Well that sucked

Back from the first race weekend of the year at LimeRock. How did it go? says the dear reader. On the bright side it didn't rain. But it was fricking cold with a nasty wind all day long. Steve and Bernie found a great restaurant in Torrington with 24 craft beers on tap, and another 50 bottles on their beer list. Harpoon Black IPA. Yummy. I still haven't forgotten how to drive, dropping 1.5 seconds each session, down to a 1.04.2 in the 3rd practice session on crappy tires, enough to get me close to the front once I put decent tires on. But I still haven't learned to listen to my inner voice when it says something is a bad idea. Like doing the practice starts or even going to Lime Rock in the first place.

Al Cohen and his totally refurbed 944

So the practice starts. I had done the 3 practice sessions and was looking forward to the racing the next day. Should I bother doing the practice starts and fun races? They are for the rookies and there's no benefit for me other than putting my car at risk for a 13/13. That's what the little voice said to me inside my head. "But I'm a racer, and this is what I like to do" I countered.

Should have listened.

Dan Ostrower's pretty 944 turbo

There would be 3 practice starts for the rookies to get used to the starts. We would race to the uphill, reform back into line for the next green flag. After the 3rd start, we get a short 5 lap or so fun race. I lined up for the next session and wait for the green flag. I'm toward the back of the pack. When the green flag flies, I pick up a couple of spots on the outside into Big Bend, cross the track so I'm on the outside of turn 2 - the only left hander on the track - but will be on the inside for turn 3. We're still 3 wide at this point, I'm just maintaining my position, not trying to be agressive, figuring it will sort itself out, when .... bang! and I'm going around in a spin. I put both feet in and head backwards off the track as the rest of the field barrels past. WTF? What just happened?

Vito Valentino and his 924S

I didn't hit anything off the track, so I head back and try to catch the pack. They throw another green flag for the 2nd start but I don't really try to go racing, I just want to see if the car is okay. It seems to be missing when I go full throttle. I do another lap and then head into the pits. I'm immediately called to the black flag station where I'm told I have a good size dent in the car, and by the way, here's a bunch of paperwork to fill out, and you need to go see medical, and then the chief steward. Great.

Back in the paddock I look over my car. My right fender, which has been hit numerous times over the last several years is now sporting a bright shiny dent. Very noticeable, since it was mostly bondo, and it all cracked and fell off...

I guess I need to paint it black first, then bondo it, so if falls off it will be less noticeable

An hour later, the paperwork's done, I've been to medical and talked to Bruce the steward. He said nobody's come forward and they're looking for the other car. I really said I couldn't tell him much other than I was motoring along when bang, spin, etc. Nobody was being aggressive that I knew of, and it's only a dent. No big deal and off for dinner.

The next morning I'm about to jump into the car for the morning warmup when a scruit grabs me and says I need to see the steward before I go out. Uh oh, not good. They tell me they found the driver and a video. They say the video looks like I hit one of Lime Rock's wonderful apex curbing and it bounced me right into Vito's rear bumper, causing me to spin. They said I didn't really do anything wrong, but I hit somebody and caused damage (to my car), so I was done for the weekend. No racing for you. Take my car and go home. You'll get your 13/13 letter in the mail. As I leave the office I find Vito coming up. He said it wasn't a big deal, just scuffed his rear bumper a bit, so he didn't bother to come in. It was just racing.

But this is PCA racing. Even though it was my car that got (barely) hurt, I get the penalty, don't even get to race and I'm on probation for the next 13 months. Personally I think the track should be getting the 13/13 as what kind of race track puts up curbing that can bounce race cars back into traffic. But it is what it is. It's PCA's playground and their rules.

They say never say never, but I think Lime Rock is done for me. It's not a happy place for me. I don't think I'll be back. So next time I'm going to listen to that little voice in my head. It seems to be smarter than me.

Hershey Swap Meet

Just back for the Hershey Swap meet. For once, the weather gods smiled, and it was a beautiful day. I got to see a lot of folks that I haven't seen for months. This event seems to bring out a lot of folks just to socialize and look at the cars in the Porsche only lot,.

I got what I was hunting for: 2 turbo fenders, turbo nose panel, and turbo headlight covers (still attached to the headlights, but those are destined for the trash). Now I have enough parts to add the turbo nose to my car and stay legal in my class.

Also scored the typical side purchases, some oil filters for $3.50 each, specialty tools like a compression gauge and piston ring expander, and some other bits. The nice thing was they all fit in my Subaru WRX.

