Weekend highs and lows

[mitchntx]

Post'em up so that somoe might formulate a weekend write up ...

Friday TNT ...

Broke another rotor and blew a hose off the water pump. Some thrashing got me back on track for the final hour.

Saturday ...

Thanks to Glenn Landrum for showing me around the track. Helped a lot and was able to put the LAW motorsports, NAtwell Welding and Supply, Moonlight printing and Graphics Pontiac #9 on pole

Race 1 was interesting. I wanted to maintain a good distance between me and the CMC pack because T1 and T2 can get awefully crowded. And it was.

I tried really hard to put some distance and cars between me and the #8 car. I finally got my chance with a couple laps to go. I was able to get a run and draft on 3 car battling and was able to pass all 3 on the front straight and prayed to the Gods of grip to hold it T1/T2. It all worked out.

Race 2 was eventful in that Steve and I raced hard for several laps till he had a mechanical issue. He blew the center out of his pressure plate and the car was stuck in gear.

As always, the whole CMC crew pitched and helped get him going once again. By 8:30, the car was once again ready to roll to grid.

Race 3 wasn't so pretty. There were numerous incidents involving the GTA cars. The Race Director was grossly clear about body contact and on track respect. I don't think many of them know what that is.

Still had a good race, unable to shake Steve once again, till I had to muscle some GTA sight-seers out of the way. Once I got them to look in their mirror and see that there were other people on the track, I was able to get by.

Others weren't so lucky.

This is just one man's opinion, but I think we should all band together in a show of solidarity and let NASA Texas AND NASA National know that the kind of ass-hattery displayed by the GTA drivers and series director is not acceptable.

Lots of bent cars this weekend because of stupidity behind the wheel.

[AI#97]

Having tested 3 weeks earlier and not changing anything I thought the weekend would be uneventful...but some gremlins showed up and chewed on my car prior to saturday morning...

Saturday, practice saw very little productive info other than running two GTA cars off the road because they didn't have position so I gave no room...got passed by a GTC BMW under a double yellow flag, a white Honda decided to blow up in T1 which collected 3 or 4 cars and I called it quits after 3 or 4 laps.

Qual showed more problems with the car not running right and the tires feeling like someone armor all'd the contact patch on the rear...worst qualifying for AI97 since early 2006....

Saturday Race 1, made a few changes and was still dealing with a poor running car but made it up to second place only to have the car die on me on the 2nd lap falling back to 5th or 6th...drove what was left of the wheels off and climbed back to 3rd but an ontrack incident bumped me to 2nd!

Race 2, was gridded 4th...barged my way to first in T1...stuck to a plan of legally making my car 20' wide on a 72" track width and made it work to my advantage and pulled off a win in a vastly inferior car that was coughing and bucking as well as sliding all over the place. also blew a 2" seal out of the top of the gas tank on the last lap for some cool video from Donovan's car...glad it didn't turn out like Joe Johnson's Cobra R and thankfully made weight in tech!

Sunday Qual....car would barely run on the out lap, smelled fuel, came in to figure out the problem, found the 2" hole in the tank had about an hour to fix it before the race.

Race 3...Patched the tank, started Dead last, car still barely running on the pace lap and just as I rolled onto the straight I put my foot to the floor and the car suddenly had power so instead of diving in to conceed the race, I took off in chase of the AI pack. Turned out CMC2 decided to make it a triple split start and cried only to see the lead AI cars diving into T1 as CMC2 rolled onto the straight...killed any chances for my typical race from the back of the pack... :cry: IMHO, CMC2 should be starting in front of CMC but my plight at the back was purely my doing.

Ended up boiling the rear tires off the car and making it as high as 3rd in AI and had an outstanding battle with Chris Lyons for several laps and he got me back in T3 to retake 3rd place. Did my best impressions of a Formula Drift competition for the rest of the race with a gas pedal that was either on or off...and gave the corner workers in T2 a view of a 110mph drift from the "box" all the way to the exit of 2. Hit a GTA car in the carousel "Gently" and learned when sliding sideways that bugs can hit your helmet with the windows down. Barely made it over the scales at tech because the car would only idle or move at full throttle. Pulled into the pits and found that the Mass Air Meter had come unplugged completely and had likely fouled all the plugs. Ended up 4th in the hardest race I have ever had. Even though this was my first finish off the podium in my career not including a DNF, I still felt I had accomplished something with the mechanical troubles I was having.

