Race 1 - NJMP Lightning Course

With a new fresh motor in the car it made sense to do the test & tune day on Friday before the race weekend. It was mid April and a cold front had moved in. It got into the 50's but with a stiff wind all day. Made me glad I was wearing my bulky nomex suit. Wasn't great for socializing, most folks huddled in their trailers. Car ran like a champ on my old Hoosiers with no issues, I was looking forward to the race weekend.

Saturday dawned cool and overcast, and very breezy. The forecast was for torrential rain right about our race time of 2pm and continuing all night. They even cancelled the after race cookout. The typical NASA schedule is a practice session, a short qualifying session and then the sprint race. Repeat on Sunday. I went out for the practice session and the car started stumbling and would die with full throttle. I limped back to the pits and started diagnostics. I couldn't find anything wrong and neither did any of the paddock pros. John Behe was visiting and I found him. Of course in the presence of a master, the car wouldn't misbehave, it ran perfectly. I understand, it's just like when my wife has computer problems, it always works perfectly when I sit down. Somewhere the gods are laughing ....

So I drove around the track complex, back and forth on the access road, and no issues. I went out for qualifying and the car was perfect. I put the car on pole by a second which was great since it meant I still knew how to drive. After last year I was beginning to worry a bit.

The day got darker and darker with slight rain showers on and off as our racetime approached. The other race group had a dry track for their race, but the forecast and radar was looking dodgy for us. A common strategy was to have 2 wets and 2 dry tires on the car. That way you only need to change 2 tires no matter what way the weather goes. At an half hour before race time I made a decision, time for dry tires and I set to work putting the Hoosiers on. Just before I got ready to roll out, the heavens opened up and it became obvious running dry tires would be a bad call. The car went back up in the air and the crack Alpine Motorsports pit crew (me) went to work. Halfway through the tire change my battery died on my impact wrench and I needed to do all lugs with a socket wrench. It was now pouring rain and I was getting soaked. To add to the fun I had put new extra long wheel studs for the bigger tires and it took forever to tighten down all the lug nuts. I made it to the grid with about 30 seconds to spare.

It poured buckets in the race. I had a good dice with Vito Valentino and Bob Page. I got passed and passed back many times. We had a couple of full course yellows as cars went flying off the track and got stuck in the mud. On the 1st one I did well, went back into lead. On the 2nd full course, I got caught napping, off the torque curve and wasn't able to improve. I ended up 3rd., with Bob Page taking the win.

The rain continued all evening and into the night. The winds and the rain picked up and was crazy loud. I was staying in my trailer at the track and tried watching a video. I had to turn it off because even with the sound cranked up I couldn't hear it over the noise of the storm. All night long the trailer rocked from the wind gusts with me wondering if it was going to blow over. We even had short, intense hailstorm around 1am.

Sunday was bright, a little warmer and no rain (yay!). No practice session today, just qualifying and the race. In qualifying I never got a clean lap and gridded 2nd, an tenth back from first place. This time we had a dry race with lots of action. Up to first at one point, down in 5th at another. Ended up 3rd like the day before. The car rolled into the trailer with no issues or bumps. My pair of 3rds was good enough to win me about $500 worth of tires, so that was all good.

I was back home by 5pm enjoying a nice beer and gyro platter. It was a good start to the season.

Next up is the annual PCA race at Watkins Glen. At the last count there was going to be 30 944 Cup cars racing. That should be exciting. For me, to keep up with all the young fast guys, I've hired a pro coach to run with me at the DE just before the race. He's also going to help train me on the use of my data analysis software. Basically, his mission is to find out where I suck and help me move my skills into the not-suck category. Reports to follow.

Lead up to NJMP

Ok, it's the end of May and the Glen PCA race is rapidly approaching, so I guess I need to fill in what happened earlier. Right after the NJMP weekend, I had enough time to race prep for the Glen and then immediately left for a week and a half in India for work. Once back in the US, right back into the grind without a letup. Enough with the prologue, on with the race report.

When we last left the car needed a few last-minute items: new belts and window net. In fact, all my safety gear needed updating except for my suit. New helmet, gloves, shoes, belts, it was a very expensive winter getting ready. I put new Schroth 6-point harnesses with the smaller HANS shoulder belts. The next prep item was getting the fresh motor dynoed. I took the car to John Behe at Behe Performance just outside of Baltimore. John is a friend of the 944Cup series and an experienced tuner. His shop is doing the certification of DME's for the cup series. John took the 44 and ran the motor in on the dyno for about an 1/2 hour, tuned the car and burned my chip. The car was running lean as presented, and after fattening up the fuel ratio we picked up almost 20 hp. Now that's tuning!

Once back from John's shop I had one more update for the car. I had bought a Lindsey Racing oil breather kit. This takes the oil vapor from the air/oil separator (AOS) and routes it to a catch tank instead of dumping it back into the intake. That's all well and good for pollution control on a streetcar, but that oil doesn't do my motor and its power output any good.

To get to the oil separator, the intake (and plugs, and fuel rail, etc) had to come off. By now I can do this in my sleep, and must have done so, since I don't remember doing it. The top of the oil separator gets drilled out and a new higher flow connector is added.

Once that is done, all that crap gets put back together again. You can see the top of the AOS just under the light.

All that crap is an appropriate term. After I put it all back together the car ran like crap. It felt like it was dropping a cylinder. After trying a bunch of items, including the application of Dominion Oak Barrel Stout to the chief mechanic, I gave up and went to bed.

Catch tank on the right, with fat silicon hose to the AOS

The next morning, I took a fresh look and eventually discovered that an intake gasket had slipped out of place while reassembling the bits. I put a dab of grease to hold the gaskets in place while reassembling since you need 4 hands and the dexterity (not the looks) of a monkey to get it all assembled correctly. Once the errant gasket was warned - a note was placed in its permanent file - and positioned correctly, it all went back together, and we had a happy motor again. A few strategic applications of flat black spray paint completed the preparation, and it was rolled into the trailer.

A new racing season was dawning, 2011 and NJMP here we come.