For the backstory, look at previous blog entries.
Our attempt to go Chumpcar racing has been 2 years in the
making, only because of the lack of interest in people joining the team. Troy
and I have been the only ones involved, despite lots of people saying they want
to do it. My friend Hank, who runs a race car shop, and is a founding member of
the"squirrels of fury" racing team, was asking for drivers. I told him I could
provide 2 drivers, but we had to use my car. After a little discussion with the
rest of the team, they decided that would work. That left Troy and I only 2
weeks to finish all the work on the car. We had driven it at an autocross, but
never worked on it after that. We also had to order a bunch of parts, tires,
lights, etc., but one big event had to happen first. Hank said the first thing
to do was to put the car on the chassis dyno and run it wide open for 1/2 an
hour. That was my first clue that they might not have much confidence in my
car. Since they race water cooled VW’s, I foolishly thought they would have
some experience with air cooled cars, turns out that was not the case. When the
car put out 86 H.P., and 120 ft. lbs. of torque, they were just shocked. I
would have thought by now that every Gearhead knew the potential of an old VW.
I realized then that despite every Camaro and Mustang driver having his doors
blown off by a bug at some point, they never repeat those stories to their
buddies, so the myth continues. With the Ghia only weighing 1700 lbs., the
power to weight was pretty good.
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| Unloading the car |
We got to the track on Friday for tech. Hank wasn’t there to
hold my hand, so we got in line anyway. The whole idea of tech just makes me
incredibly nervous because it’s always so arbitrary. Sure enough, the tech guy says
he doesn’t like my fuel cell. I tell him I bought that specific cell because
there is a page in the rule book that says “these and only these are the fuel
cells we will accept.” He says “It doesn’t have an SFI sticker.” Same thing
they said about my Nomex underwear. But it does say 100% Nomex, and it’s from a
name brand manufacturer. My stomach is in knots, and I just want to start
screaming at the guy, but I’m cool, I say nothing. The tech guy says “this
engine looks awfully clean?” I tell him you can’t buy a 50 year old used bug
engine anymore. They don’t like the bumper/nerf bars thing I built for the
front. I explain that without it, a 3 mph impact will push the nose all the way
into the fuel cell. Does it seem likely the lightest car in the field is going
to push other cars?
We finally get through tech, and I kid you not, they wrote
in the logbook that my car is “Vintage Scrap”.
So that’s done, and now we are officially in the race for
Saturday.
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| Sunrise over the Mothership |
We arrive early Saturday morning and do some last minute
stuff, it’s freezing ass cold and it looks like it could rain any minute. Troy
insisted we get windshield wipers installed and working, and right now that
seems like a genius idea. There is a Squirrel drivers meeting, and then an
overall Chumpcar drivers meeting, and it’s time to get in the car.
I’ve never worn a HANS device before so there is some
struggle with getting that on, and once in the car it’s freaking me out that I
can’t seem to move my head or even find a place for my head to be. I am 6’ 4”,
and 250 lbs, so a Ghia has about as much room as coffin for me. I try not to
think about that mental image.
I am sitting in line waiting to go out, and I’m so nervous I
just want to get out and run away. We finally get going, full course yellow,
and everything is good. The only way to know when the race is on is when there
are no yellows, so I’m watching the flags. I warm up the tires a little, and
the brakes, and we’re off.
Within 3-4 laps, I am completely comfortable. I struggle a
little to see hard left, but the double Volvo mirrors work great. Out of
nowhere, the Formula Roadster shoots by me. Scares the crap out of me, I
realize I need to watch the mirrors better. The car is excellent in the
corners, the brakes are amazing, and I’m really not giving up much on the
straights. There are 4 or 5 cars so much faster that I just point them by when
I see them coming, and a handful that I am passing like the fast ones do me. But
the fun part is the cars that are barely slower than me. I catch up to them,
watch them like a predator with prey, and then I find a good place to get by. I
made several classic out braking, stealing the inside line passes. Awesome.
The
highlight of my drive is when my buddies’ car, a 240z, comes out of the pits
and onto the straight right next to me. He is faster down the straight, as you
would expect, but not by a lot. We go through turn 1 side by side at about
90-100, we are approaching turn 2, which is about 40-50 mph. I watch his brake
lights, and I do not lift off the throttle until after I see them. I shoot past,
go into turn 2, and do my best to make sure he has no good chance to pass me
back. He is not amused, and is right on my ass all the way around the back half
of the track. Once we get back the main straight, I wave him by and slow down a
hair. Awesome.
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| Karmann on Track |
I learn a lesson a little later, fortunately without
disaster. Going down the straight, I see some friends of mine coming up. I wave
them by, but the guy doesn’t go by. I wave again. I keep looking in the mirror,
and then I look forward to see that I am way past the braking point for turn 2.
