland over the 4th of July weekend. I had also been planning on going up the week before to run a race with a club called the International Conference of Sports Car Clubs. A sanctioning body in the pacific northwest that runs races similar to the SCCA. Being laid off, I figured that even though I really shouldn't spend the money, chances were that I wouldn't have the opportunity to take a multi-week racing vacation for a long time. Either I'd have a new job with minimal vacation time, or I would be unemployed and not able to afford to go racing. So I did the only sensible thing, I also entered a race the following weekend in Seattle. I never did make it to the conference race. The next two segments are about my racing vacation. =============================================================== When we last left our intrepid hero he had just completed a somewhat unsatisfactory race weekend following being laid off of his job, he did however have more races coming up, but his tow vehicle was dead... After spending much time working on the engine swap for my van it became obvious that I was not going to complete the job in time to tow the car to the races in Portland. I decided to punt, and take Jack up on his offer of borrowing the Ambulance. When I picked the amby up on Monday, June 22 Jack mentioned that it leaked a bit of water, and when the water got low it overheated. Towing the racecar to Rockwell to tune it up on the dyno the next night proved that to be an understatement. The ambulance overheated when pulling a load, and the water pump was leaking. Tuning the car on the dyno proved to be quite informative. Shortly after my minor shunt at Laguna, I noticed that the car was not running quite as well as it had been. It was idling a bit off, and running a little rough. I hoped that tuning it up properly would help. I knew that the timing was retarded, and we got some power by dialing that in. However, it was still running rough and was coincidentally putting out the same power as my old, tired motor had the year before. There was no smoke in the exhaust, water in the oil, oil in the water and the fancy exhaust gas analyzer that Charlie uses for smog inspection showed that what was getting burned was being burned fairly well. We eventually decided to test the compression and found to my horror that I had *no* compression in number 4 cylinder. Squirting oil in brought the compression up a little bit, and the cylinder failed a leakdown test, although Charlie could not trace where the air was going. The next day, I ordered a complete gasket set for the cortina, and tracked down a water pump for the ambulance. That night we went to the SCARE meeting to make final arrangements with the rest of the team. Thursday afternoon we started on the ambulance, that evening James came over and took over working on the ambulance, freeing me up to work on the cortina. After much consultation with anyone that would hazard an opinion, I pretty much figured that one or more of the rings on cylinder #4 was screwed. However, since it is much easier to pull the head than the motor, I decided to pull it and have a look see, before pulling the motor. If things were as bad as suspected the head would eventually have to come off anyways. Pulling the head, things looked okay. Closer inspection showed a light exhaust valve sized mark in the top of the piston. At my neighbors suggestion I turned the head upside down and poured some kerosene (parafin) into the combustion chamber. It leaked right out. The problem had been found. I now had to find a spring compressor, or make one, dredge up another exhaust valve and lap everything in. Posting a message that I needed that stuff that night, at about midnight because someone might actually log in and have the stuff got me mail from Andy saying that I am the most fanatical, stupidly dedicated person he has ever known and there is a spring compressor and lapping compound sitting on his front porch. Fortunately I was able to procure the items much more locally, lapped a valve in and was just about buttoning up the cortina when James finished up the ambulance at about 5 AM. James went home, Sharon and I went to bed and the next morning I finished putting the cortina together, adjusted the valves and fired her up. A little bit of tweaking and frobbing and she ran great. We spent the rest of the day packing for a 3 week road trip. Had everything packed and pulled out at about 8PM on friday, giving us about 12 hours to drive 750 miles. Unfortunately, although the ambulance seemed to stop leaking, it didn't cool any better. About halfway to the summit of hwy 17 the temperature had already climbed into the red and I knew that it would never make the grade between Yreka and Medford. Turn around, head back to home. Just on the offchance that someone was there, AND they had a radiator that would work, I stopped at the truck repair place outside of Scotts Valley. Noone was there, but one of the local flaggers was driving by, saw the car and stopped. The next morning I got a call from my Mom, she was at the racetrack at Portland and did anyone know why I wasn't there? Skipping