Had a great time hanging out with buddies and only complained about high gas prices one time... :lol:

Pretty well sums it up.

[cjlmlml]

I agree with Mitch

I have spent a lot of time working on my car in the last year or so and now it is f-d up due to a dillweed on the track in a POS Honda Civic that left oil on the track.

I wasnt the only one who spun due to that, I just happened to be the first one through there.

Nasa allowed him on the track with a smoking car because he was just getting some carb cleaner out or at least that is what I told.

If you have an ill prepared car or out of class pos, get your own damn run group or stay off the track, you put others at risk.


Now I am out a custom made aluminum splitter, a front nose, perhaps a strut, 2 bent c/c plates, & thats all I know of so far.

Granted, maybe that the risks go with the racing, but I would ask NASA TX to stop introducing un needed risks into our run group.

I believe the Enduro perhaps overshadowed & clouded the judgement of Nasa TX this weekend.

AI/CMC group has worked long and hard to get their own run group.

We know who we are racing against/with for the most part and have developed a certain level of trust there.

Why dont others who race in our run group sign some kind of damage agreement? Or we do the same if we are in theirs?

I admit Nasa TX has come a long way from several years ago, but I feel other improvements can be made.

Clifton , I hope you read this.

My 2 points for NASA.

1. Deliberate seriously before combining different run groups.
Evaluate the levels of racers coming in to our group as well as those already in strongly.

2. Be consistent with the times of our races.

We pay for 20 minute races, how about starting the clock from the time the green flag drops?

With expenses increasing all the time, $1,000 weekends may be the norm.





Listen, I am not perfect, I make mistakes, I am talking about risk management here. Something to think about.



Before you think this is all sour grapes, it is not.

On balance, it was a very fun weekend , I would not trade.


I will say that the weekend was brutal for me. College Station has always been brutal on me. If you knew all of my history there, you would think I was crazy for returning.

I will also say that the spirit of our group was alive and well when I came in with a wrecked car.

EVERYONE pitched in to help me , or offered help.

I wasnt in a very good frame of mind at the time, so people just got busy and helped me out.


I tried to thank everyone personally who helped out, if I didnt, then Thank You right now.

[oz98cobra]

Downunder Racing had an awesome weekend - it was the first time we had raced with a "complete car" now that the splitter was finally complete, so we were happy to see that it is as competitive as we had hoped.

Mason did an awesome job on Sunday! Bagging a pole, a lap record, and our first win ain't too bad for a rookie who was only in his 7th race!

I learned a few things - like missing the 2-3 shift then finding 5th on a race start is very ugly. I learned that no matter how experienced you are or how carefull you are, contact can happen when you race as hard and close as we do. I felt really bad for the contact with Chris on Saturday after his off in practice - I don't think I did the wrong thing- we were racing close and hard and the door was wide open - I had to go for it, and based on the lap before, I had no inkling that Chris would shut the door in such a decisive manner - but Chris had already suffered more than his fair share of car damage so the last thing he needed was contact. Unbelievably, we found ourselves in the almost identical situation the following race only this time I think we both a little more aware and we pulled it off. I have say that although I would have liked better results and would prefer not to have any contact ever, it was some of the most wicked wheel to wheel racing I have ever had! The video from both races is awesome!

I also learned that our directors might need to study up on the CCRs when it comes to IRBs and reviewing incidents - but I will cover that in a separate post. Suffice to say we will be handling things a little differently if we are ever involved in contact again.

We learned that when we think there might be a problem with the car, we probably should action that sooner rather than later - this happened to us twice this weekend - the first was the loose shifter that I had told myself I needed to adjust since the last time I drove it but got busy on other tasks and never got it - it cost me bigtime in race 1! The second was that ever since we put the exhaust under the car last year we have figured it was too close to the fuel line and would cause the fuel to boil with our recirculative fuel system - it nearly ruined our weekend as Mason had to limp around the last 3/4 of the last lap of R3 with a spluttering car! He would have been gutted if it died on the that last lap! Time to re-route the fuel lines!