I nail the brake pedal and the car is sliding all over. Somehow, I stay on the
pavement and I don’t seem to have flat spotted the tires or anything. We have a
clock on the dash, so I’m checking that to know when my 2 hour stint is up. The
problem is, having never driven the car before, we have no idea when it will
run out of gas. I had what I thought was a great idea when I installed the fuel
cell. It ended up being tipped a little towards the rear, but instead of
putting the pickup at the rear, I put it in the front, the high end. My
thinking was that it would run out when you are on the throttle, and when you
let off, the fuel would slosh forward and the pump would pick it up. It worked
perfectly. There was a little bobble as I came onto the back straight when I
still had 10 minutes left in my stint. I put it in fourth and cruise all the way
to the pits.
I jump out, the guys put 10-1/2 gallons of gas in the car,
and the next driver (Kyle) goes out. My girlfriend has downloaded a live timing
app for her phone, and tells me Kyle is faster than me. That’s OK, I came in 3
spots up from where I started, kept the car on the track, and didn’t wear it
out. His stint goes by without incident, and he comes in right at about 1:40.
Kyle says he loves my little car, and tells me that he can outbrake almost
everybody.
Dave goes out, and he is even faster than Kyle! People are
coming over and saying how they can’t believe how fast the Ghia is. I am so
smug. That will show all the non-believers!
Dave comes in at the end of his stint, and we send Troy out.
The engine is jerking up and down and I can tell immediately it’s the front
transmission mount. He makes 1 lap, and
comes back in complaining that the throttle sticks. We jack up the car and I
see that that I never installed an aftermarket trans strap. What the hell? I am
an idiot.
I announce that we are done because the throttle control will be too
compromised to be able to drive the car. Hank says “we’ll just strap it down.”
Why do I get the feeling he’s done this before? He grabs a cargo strap,
ratchets it around the tranny, and declares the car good to go. While he is
working on that, I am trying to get the throttle cable back onto the pedal.
Somehow, it’s all bent to hell and unhooked, which is why Troy came in at an
idle. Troy gets in again and takes off, we have to push him because the car
shakes so bad when he lets out the clutch. Troy is putting in really slow lap
times, but he stays out the whole 1:40, we have no communications, so we’re all
wondering what’s going on. When he comes in, he announces the car is running on
3 cylinders. It’s my turn to drive again, so those guys fiddle with the car
while I get belted in. They tell me I’m good to go, so I take off. The car is
still running on 3, the shifter is moving around in my hand. The other cars are
going by so fast, I am just a hazard. This is not any fun at all. I go right
back to the pits. I tell Troy I have no interest in driving the car anymore,
does anyone else want to drive? He says he will drive again since he is the only one suited up. I start helping to
diagnose the problem and we finally notice the linkage has fallen off the right
Kadron! It wasn’t running on 3, it was running on 2!
Now Troy is running some decent lap times. This might just
work out after all! He puts in a full stint, and comes in for gas. We put Jay
in the car, jack it up and tighten the cargo strap. We decide that will be
standard procedure now. Somewhere around this time we swap the rear tires side
to side since the right one is pretty worn. His stint goes without any
problems, and things are looking good. Other teams are having fatal problems,
and each one gives us a better chance of a decent finish. Kyle gets back in and
takes off. We still have to push the car from a dead stop, and we have an
arrangement with the guy who checks the timer as you get back on track, he lets
the car through without stopping and one of us takes him the timer.
Kyle is only out an hour when he comes back in. The car is
making a horrible racket, and smoking oil pretty bad. A big chunk of the
exhaust is missing, but worse than that, a pushrod has broken and punched right
through the pushrod tube. That’s where the oil was coming from. We are truly
done for this time. That’s OK, it’s almost dark, we had a good run. Hank looks
at me and says ”you brought a spare engine”, and then just walks away. Son of a
bitch! Alright, I’ll change engines. Troy and I get to work, we have it done in
10 or 15 minutes, but it won’t start. We start changing wires around, then put
in the distributor from the old motor, finally I think to check for fuel. It
has fuel coming to the carb, it’s just a stuck float valve. We smack it a
couple times, and it’s good to go. Kyle goes out for another hour or so.
Troy is going to take my turn as the last driver for me
because I’m just too tired. The problem is, there is a full 2 hours left in the
race, and we know the car can only go 1:40 or so. We wait and watch the cars go
around. About 20 til midnight I realize the engine we put in the car gets
really good gas mileage, so maybe he can go the distance! The poor little Ghia
is so slow now I see it get passed 2 or 3 times every time they come around.
But every few laps means we finish ahead of some team who isn’t out making
laps. Finally they throw the checkered and we are done.
16th out of
24. Not much to brag about, but we finished. The car ran way better than
anybody expected, and that was fun. I learned a lot about road racing, and
endurance racing in particular.
I learned that “Idiot Proofing” is even harder than I
thought, because everybody becomes an idiot when the race is on. We should have
diagnosed our problems in a fraction of the time it took. I learned that the
car is neither fast or reliable, but it’s really fun to drive. I confirmed I am
more of a race engineer than driver, and that I only like driving in the twisty
parts, both things I already knew. The one thing I wanted to determine was
whether I wanted to take up road racing, and the sad thing is, I’m still not
sure.