boring details, it is now almost a week later. I have borrowed Victors Van. Daren had just returned it from his race in Mexico the day before. Pack the van, drive to San Jose, Pick up Sharon. We have decided to drive up to Portland in the cool of the night rather than face I-5 during the day. Leave Sharons at about Midnight. We get to the track about 3:30 the next afternoon and stake out some prime paddock space. Friday is relatively uneventfull. I notice that the front tires are wearing a bit funny, talk to the Goodyear dealer and decide to check the toe. Turns out that the front wheels have about an inch of toe in. Between practice sessions (I am driving in two run groups) we get a carpenters square and adjust the toe to a more reasonable value. We also find that the toe adjustment thingie on the left side is slightly bent. We rotate the wheels so that the worn ones from the front are now on the back. With the adjustments, and more practice I manage to knock a couple more seconds off of my lap time. I am now running about 6 seconds a lap faster than I did the previous year. The next morning, the weather is wet and we decide to mount the rain tires before the practice session. Too many things go wrong so we decide to take the two rain tires back off of the left side of the car, and we put back on the goodyears, taking car to torque the lugnuts that we had just replaced. Just as I am finishing my first lap, my front wheel throws something up. I wonder what it is, it looked too big and shiney to be some rubber from the track, when the wheel starts wobbleing. At the end of the straight I pull off to check it out and find 3 lugnuts missing on my front right wheel. As it turned out, Jeff had helped get the car ready to change tires and had loosened the lugnuts on the right hand side. When he was no longer needed to help, he had wandered off, and did not hear me say that I wasn't running on rains after all. The problem was entirely my fault for not making sure that the torque on all 16 lugnuts was not checked. However, I do not think that there was a lugnut put on for the rest of the weekend that was not checked at least twice, if not 3 times. Now begins the great lugstud quest. Not only had I lost some lugnuts (no problem I have about 3 sets) but I had also lost two of my lugstuds. It is saturday, the 4th of july and parts stores are not open. While Ben and Sharon drive off to go borrow some from a friend of his who vintage races Cortinas, I go and talk to Dave who is crewing for "Mr. Europa" about borrowing some off of the '69 Cortina that he has at the track. This plan almost works, unfortunately the 4 that we removed from his car are stripped about halfway down and just don't work. We are in the process of snagging 4 more from his car when Ben and Sharon return, shove 4 lugstuds in my face and tell me to stop stripping the nice man's cortina. Andy, Ben and Sharon start putting the Cortina back together just about the time that my IT race starts. Half a lap into it, a rabbit loses one of his front wheels. It seems as if one of his crew had not torqued down the lugnuts properly. Three laps into the race, I go out onto the track and join the fray. After a while, I am pretty much keeping up with an ITA Rx3. He can't make up enough time in the straights to get away, and I can't close enough in the turns to catch him. I end the race DFL and about 5th in class. The next couple of hours are a study in indecision. First it is wet, then it is dry, then it sprinkles. I decide to go with the rain tires. If it is raining and I am on rains, I have a chance to dice with people, any other combination and I don't have a chance. Of course, while I am on pregrid the weather dries out. The Conference Production race being the last session of the day, by the time I make it back to the paddock the keg of scottish ale is already tapped. The annual team fizzball 4th of july party has begun. This time the Oregon region does not need to be taught how to play fizzball. I did bring out "The Gerbilator" aka "The Fizzcannon" a 300 caliber butane charged cannon. Several people were impressed with it's ability to launch a full can of fizzbeer about 100 feet vertically and came over to ask about construction techniques. The next day, with the help of some of the local flaggers, team fizzball counted coup, and along with the american and canadian flags, the team fizzball banner was flying on the third flagpole. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried to get the picture, everytime Jeffies car was in the field of view, the wind would die and the fizzflag would hang limp. Jeffie has already recounted the story of his race. I will close this chapter by thanking all of the people who crewed for us, and the oregon region for giving us such a warm welcome back. In the next chapter I will talk about my week in Portland and racing at Seattle. ================================================================ As our saga continues, our hero has just said goodbye to his teammates as they return to the sunny land of California. I took Grimm up on his offer of a place to stay. It had everything I needed, a place to sleep, a place to wash, a telephone and a modem. We were about to go shopping for dinner that evening when my wallet turned up gone. This was going to lend an interesting air of adventure to the rest of my trip. Was my wallet stolen, or merely lost? Was it lost at the racetrack, or merely somewhere in the van? Fortunately I had my checkbook, a little cash and a credit card that had arrived just before I left on my trip. I had put the credit card in a backpack, intending to put it in my wallet. Monday morning, the first item on my agenda was to get the exhaust system on the racecar fixed. The downtube on the header had broken during my last race, unfortunately Bens quick fix did not hold. When I was loading my car back onto the trailer at the muffler shop three kids drive up in a somewhat beat Mk II cortina. The owner is rather intrigued to see one that is being raced, and by the way he is selling his and his parts car, am I interested? The next stop that I had to make was at the bank to get some cash for the rest of my trip. Using my competition license for ID, and answering a couple of questions my home branch had on file, I was able to cash a check for just about enough for food and gas to get home. I then went over to the track to see if anyone had turned in my wallet, no luck. Next stop was to get my car teched on the off chance that I would be able to rent it out at the shelby club event the next two days. That evening Grimm and I went to Powells books. It is an awesome bookstore. It is about 4 stories tall and covers a city block. I found the book on scotch that I have been looking for and some arcane shop manuals to add to my collection. I didn't dare do more than walk up and down the aisles of science fiction. About the only thing that Portland has more of than rain is bars. Many of which serve local micro-brewery beer. We went to one that night run by a friend of Grimms and had a pitcher of unfiltered wheat beer. Tuesday and Wednesday I did flagging for the Shelby Club event at PIR. Unfortunately I had no takers renting out the cortina. For the most part is was fast cars and slow drivers. But then a lot of the cars there were worth more than the national product of some countries. It was fun watching Carrol Shelby give drive arounds in the 1965/1992 Cobra. At lunch on wednesday, several drivers were giving workers and friends drivearounds. After unsuccesfully trying to talk them into letting me give people drivearounds, I got a ride in a rather nice GT350. It had been over 20 years since I rode in one, and they are as fast as I remembered. I was amused that when I commented that they wouldn't let me take my IT car out at lunch, the driver then said that he should be asking me for advice on the track. I ended up coaching him for a few laps. Tuesday night, I got together with a bunch of net.folks from the area for beer and benchracing at one of the Mc Minemans Pubs. Wednesday night Ben, Grimm and I went over to visit the Brothers Viscoff, who had supplied my much needed lug studs. I ended up spending wednesday night at the home of Fran and Gary Blackman. The plan was for me to do my laundry real quick on thursday morning and head up to Seattle. However, Fran and I got to talking. She is a fascinating lady with many years worth of racing stories. I ended up leaving about 7 PM. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the track, the gates had been closed about an hour and the grounds keeper had gone to bed. I ended up camping outside the gates with a few other late arrivals. The next morning I am waiting on pregrid for my 50 minute practice session when it starts to drizzle. My initial reaction is "great! here I am on what are effectively slicks, at a racetrack I haven't even had a chance to walk and it is raining". Then, a few minutes later as I am pulling out onto the track I remember, when I was getting the car ready, I had taken the cardboard boxes and paper bags with my food, and set them outside, and I had no crew to put them in out of the rain. It had been over a month, and three driving events since I had spun, or even put two wheels off. My record was going to come to an end this session. The combination of new track, no tread and rain conspired against me. The first time was exiting the turn they call little indy. I applied a little too much throttle and my rear end came around. Some laps later when I was exiting Big Indy, a similar event happened. This led to one of the big bummers of the weekend. This spin was hard and fast enough, that I realized that I had enough momentum to bring it around 360 degrees and execute that most stylish of maneuvers, the spin and continue. Straighten the wheel, opposite lock to bring it around the second 180, straighten her out. Beautiful, I did it, I am heading straight down the track, give her gas ... and stall out. I had forgotten to downshift. Damnit. The weather dried out for the next session. The goodyears worked much better in the dry. I had lots of fun, I even passed several people in the turns. However, with over a mile worth of straightaway, anyone with more power (all of the