An almost a complete turbo front end in my trunk

You never know what you are going to find at Hershey. Here's a nice 356

And a not so typical 944

As Long as We're Here (part 2)

Remember that whole thing about Living in the Land of Well, since we're here ...., and another essay on Scope Creep, all I can say it's way of life.

You would think now that I have my Bimmer back from the paint shop I'd jump right into re-assembling it, but nooooo... That's not the Alpine Garage way.

One minute I'm standing there admiring the shiny exterior and the next, frowning over the carpets. Carpets that only a few months ago seemed perfectly adequate, now looked dirty and worn. Well's there nothing to do but to pull the seats and pull out the carpet. A good washing in the home washer (don't tell Maggie) resulted in a clean, but still stained and faded carpet set.

I sprang into action and ordered a new set from Esty, one of the BMW2002FAQ.com regulars, choosing a nice blue, gray blend to replace the brownish salt & pepper.

And since we're here  .... seats and carpets removed ... now would be great time to put in sound acoustical sound deadening material. Sixties era cars aren't known for their high NVH values and the car is pretty noisy at speed. That is part of its charm of course, but it would be nice to be able to not shout at a passenger or listen to my ipod occasionally.

I cleaned up the tub, removing what's left of the carpet foam and began apply the FatMat RattleTrap barriers that I got off Ebay. This is basically a tar base with a aluminum backing. By applying it to most of the  interior surfaces it should really help the sound quality.

All that brown stuff isn't rust, but carpet glue.

It's applied by cutting pieces from the roll, peeling off the paper backing and then using a wooden roller to bond it to the surface. Tedious but satisfying work.

Tomorrow is the Hershey Swap meet, the largest Porsche swap meet in the US if not the world. I'll be up there early looking to score some turbo fenders and front panels so I can do a turbo nose conversion on my racecar. So far it looks like it might not rain .... so I'm going to retire for the evening and watch Formula One with a nice Yuengling Black & Tan to start.

Getting ready for Lime Rock

First event of the year is looming over the horizon. We going to kick off the 944 Cup North Chapter season with a PCA event at Lime Rock. Lime Rock is one of those tracks that I'm happy to have run there in the past, but given a choice, I don't care if I don't go back. The track is picturesque, nestled in a valley surrounded by hills, a church steeple is visible across from the front straight. One of the earliest purpose built race tracks in the country, the sport of auto racing has a long history here. But along with that vintage history comes a cost. The surrounding area is a haven for the upper classes; prep schools dot the countryside, and development is discouraged. The track is under constant assault from the locals for being noisy, even though it was probably there before they moved next to it. This means no racing on Sunday, and harsh noise restrictions when open. A short (only 1.5 miles) track, one left turn and a 1 noise warning and the next you're gone, dampens my enthusiasm. Not to mention the $100+/night motels with all the charm of a rundown Motel 6. (It's ambiance dear!)

But it's on the schedule, so I need to get ready.

First order of business is a corner balance and alignment, so off to Behe's again.

On the scales and adjusting the corner weights

I had changed my camber plates to use the MantisSport strut hats - a pretty neat piece of trick. This obviously changed my ride height and I was pretty close setting it back but needed some tweaks on the scales to get it right.

Next Jerald and David set up the laser bits for the Hunter alignment machine.

Once done at Behe's, it was back to the garage for the finishing touches.

The body shop repaired the rear quarter, tweaked one fender and hood, and adjusted the header panel to align with the hood. But it was up to me to finish up the front end. I needed to rework the headlight panels to align up, plus the bumper had too many times being hooked to a tow truck and could see some love.

modified bumper mounts - saved 4 lbs on each corner!

I pulled my bumper mounts, did some straightening and added a weld bead where one side had cracked. Did some fiberglass repair to the front air dam and cleaned and painted everything. All updates that I was going to do is done, let's do a race prep.

My race prep sheets

Fresh rotors on front

I needed new rotors up front, but I knew that from back in the winter and had already ordered them. The only major issue that turned up was a dead wiper system. A couple of hours traced it to a dead wiper motor. Luckily I had one from a parts car stuffed in the attic and it was quickly replaced.

With that I'm ready to go. See you at Lime Rock.

Meanwhile, let's crack open that Otter's Creek sampler. Hmmmm, a Black IPA, that looks interesting...

Assembly is the Reverse of Removal

Don't you just hate hearing that when you're working on a car task using a Haynes or even a factory manual and have completed something that required major dis-assembly?

To fix x, remove part y. Part y section has 425 steps with 5 pictures in 5 pages for dis-assembly. But just that one liner for putting it all back together.

Well, I'm at that state now. I have the bimmer home from the paint shop, out of the trailer and into the garage. Where it most likely will sit for the next six months except when its pulled and abandoned out on the lawn to fix the racecar.