Oh and Matt, you think we were fast this weekend, wait till we actually take the time to set up the aero the aero and suspension - and learn to use it to the full extent - remember this was the first weekend either of us had raced with full aero and the first weekend either of us had raced at TWS (I missed this one when racing Adam's car).

[y5e06]

LOWS, Lows, and more lows.

Wednesday & Thursday, trusted & loyal dog of 8 years becomes suddenly Ill. Throwing up bile, not eating, drooling, barely moving etc.

Friday am- afternoon. $1K vet bills from multiple tests and I had to put the poor guy to sleep.

Friday eve. contemplated on weekend

Saturday leave to TWS 4 am. 6am fuel stop. notice unusual 'spray' coming from truck at start up. 6:20am notice heavy coolant smell at track gate. then noticed lots of leaking while unloading truck

saturday early afternoon. events on track. decide to bail off course as opposed to risking tank slapper w/ safety crew near by. Unknown damage to car. Car sat (for the most part...) out off T7 the whole day, couldn't retreive it due to where the valet decided to park it during R1. I'm sure something is broken, I don't feel like looking at it right now.
unclear stories about treatment of said car while driver was NOT present (details still TBD).

Saturday late afternoon. R&R rad in old truck. thank God Oreilly's had a rad.

Saturday eve. Unload truck at home, notice unusual spots on rear of 'burb doors & on hitch. realize heavy oil leak coating underside. doesn't look like tranny or rear. Dang, does it ever end? at least I 'm home.

Unload, take a shower, & went to bed.

Monday. One of those days at work. Hope to go home soon and drink a beer... or 6

[AllZWay]

First off....I really hate to see all the damage that ocurred this weekend, but again the cars are repairable and thankfully no one was injured.

As for my weekend...it was truly a mixed bag.
R1...I botched the start and got killed. I did have a good 4 car battle with Al,Michael,& Morgan. (video coming soon). Morgan made a necessary decision despite the consquences to his car.

R2...I started outside poll and for a change got a good start and tucked in behind the AI guys until they motored away. Luckily the guys behind were busy racing each other and I was able to get a little breathing room. That is until the sharks got aligned and chased me down, being led by the Great Blue shark with White number 19 on it.
Once JeffW caught me, the pressure of trying to win my first race and keep him behind me began to mount and I made some mistakes. Luckily not many laps were left and ole CMC28 got a little wider and I barely won my first race. WHEW :P

R3...It was pretty much a repeat of R1,but maybe worse with yet another botched start. Tranny started getting harder to shift and reverse is out again.

I will be pulling it prior to Hallett to get it fixed, perhaps it might be a clutch issue also.

I did get to see a good battle with Steve and Mitch.

So despite a win....I had a disappointing weekend overall.

[cobra132]

I had a blast this weekend. Droped the trailer off on Thursday night. On friday made some suspension adjustments and did 4 30 sessions breaking in 2 sets of R888's for the enduro, etc. Did a 1:56 on new R888's, thats my fastest lap at TWS so far.
Sprint races went well but I am now stuck in limbo between the AI front runners and CMC. I'll get there eventually.
The enduro started out good. Qualified 5th and got a good start. Had a blast trading places with MM. On lap 13 the left front hub gave out and I limped into the pit. I was ready to throw in the towel but then came to my senses and we changed the hub and brake pads. Not easy as they were red hot. Thanks to all for helping with tools etc. We were not prepared for something like that. That stop took 30.5 minutes. My crew did a good job. They were a bunch of guys I work with in the OR. The other 3 stops were all less than 3 min with driver changes. As always Jorge drove great. We ended up 18 laps down. If the hub didn't sideline us, we would have been right in there.
The Toyo R888's performed great. They were not shaved. I put 30 min on them on friday and then ran the enduro for just under 3.5 hours. The back tires are worn evenly and have 3/32 of tread. They were 6/32 to start. The fronts have most of the tread worn off the inside half but no chord showing.
I look forward to Hallet. FMR

[AI#97]

The Toyo R888's performed great. They were not shaved. I put 30 min on them on friday and then ran the enduro for just under 3.5 hours. The back tires are worn evenly and have 3/32 of tread. They were 6/32 to start. The fronts have most of the tread worn off the inside half but no chord showing.