cars there) could out accelerate and pass me. I had heard all sorts of stories about Seattle. I would rate it about as challenging as Laguna Seca, but the back portion is more fun. When I heard that it was rough, I pictured Holtville. It is nowhere near that bad, and is not any worse than a lot of the roads that I bomb around on in the Santa Cruz mountains. If anything I would consider the patches more of a feature than a bug. They make finding the right line a little bit more challenging (favoring driver skill), and give good reference points for braking and turning down. As the weekend wore on, I felt like I was driving faster and faster. I kept figuring out little nuances for various turns (hey! I don't have to brake for turn 5!), but my times didn't seem to get any better. On top of that, the car seemed like it was understeering worse and worse. Unfortunately, with no crew and a very busy schedule, I didn't have any time to try to do anything about it. Some highlights of the weekend: The last hour on saturday was two sessions of anyone who wants can go out and play. It was interesting sharing a track with 440's and Formula Mazdas. At the worker social, they barbeque up hot dogs, and people contribute a couple of bucks to the cause. I give it a big thumbs up. I was sure in no mood for cooking. After the regional, they had "for fun- no points" match races, with your starting position based on the finish position in the regional. A 2002 was playing with the Rampant Rabbit (one of the Conference H prod bunnys). Shortly after they passed me in 4, the bunny was off the line for turn 5. He hit it hard enough to launch his right wheels over a foot in the air. 5A is a left hand turn, his left wheels were about 2 feet in the air. This was quite fun to watch. I actually led the first 6 1/2 laps of the 8 lap handicap race. My excuse is that my tires had gone away. They actually did a pretty good job of handicapping, it looked like pretty much the whole field was on the main straight on the last lap. I was really hoping to win that one, there was a $90 pot as each of the drivers chipped $10 into the pot, winner take all. On the last lap of the handicap race, I was holding off this RX 3 that was gaining on me, and decided to watch a friends line through turn 3. Unfortunately I got so involved with watching him blow the turn I forgot to brake until just too late. Rather than taking the escape road (and the 15 second penalty) I drove off into the dirt, tossed the car around sideways and almost made it back onto the track before the Rx3 passed me. That weekend, another club that I occasionaly play with, the SCA, or Society for Creative Anachronism, was having a big event (2000+ people) near Portland. I left Seattle raceway, drove out to the SCA event, and about 5 realized that it was time for me to leave. A few miles down the road, I had to pull off for a quick nap. It is amazing how much good 15 minutes of sleep can do you. I then drove to PIR, getting there a little before 8. In plenty of time to flag for the historic races there. I ended up stationed at the chicane, which meant that driving out to the turn I never did get a chance to drive the chicane. Flagging in Oregon is fun. One of the communicators fired up a barbeque, giving us some tasty munchies through the day. That night I hung out with Ben and a bunch of his Pro-Rallye cronies at Erics house. We sat around, drank beer, talked racing and watched video tapes of off road rallye. Forget oval track, I know the sort of dirt I want to go play in! Driving home I couldn't help but come up with a wild plan. Buy a 5 litre mustang or camero, set it up for American Sedan, but get a second set of springs, shocks and tires for it. During the road racing off season, set it up for pro-rallye. If I moved, or just kept the car in Portland, I would then have a car with enough horsepower for those godawful long straights at PIR and SIR. I wouldn't expect the car would be too competitive in Pro-Rallye, but then it couldn't handle much worse than the Ford Pickup those guys are going out and kicking butt in. After running a few errands, I left portland monday afternoon about 4. Somewhere near Dunnigan I was passed by someone towing an enclosed race trailer. I tried to join up with him, but even wide open, with the 85 mph speedometer pegged, Victors van couldn't keep up. I probably would have made it home by arond 5:30 the next morning, but fatigue got the better of me and I had to pull off the road for about an hour and take a nap. ======================================================================= The next several weeks are rather busy. I have to find a housemate, as well as a job. I also end up promising a friend that if my schedule allows, I will help him drive his U-haul from Santa Cruz to Austin. Of course, I end up getting a job offer, just in the nick of time to make it to the next race. ======================================================================= July 27th (monday), deadline for entering the race on the weekend of June 9th, I don't have a job, I haven't had any interview and my money is running out. So what do I do? I