Mission Accomplished!!

This is another quick post to give an update on my first F1600 Series pro race weekend.  I'm happy to say that the car was pretty good right off the bat and I accomplished a number of my goals for the weekend.  1) I brought the car home in one piece, 2) I got down to a 1:16.xx lap time, and 3) I finished in the top 10 in one of the races.  I didn't go faster every session but I wasn't too far off from doing that.

All things considered, the weekend went very well.  I turned a 1:17.2 in the first session which was the fastest that I had ever been around SP.  I turned a 1:16.8 in the only qualifying session on Friday so that made me happy.  However, that time only grided me in 12th position (out of 18) for Saturday's race.  5 cars were underneath the 1:15.5 track record and 3 of them were in the 13s!!  The competition in this series is unbelievable!!  In Saturday's race I got pushed wide at T1 on the first lap by another driver and he got by me as well as another car.  However, the car that pushed me wide went off in T5 a few laps later and the other car that got by me spun in front of me at the same time so I got both of them back.  Unfortunately we were totally broken off the rest of the field by that point and I ran by myself the rest of the race.  The car didn't seem to have the grip that it had on Friday and the only dissappointing part of the weekend was that I wasn't able to get down to the 16s again.  The fast times from Saturday's race gridded us for Sunday's race and I was grided 14th for Sunday's race.

Sunday's race was much more interesting.  It was raining on and off all day.  Our race was at 11 am and at 10:30 am it was bone dry.  We had slicks on the car and they wanted up to the grid early so Terry (my wife and crew) strapped me in -- and then it started pouring.  I sat in the car for about 30 seconds and then decided that we needed to change to wets so I got out and started changing.  I almost had the left rear off when it stopped raining!  So we looked at the weather map on Terry's phone and it was showing that there was no rain over us.  So I left the slicks on, got back in the car, Terry strapped me in -- and you probably guessed it, it started raining again!!  But now it was about 10 till 11 and since it was just Terry and I we didn't have time to change to wets so off to the grid I went.  I got up there and all but 3 cars (including myself) were on wets.  A friend and long time racer, Tim, came over and asked Terry if we had rain tires.  She said yes but didn't have time to change.  I motioned to Tim to lean down and talk to me and I asked him if I was making a big mistake.  He said yes and that we should go change to wets.  So back to the trailer I went.  I got out of the car to help and Tim told me to get back in the car so Terry strapped me in for the 3rd time while he was changing the tires.  One of the guys from Hoosier came over as well as a couple of motorcycle competitors so it was really pretty amazing how quickly the tires got changed.  I got back to the grid when the cars were going on track so I started dead last (17th).  But at least I was on track with the right tires on the car!!  I was back up to 14th or so before the start finish line and I just decided to keep the car on course and finish.  I didn't turn any real fast times but I did make a couple of good passes on other cars.  However, a lot of people went off track and brought the car home in 9th.  I'm happy with a top 10 finish in that group -- I don't car what the conditions are!!  Here is a pic of the start of Sunday's race as we were approaching turn 1.  I'm deep in the spray and couldn't see hardly anything!

The one thing that I still need to work on is my shifting.  I was trying to go from 4th to 1st in the braking zones and I think I will be better off to go through the gears.  Once I'm shifting without thinking about it I think it will all become much easier and I will get faster as a result.  The weekend was obviously a lot better than the regional and the F1600 series is fantastic.  So all the hard work paid off and it is nice to not have to be working on the car in the evenings and long hours on the weekends. :) 

Off To The Races!!

This is just a quick post and I have to apologize for not updating my blog recently but I have been a little busy getting the car ready -- which it is!! 

I even managed to finish my scoop (at least in a workable condition) so I will be posting on that later.

The F1600, F2000, and Formula Atlantic races will be at Summit Point this weekend and practice and qualifying are tomorrow.  I will be loading up the trailer this afternoon.  I feel good and I at least met the challenge of getting the car ready!  The schedule and links to results and even live audio can be found at www.f1600series.com.  Wish me luck!  I hope my luck is WAY better then the last race weekend! :)

Making Progress

I haven't had much time to post blogs because I have been working on the car in the evenings after work and of course on the weekends but I am making progress and I'm confident that I can make the F1600 Pro Races at Summit Point this month.  K-Hill Motorsports really helped me out as far as getting the frame fixed.  I dropped it off with them two Sunday's ago and they got it sand blasted and had a welder replace the bent bars.  I got the car back the next Saturday!  Luckily the frame was not twisted so it was a little less work to fix it.  Here it is after I got it back.

Good as new!!

In order to save some time and some money, I painted the chassis with some chassis paint that is brushed on.  I can't say that the paint job is a good one but most of the frame is covered by the bodywork anyway.

You can also see the side panel to the left of the frame.  While the frame was getting repaired, I was working on that.  That repair was pretty straight forward.  Just fiberglassed and put some kevlar on the backside and filled in the cracks with short strand fiberglass putty and bondo on the front. 

A fellow racer genorously offered to sell me some used sidepods (tops and bottoms) at a good price so I purchased those.  The tops were just like mine but the bottoms were actually a different shape at the back. I didn't expect this so this meant more work. You can see that my sidepod (on the left in the pic below) is straight in the back and the one I bought is angled.

So I had several choices.  I could 1) either repair the crashed one, 2) modify my tail section to fit the side pod I bought, or 3) replace the crashed front part of my side pod with the front part of the sidepod that I bought.  I decided to go with option 3. 

I took some measurements and made a template out of cardboard in order to trace the same cutting pattern on both sidepods.  It would have been easier to cut in straight lines but I decided to cut a jagged edge because I figured it would be stronger and the two pieces would fit together like puzzle pieces.

Here are the two pieces being fitted together.  I made sure that I fitted them with the sidepod mounted on the bellypan of the car.

Unfortunately I didn't do a very good job of determining the point to cut on side of the sidepod. 

No worries though, I filled it in with spray insulation foam that I bought at Home Depot.  The pic below shows the foam as well as the two pieces joined together. 

I mounted a piece of aluminum to the bottom and used a construction adhesive between the aluminum and the sidepod as well as between the edges.  I used 1/2 inch countersunk wood screws to attach the aluminum to the sidepod.

I ground down the points of the screws on the topside and put a piece of fiberglass on top.  Once I had the two pieces joined, it was just a matter of fiberglassing the remaining cracks and applying some bondo on top.  Here is the finished frankenpod with the smashed up bit next to it.

And here are the pieces mounted to the chassis.  They just need paint now!!

And here is a pic of the chassis after today's work.

So, decent progress but it is full steam ahead until it is done!  I would actually like to have my scoop done before the pro races as well but I'm not as confident about that -- it certainly isn't as important either.