HORRY CHIT!!! That is outstanding news!!!

[NASA13]

We had a nice adventure.
Truck broke down outside Caldwell. Lisa, Damian, Canon(2 year old), Charlie(trusty dog) and me.
Intermittent injector failure.
Stuck with 28 ft trailer in the hay field that I pulled over in.
Buried truck and trailer, 4 low and lots of rocking , buried truck much worse. Plowed most of the field and never got out, even after unloading race car and other heavy stuff.
Pulled out by 4 wheel drive tractor after about 3 hours.
Went home with piece of crap truck, limping with tail between legs.
I hate 6.0 PSD's
Good Times!

[Rob Liebbe]

The weekend started out a couple of weeks ago with car prep. This turned out to be a new concept for me and an eye opener. There were a LOT of things on the car that needed attention including steering shaft, rear lower control arm bushings, hubs, rotors, a few loose bolts, serpentine belt routing, tire management, etc. Everytime Todd would look at a different piece of the car he would just kinda stare in disbelief at the lack of maintenance or how "underdeveloped" the car seemed to be. My take is that the car IS developed, but just with the lowest denominator parts - meaning a lot of stock stuff. Oh and Todd complained about the grimy condition of the underside of the car.

Friday Practice - I took the car out for a short session to check out all the parts we replaced. Car felt good on the new "Covini Tune". Todd got a good bit of run time to knock the rust off his driving skills. He had not driven a CMC car since he wrecked his at TWS over a year ago (GET THE CONVERTIBLE TO THE BODY SHOP!!!!!!!). I even got to run against Patterson in Glenn's car for a while.

Saturday - I was driving all of the sprint races for the weekend. Car ran great!!!! TWS, my car, and myself all seem to be at one with each other as I had a strong running all day long. I qualified third for R1 and got a 2nd place!!!! For Race 2, I got the case of no-shift-ums on the start and a parade of cars went by me before the start/finish line. Dammit!!!! I ran consistent 2:00's while chasing Burch but could not catch the incredible 4 car battle up front. They sure were fun to watch though - congratulations James!!!!

Saturday night - while working on the car late in the evening and discussing the shortfalls of my car being "underdeveloped", Marshall Mosty spits out the quote of the week. "God help us if Liebbe ever actually tries!" Thanks Marshall, I'll take that as a compliment.

Sunday - Qualified 2nd for R3 and got another good start by going around pole sitter Wirtz with Burch and Landrum close behind. It ended up with me running my a@@ off trying to keep Wirtz behind me and wishing for a white flag on every lap. Wirtz finally capitalized on a mistake I made in turn seven and we entered turn eight door to door but he had me. Dammit!!! I followed him to a second place finish. GREAT RACE WIRTZ!!!!

I don't think that I have ever put the car on the podium two times in one weekend even though I really do try.

Enduro - The car prep for the enduro paid off as the car performed very well for the entire event. Our major fault was lack of team prep. It may be hard to imagine, but Todd is a procrastinator and I'm not too far behind him. So a lot of team planning was not done. We were the opposite of Glenn's effort. I will be taking all of Glenn's suggestion to heart. There was an on-track incident on lap 4 where the Spec Ford spun out in front of Todd who evaded by practically parking the car off track and preventing a very serious crash - T-bone a Mustang into a Spec Ford would not turn out well. Good job Todd, you did the right thing. I also spilled fuel during the first pit stop and had to come in for a two minute penatly which really ended up costing about five minutes overall. Todd continued on, running out the first two hours. I took over and tried to run as hard as possible, but had to slow down a bit to conserve fuel. Overall, the enduro was great!!!! Thanks to Clifton and the NASA crew for doing it!!! I would also like to thank the Jordans, Roy Kaylor from my office, and Al Fernandez for helping crew our enduro effort.

For me it was a great weekend, I hope that the bad experiences of others can be overcome and that we will see each other sooner rather than later.