enter the race, if I don't run they won't charge me anyways, besides a miracle could happen. July 28th (tuesday), I promised my friend Matt that if I don't have a job, or any interviews lined up I'd help him drive his U-haul from Santa Cruz California to Austin Texas. We are supposed to leave this evening but he is running behind schedule, we will leave tomorrow. I go home and there is a message on my answering machine, I set up the interview for the next morning, we can leave as soon as I get home. July 29th, (wednesday) The interview goes real well. Go home. Pack, get a call about another interview, set it up for Monday afternoon, after I get back. Pile into U-haul van and drive to Texas. This road trip is a story in itself involving driving straight through, only stopping for food, gas and bladder stops, except for one two hour stretch where we were both too tired to drive, a 63 mph governor on the van and cooking potroast, garlic bread and hotdogs on the engine. (to the theme from the movie Dark Star) Benson Arizona Garlic on my bread The U-haul drives the interstate While I cook upon it's heads. August 4th (tuesday), get a job offer from the company I interviewed with on the 29th. The pay is attractive, and the job involves programing automotive diagnostic computers. (Putting racing on my resume helped me get the job). I decide to accept the offer, I tell them I would like to start the job in two weeks, after the next two consecutive race weekends. With the promise of a resumed paycheck, I feel justified in putting the race weekend on plastic. I now have about 2 days to get ready for the race weekend which is on friday, saturday and sunday. August 5th (wednesday), finally get clear of other problems to start working on the car about 4 in the afternoon. Make a quick run to pick up a friend to help prepare the car, then on to the parts stores to get some last minute supplies. While I am rummaging around in the bottom of my roll cab I find my wallet which was lost a month previous in Portland. It is in a small paper bag, wadded up in the bottom of the roll cab, buried under half a dozen hammers, my missing electric ratchet, a couple of rolls of racers tape and the other wierd and miscelaneous items that inhabit the bottom of a tool cabinet. The next day was the typical day before the race. I have to pick a friend up who I had promised a ride to the track, this should take 45 minutes and takes two hours. I have about an hours worth of work to finish up prepping the car, this takes two hours. And the two hours of packing the van, of course, takes about 4. By the time that we get to the race track, there are two possible places to reserve space for the three cars. I choose the flatter, closer in option which puts Sam and I on one side of Bruce Hotz (an eminently cool FP midget driver), and Victim on the other side. With about 475 cars entered for the weekend, it was actually amazing that almost everyone was able to get paddock space in the paved area. At the same event two years previous, I ended up paddock outside the front gates. That particular concurrent regional/national earned the name "The Race Weekend From Hell". Friday morning is going to be fun, I have to register, drop my wheels off to get new tires, clean the car for tech (it got dirty on the drive up), get the car teched, mount the tires and put on my drivers gear before my midmorning track session. When I got to tech, things started to get interesting. The gentleman teching my car commented that I needed to add support for the headrest. He said that he would make a note in my log book saying that it had to be done before the next race. He cited that the GCR said that the seat needed to withstand an impact of 200 pounds. I showed him that I could push on it with all of my strength (which using my legs is well over 200 pounds). tick tock, tick tock. But that isn't an impact he says. I remind him that the word in the GCR is force, not impact. He wants to look it up. tick tock, tick tock. We find the section in the GCR, and sure enough it says force, not impact. He still doesn't want to accept my mounting. He shows me his, and what he had to do. He has me sit in my car and notes how the helmet can roll back over the top, gee that should be fixed. I say fine, put it in the log book, I'm running out of time. He says that he doesn't want me going off feeling that the matter is unresolved and calls Bob Corbitt over. Bob says that in this region I need more support for the headrest, end of story. Meanwhile the STI had wandered off without finishing the tech on my car. Bob wanders off to give him my paperwork, and I wait for him to return when he finishes the car he is working on. He had just signed off my techsheet and set it down. I had blown several more precious minutes waiting for him to do something he had already done. On my way back to the paddock, I pick up my new tires. About 30 feet from the paddock, the car dies and will not start again. I add gas because it acted like it had run out of fuel. It still won't start. I check for spark, it seems a little weak so I try swapping coils. Still no luck. I try working