Home for next several months

It spent 3 months at the body shop. That's at least 2.5 months past my short term memory on how to put everything back together again. Luckily I took about 500 pictures as it came apart, and have a factory manual and have a rabid user community at bmw2002faq.com in case I run into trouble.

That's not dust in the paint but metalflake

I'm still waiting for my stainless steel beltline trim to show up. It's still on the boat from China. But I have a boatload of parts up in my garage attic to spend my time with.

Plus a trunk full

My wife will know where to find me for the next several months. I won't be at the bar hanging around with loose wimmen. I'll still be drinking beer, but in the garage with loose sheet metal. It's all good.

944 Pre-season Work

It was a rainy weekend, and the 44 was at the body shop so lets tackle some of my pre-season tasks on my to-do list.

I was bored with my purple rain wheels. All the fashion magazines say that "Bold Colors" are in this spring, so lets see what we can do.

Matte purple - so last year ...

I'm a big tool fan. After a tedious 5 minutes of sanding the wheel and getting nowhere fast, I looked around the garage at the work ahead.

And that's only a portion of the phone dial collection

 I switched to using my #1 tool, my brain. Mr. Brain said if tools are good, power tools are even better. A hunt around the garage and I dug up my Dremel tool and set to work.

In progress

Yeah, that worked out

An hour later I was applying the first of several coats of my favorite go-to wheel paint, Rustoleum enamel with a foam brush. No fancy paint booth or spray system here, this is down home garage work here. It goes on reasonably thick, lays and settles well and ends up looking pretty good. It's pretty tough and durable also, standing up to brake dust. I wouldn't put this on a Ferrari GTO if I happened to own one, but for a racecar, good stuff.

White wheels? for racing? are you crazy? You don't even wash your racecar,
you just paint over the bugs. How are you going to keep these clean?

Meanwhile the 944 came back from the body shop, looking a little better than it went in. They fixed the crunched rear panel where Chris L and I came together in the Nationals. That was the only panel that hadn't been hit on the car. Almost made me cry when it happened. Charlie and the boys made the hood and fender flush. They also fixed the rear quarter, mudded it up and primed it. I declined the paint as I had about 20 cans of Rustolem Flat Black back in the garage.

Getting ready for  the pièce de résistance: Krylon Flat Black

The next item was to strip and clean the front suspension bits. I had some cool MantisRacing CNC'd strut hats and bar that I won a couple of years ago at Nationals. I ran into some fitment issues and while I'm sorting that out, I took apart the camber plates, strut hats, and sway bar assemblies. Cleaned all the grit and lubed them up and reassembled.

Mantissport strut hats and the Ground Control camber plate and my strut bar attachement

Next on the tick list, was replacing the hood pins. The goal was to make them a bit more fool (me) proof. Here's me at Lime Rock 2 years back.

This is when the loose nut behind the wheel forgets the hood pins.

Here's the former setup

And the new flush mounted edition with internal pin.

Drivers side, easy peasy. Passenger not so much. Seems there was about 5 lbs of bondo on the corner of that hood and when I started drilling and sawing the hole, it started flaking off in huge lumps. If it's not one thing its another ...

Putting the bondo universe back in balance.

And what started this whole post, oh yeah, the wheels. What is he going to do with them. Leave them white? Of course not. Remember Spring Fashion Tips? A pop of color? I'm painting them in the traditional Porsche color of Pink! Remember the Pink Pig? Here's my tribute.

Sunglasses not required. It will be raining when I'm running these.

Tools - an addedum

As readers know I'm a huge fan of tools. One of these things that these tools have in common beside solving problems, is the generation of large quantities of potential human altering actions or substances. Whether its the potential for cutting off a finger with my cutoff wheel - finally! says the tool, my dreams are realized - or being crushed under my lift, or more typically, flaying off my skin with the wire brush wheel in my grinder.

Lots of nasty bits flying around, ready to be inhaled or ingested, or inserted into some unsuspecting part of my anatomy.

So safety is a big concern. I have about 3 fire extinguishers in the shop. I wear a safety face shield when grinding on stuff, ear protectors when noisy tools are being fired, gloves and respirator while electroplating things. Double check the locks on my lift, etc.

But still, shit happens.

That's why I added something (safety) cool to the garage this week. An Eyewash station. This is for those times when you're crawling under the car, reaching up to fiddle with something, and blam, a rain of crap falls into your face and eyes. And while I don't want to lose a finger, I would have 9 left. I only have two eyes and I need them both to go racing.

So this is there, just in case. And a no-brainer for only $20.