Thunder Chicken Racing

First thing Sunday morning we check the brake fluid level and a small amount had leaked out overnight but we thought it should be if we just kept the level topped up.  So Ted got into the car to pull out to grid and the clutch just popped to the floor.  We had a brief team discussion concerning the fact that we 4th gear for 98% of the track and sent Ted out to start the race with no clutch.  Turns out that he averaged about 2 seconds faster per lap by not shifting to 5th gear on the straight…  everything was going fine until Ted went in to turn 4 too fast and beached the car in a sand trap.  He ended up timing this spin at the worst possible time because the tow truck was already involved in untangling an accident elsewhere on the track.  He ended up sitting for about 20 minutes before getting pulled out.  Luckily there was no damage and we were back in the race.

Shortly after that we opened the hood on a pit stop and noticed some droplets of liquid sprayed around the engine compartment and realized that one of our coolant lines had shifted up against the alternator pulley and caused a small leak.  A quick splice later and we were back to racing.

During my stint in the afternoon, I was attempting to lap the Flying Tigers Mazda Miata and I got a little over eager to make my move.  I came in to turn 4 a little hot and right on the bumper of the miata.  He tapped his brakes and I wasn’t ready for it so I had to brake and ended up going off into the sand.  I managed to rock the car in reverse out of the trenches i had dug and then put it back in first cranked it up and bombed my way out of the sand trap and back on to the track. I even managed to catch the miata again before the end of my stint.

The rest of the race went pretty smoothly with some great lap times and some great wheel to wheel battles. Ted brought the car home in one piece even though a large american v8 powered car dumped all of its significant load of oil on the track at turn 6 all the way to pit lane, which caused the race to end under a full course caution.  Thanks to John Condren and all of the Chump Car folks we had a great time and tons of clean but very close racing.  We Can’t wait for the next event.  Keep checking back for more updates

AJ

So we had the first 7 hour race today.  It went amazingly well. I had the privilege of driving the first and last stint of the race.

During my first stint I quickly realized that the car was setup absolutely perfectly.  The temperature was just right and I got to jump about 3 or 5 cars on the drop of the green flag.  The only complaint I had was the virgin racers passing on full course yellow and tow truck flags.  I set the fast lap for the team with a 1:29.540, which was 4 seconds faster than any of our laps during the test and tune.  Had some great passes and even had a driver from another team come to our pit to compliment my dive bomb attack on a 5 car cluster at turn 1. Also i borrowed some of the rubber from a miata’s right rear tire to cover up a small ugly spot on my left front fender… I thought he saw taking the inside line through turn 2 but i was wrong… no big spin for either of us… just a little love tap between friends…

The day was going unbelievably smoothly (like they usually do until a believable problem crops up) until RJ said the parking brake light was flickering over the radio.  After a brief period of thought concerning the fact that we had removed any and every piece of the parking brake system, I realized that we might have a real problem.  Turns out I was right for once… Never right when I want to be…  The clutch slave cylinder had decided to start leaking. We figured that since there was not a whole lot of time left in the race that if we refilled it,  it would be ok until the end. More on that later…

Now on to Teds stint.  Ted continued our running theme of being fast in the corners and dog slow on the straight.  The big problem with this is that we get stuck behind other cars in the corners and then get so low in the power band that we cant get enough speed on the straight to make a pass stick.  Ted’s solution to this problem was to just pass them on the outside… on the grass! Yes, he did this more than once! And at least one of them was on purpose. lol.  But all in all he did gain us at least 2 positions and was consistently fast.

Like I mentioned earlier I had the privilege of taking the last hour and a half stint all the way to the checkered flag. No real dramatic mentionables in my stint other than being pushed off the inside of turn 3 by a large yellow camaro… (passed in the next turn)  Everything was going fine until the needle on the fuel gauge slid down to needle-over-empty with about 20 minutes left in the race. There was a discussion over the radio between me and the crew chief (Ted)  and by the time i decided to come in for a splash and go I had ten minutes to go and that made it not worth it to pit in.  So I putted around for the last 7 minutes short shifting and 3/4 throttle. Couldn’t stand it any longer so I went back to full race pace and brought us in for a 7th place finish.