the throttle, and it sounds like the accelerator pump is working. Someon notices that the fuel pump is quiet, so I take off the airfilter and watch while I pump the throttle. The accelerator pump is making a mist, not a stream. I tap on the fuel pump and it kicks in. Time is now getting very short. This being friday, Sam, Victor, Bruce and I collectively have no pit crew, except for each other. They help mount the tires while I put on my drivers gear and hook the original coil back up. I buckle up and try to start the car, no luck. Bruce notices that a nut is missing from the fuel pump electrical connector and borrows one from his car. By now the practice session is half over, but I go out to get what practice I can. At lunch break they are asking the IT and SS drivers to give ridearounds to the workers. Being a nice guy, and in need of practice on the new tires, I volunteer. I get almost a whole lap in when the engine RPM suddenly becomes totally independent of road speed. I coast back paddock, and talk the tow crew into dragging my car back to the paddock. A little bit of research shows that it is most likely the differential. Turning one rear wheel will turn the other, but not the drive shaft. I call Sharon and ask her to bring my spare diffs when she picks up the Ark after work that night. I try calling around to various people who might have one in the area, or might have one and be coming to the track. I then try the local junk yards, one in Napa says they have one, for $100. Since that is more than I usually pay for a whole cortina, I somewhat blanche at that option. I am talking with Bill about my situation and mention that I even have a good spare, in a car at a friends house in Lodi. Bill says that if Mike can get the Diff to Sacromento that night, Bill will bring it to the track the next morning. So off to the pay phone. Mikes wife answers. No Mike isn't home, he left for Sears Point 5 minutes ago. Victor and I decide to try the junk yard. To keep a long epic from getting much longer, they didn't have one. We get back to the track and a few minutes later I run into Mike. I tell him my troubles. He says that he isn't doing anything else that evening, lets go back to his place and get one. We drive to Lodi and Mike gives me one of his collection of Cortina diffs. We then drive out to Dave's house to get it welded. We pick up Dave and drive to his shop, weld up the rear end, drop off dave and drive back to Sears Point. We get back about 1 am. Sharon helps me unload the van and I go drop it off in non-support vehicle parking. The next morning, we get the differential in, and of course run into several minor problems. Everything get's straightend out and I get to pre-grid for the second qualifying session just in time. I don't feel too good about the session. I'm not used to the Yoko's and I'm not driving very well. Afterwards, when I find out my lap times I am pleasantly surprised. My qualifying time is a 2:13.817, about 4 seconds a lap better than my last weekend at SPIR (with a pranged exhaust valve) and 7 seconds a lap better than the car did last year. The sprint race that afternoon was very interesting. For the first time in my life I am driving a race in a car that is solidly in the pack. I have people to race with all race long. Problem is, they are slower drivers in faster cars. I have to hit my brakes in 3A and in the Esses to keep from rear ending them. I can pass them in 11, but they have more horsepower and pass me back before turn 1. I tried passing Leslie on the inside of 10. She just kept her line and ran me two wheels into the dirt. I finally passed Margarite on the outside in 11 and made it stick. I never could pass Leslie and make it stick, at the checkered she beat me by about 1/2 a car length. After the beer that evening, we got a small (3 cases) game of fizzball going. The consensus was to have another game next week. We then cooked the (now) traditional saturday night spaghetti dinner. Afterwards, as we were kicking back and relaxing in the ark, Roger Dietz, the announcer, wandered by and joined us for a drink. We explained the game of fizzball and how it involves cans of cheap evil smelling beer and large sticks. We also gave him one of the team safety devices. After both bottles of wine, and a good portion of Victims scotch had been drunk, Victim, Eric, Sharon and I decided to wander off to worker camping in search of trouble. Roger had wandered off, Heather had gone to bed and Sam had passed out. Somewhere between watching the poker game, and finding the bathroom, we misplaced Victor, leaving Sharon, Eric, a rather depleted bottle of single malt and I. Our sojorns brought us past erics RV, where stories were told, and the remainder of the scotch was drunk. Having a fair amount of experience with the exports of the valley of the river Spey, I had gone rather sparingly on the Glen Garioch. Eric and Sharon had not been quite so prudent. Sharon had obviously not been warned of the disadvantages of a drinking buddy that outweighs you by 50%. Right about midnight she started coming down with a case of the "speyside flu". The story of the