This weekend was a whole lot of fun. The new motor turned out to be pretty good. Really good actually. It's a 47k mile motor that came out of a well maintained and very clean Mustang. I pulled it partway apart to replace the oil pump and reseal everything. The cylinder bores had their original crosshatching, it had platinum plugs installed (they're not really useful, but it's a sign of an owner who cares). And the piece de la resistance was the little bit of motor oil still in the engine. When I sprayed it with brake cleaner, it turned purple. Royal Purple.
And I want to thank Jerry Jordan for letting me ship the motor to his business, and for providing a lot of advice on the 4.6 Mod motor.
There was no time to dyno, so I just assumed that it was still making factory horsepower, and then overballasted so that I'd go across the scales 100lb heavy.
During the warmup session I discovered the heater hose clamp that I'd forgotten to tighten.
https://youtu.be/XL-Flj8vUrU
I qualified 8th for race 1, and spent most of the race staring at David Francis' bumper while trying to get around him and Bryan Leinart. David got the inside line on the final turn, and I rode his coattails past Bryan. Then I outbraked David in turn 1, got past him and through 1 and 2, and then promptly yeeted myself off the track at turn 3. Bryan, David, Sam and Daniel all passed me while I was doing rallycross things, and I finished 11th out of 12th place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff5ERn8glCA
Race 2 was the invert start, and I was supposed to grid second behind Sean Richardson. Grid...had issues. I was first to grid, quite early, and as I parked and shut off my engine, they blew the 5 minute whistle. Sean was never able to get to his grid position, so I wound up leading my first rolling start. Hopefully I didn't fuck it up too badly.
The bad part was that grid sent CMC out before AMCM, so on lap 1 we had 500hp tube frame cars filtering through our pack.
I held the lead, built a gap, went off on turn 3 AGAIN, but somehow kept the lead and made it across the finish line with Michael Mosty's Fox body 0.164 seconds behind me and closing fast.
There was some concern that I'd passed under yellow, but the video showed that a G-Speed Corvette had passed me on the front straight, then braked hard to give the pass back when he saw the yellow. The corner workers saw an SN95 blowing the doors off of a Corvette, and they didn't understand that this is not physically possible. My onboard video cleared me, so no harm, no foul.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJQXDgtvU08
Race 3 on Sunday dawned with the worst hangover I've had in a while, coupled with some of the worst driving I'd done in a while. The only reason I didn't come in dead last is because Sean Richardson had to drop out. (In a field of 10, that's actually a good strategy since it wins you $50 Toyo Bucks.)
https://youtu.be/0H0nEilWFlk
By Race 4 I was feeling better, but my tires were at 15 heat cycles and were absolutely shagged. I gridded 7th behind Bryan Leinart. Sam Crumpacker was the MVP in turn 3, waving out the window and making me aware of a spun AMCM car that was completely blocked from my field of view.
Unfortunately Sam had an engine issue and dropped out putting me in 6th and Bryan in 5th I spent the next 20 minutes trying to get around him. My attempted pass on the outside of turn 10 didn't go so well. I didn't get my front wheel up to his door, and so he had the line. He made it clear to me that if I wished to continue, my racing line would involve dirt. Well played.
Two laps later I tried for a pass at turn 6. I got inside, late braked, and had a mental thought "I've just made a terrible mistake" as my tires howled and I found myself within a foot of his car. But he's got enough skill to cover for my recklessness, and we made it through the turn without contact. We drag raced to turn 7, and I held the inside line and got the lead through the 8 and 9. After that it was "Don't fuck it up, Frederic" for the next two laps while Bryan and David loomed in my rearview mirror. A near miss with a spun Porsche Carrera at turn 11 on the last lap made things interesting, and may have held up Bryan and David long enough for me to make it over the line in 5th.
https://youtu.be/zc3ravh9Q_c
With the weekend over, I packed up the RV, loaded the Mustang up, and ripped the exhaust off of the car when it snagged on the edge of the trailer. That's racing!