By the way when I pulled into the paddock and Ted opened the hood,  the brake fluid reservoir was bone dry… WHEW! that could have been bad…

More to follow… Must sleep.

S0, last night was a pretty late night for the 2 amigos…   this morning was pretty miserable; but, we did make it to the test day by 0830ish and were on track by 0930. It was just me and Ted until about 1:30, when RJ got to the track.  David didn’t make it until about 3:30.

The first set of tires we tried were not exactly confidence inspiring but it was immediately evident that we had cured our snap (understatement of the year) oversteer problem.  The car was pretty neutral handling. I can’t even begin to describe the world of difference since the car was last on the track.

However as I’m sure some of you know, Ted and I will always find a way to tear up the landscape and had both had at least one 4 wheel off excursion before lunch with Ted’s mini adventure ending with him stuck in a sand trap on the outside of turn 7.  He was actually trying to let faster traffic pass but the cold tires just couldn’t contend with the adjusted racing line he chose.

My agricultural racing event was just as exciting. I was going through turn 4 and carrying on a conversation with Ted on the radio when I should have been paying attention to my line when I realized the car was in a 4 wheel drift and headed for the outside of the track. At some point i realized the surface i was racing on was no longer asphalt but a very fine sand.  For those of you who haven’t experienced this, it is not a good feeling.  However the racing gods smiled upon me and i managed to keep the car relatively parallel to the track and rejoin the racing surface without further incident.  The best part was I forgot to let go of the PTT ( push to talk) button throughout the whole experience. Ted got a pretty amusing earful… after that we switched to the toyos and saw a marked improvement over the skinnier hankooks.  The lap times continued to tumble.  all of us improved our lap times by 5-8 seconds.

Even RJ had one slightly less dramatic event, paralleling the track between turn 2 and 3.  We all like to keep an open mind and try to find new and inventive lines around this track but that one was quickly discounted as not likely to be beneficial… lol

David finally made it to the track around 3:30 and we immediately put him in the car to get used to the new setup. In the rush to get him on the track we forgot to have him get the proper wristband and he rolled down pit lane just a bit faster than I could run. Thanks to Kaye at Roebling Road we had the problem fixed in no time and David out on track turning some great and very consistent hot laps.

We had been narrowing tire pressures all day and were pretty happy with where they were at that point.  After the last session David pulled the car back to the paddock and we checked the pressures one more time.  Some how we had gotten a leak in the right rear tire and it was only holding about 20 psi.  we soaped the tire very thoroughly and still couldn’t find the leak… The low tire didn’t seem to affect Davids driving at all though because his lap times never varied more that 3/4 of a second.  Glad we brought 3 sets of tires with us.

Finally made it to Tech Inspection around 6:30 and amazingly were only given 5 penalty laps for our various necessary minor budget infractions. This surprised me because the tech inspector docked his own brother 20 laps for a cat that he helped build!!

I think we have a good chance of placing well in the races tomorrow and Sunday if we can just keep the laps consistent and unplanned pit stops to a minimum.  But not if I don’t get some sleep… Stay tuned, I will try to mobile update during the race tomorrow as much as I can.

AJ

Never seen Savannah so deserted. Walked up and down Riverfront and not a soul to be found. Settled on the Warehouse and we are the only two pros in here.

Ted

So me and Ted are finally on the road. It only took him an hour and a half to pack his tool box… but what’s past is past and we are southbound and down… Roebling here we come!

AJ

So I’m sittin here waitin for Ted to get off work so we can head down to Roebling Road Raceway.  Pretty excited. We have a full day of testing tomorrow and then races on both Saturday and Sunday.  Finally got the car finished and loaded around midnight last night… and then couldn’t sleep cause I always get worked up before a race so i managed a 2 hour power nap and that brings us to now… More to follow.  Stay tuned race fans…

AJ