next hour, nay the next day, is a saga worthy of chunkstyle. Suffice it to say that on sunday Sam and I again found ourselves without a pit crew. One thing that I had noticed about the cortina, was that it seemed like it was taking turns on two wheels. Especially with the new Yoko's. Before the race, I asked a few of the other drivers to keep an eye on that for me and let me know if it was indeed happening. My race on sunday was a lot of fun. After a few laps, I managed to get past Margarite. Leslie and I again got into a serious dice. I would pass her in 11, and because of a yellow in 12, I would keep the lead. She had more power, better gearing etc. and would pass me on the straight going up to 7. This happened for a couple of laps, and then I was managing to maintain my lead, albeit barely. This was when I had my big excitement of the weekend. I was going into turn 2, a decreasing radius, off camber right hand turn at the top of a hill, very fast. I downshifted to third, but my foot to the floor, turned down and felt the car go up on two wheels. Here I am, watching the horizon go 30 degrees away from what it should, at the same spot that I flipped the cortina 2 years ago. My first thought as I felt the car about to roll was "Oh no, not again". As I watched the edge of the track come up, fast, it seemed like I had two options, keep steering right and roll the car, or steer left, drive off into the dirt, hit the tire wall and flip the car. Somehow I managed to get all four wheels back onto the pavement. Unfortunately my concentration was blown and I was not able to maintain my lead on leslie. She passed me, and shortly thereafter a 914. Unfortunately, I was having all sorts of difficulty passing the 914 and making it stick. I finally got past him by making him think that I was going to run him into the wall so that he hit is brakes coming out of 11. I think that is why they shook the closed black flag at me at S/F. It might have been meant for the MR2 that passed us both at the same time, I was really too busy to worry about it. I didn't have enought time to catch Leslie after that. I beat 3 cars that were still running at the end of the race, and found out that I still have a lot to learn about driving in traffic. As I walked down to the hot pits to play pit crew for Sam and Victor, Roger Dietz noted that one of the fizzball cars was running and explained how to play it over the PA. One of the guys at the pit wall saw my shirt and asked if Roger was serious. I watched a really impressive race in ITB. I don't think that more than 5 car lengths ever separated the top three cars. Even more impressive was that all three cars were of different makes and models. Peter Grey drove a hell of a race, leading all but the last 1/8 of a mile when Mark Kirbirg finally got past him in turn 11. $ * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * CHEAP RACING * My ITC Cortina GT met it's demise in this years enduro. Time, space and money constraints prevent me from starting over using my spare body. I am selling the whole shebang for *CHEAP*, make me an offer. There are enough parts here to put together another race car and to restore a street car (maybe two or three). This car ran very RELIABLY and CHEAPLY for three years and the parts could be made into either an IT or a Vintage race car. I would prefer to sell everything all at once, but I will consider parting out various items. A partial list of the package includes: 1968 Cortina GT Roller, Body in good shape, decent interior engine Tranny and instruments removed by previous owner SCCA Improved Touring Legal Roll Cage and logbook 2 Running motors IT prepped motor, in good shape, fairly fresh Stock motor, tired, smoggable 2 trannies 2 sets of Mag wheels will also fit pinto, capri, alpine, tiger 1 set Panasport replicas 1 set cheap and ugly new radiator Several cars worth of spare body panels Some trick suspension pieces 4+ sets of steel wheels, at least 2 sets with tires that hold air. Almost new interior, removed from racecar before prep Weber 32/36 DGV Carbs Several spare blocks 2+ cars worth of miscelaneous parts removed from stripped cars. L I 4 L I 4 L I 4 L I 4 L I 4 L I 4 L I 4 L I 4 L I 4 L I 4 a T 0 a T 0 a T 0 a T 0 a T 0 a T 0 a T 0 a T 0 a T 0 a T 0 r C 8 r C 8 r C 8 r C 8 r C 8 r C 8 r C 8 r C 8 r C 8 r C 8 r r r r r r r r r r r y C 3 y C 3 y C 3 y C 3 y C 3 y C 3 y C 3 y C 3 y C 3 y C 3 o 3 o 3 o 3 o 3 o 3 o 3 o 3 o 3 o 3 o 3 C r 5 C r 5 C r 5 C r 5 C r 5 C r 5 C r 5 C r 5 C r 5 C r 5 o t 7 o t 7 o t 7 o t 7 o t 7 o t 7 o t 7 o t 7 o t 7 o t 7 l i 5 l i 5 l i 5 l i 5 l i 5 l i 5 l i 5 l i 5 l i 5 l i 5 e n 0 e n 0 e n 0 e n 0 e n 0 e n 0 e n 0 e n 0 e n 0 e n 0 n a 5 n a 5 n a 5 n a 5 n a 5 n a 5 n a 5 n a 5 n a 5 n a 5 Foocar timeline 9/89 start preparing car 11/89 enduro first capri club 4/90 easter, roll 3/91 Ix Drvers school 5/91 won't let me race 6/91 paint car 7/91 portland 12/91 capri club spir 1/91 capri club laguna seca 3/92 Dick and Rochelle drivers school 5/92 laguna seca, spin in 6 6/92 sears point, diff 7/92 portland 7/92 seattle 8/92 spir, fastest lap at spir 11/92 last enduro 4/93 trade for ride