http://www.teamfisherhouse.org/site/TR/Event/General?px=1004842&pg=personal&fr_id=1070
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Team Fisher House Racing
Ok, so that last blog wasn't very positive so this one is more positive! We are officially Team Fisher House Racing and I think the car looks great with the Fisher House logos. The announcer at VIR also really talked up Fisher House so it was great to see the car get some positive attention.
We also have a donation page now so I ask everyone who reads this blog to please make a small donation to Fisher House. If I can achieve my goal of raising $5,000 this year then I think that it will really show that racers are great people that can really make a difference where it matters. And remember, 96% of the funds donated to Fisher House go to their programs -- it doesn't get any better than that! Thanks for your support!!
http://www.teamfisherhouse.org/site/TR/Event/General?px=1004842&pg=personal&fr_id=1070
http://www.teamfisherhouse.org/site/TR/Event/General?px=1004842&pg=personal&fr_id=1070
VIR April 2013 -- Lessons Learned
Well, I really want to stay positive in this blog but VIR just wasn't a very positive experience. I actually wasn't going to post anything about it but then I realized that other racers thinking about racing these cars at a professional level (or even at a club racing level) can learn from my trials and tribulations -- and unfortunately my mistakes.
First, I was behind the eightball a little bit in getting the car ready for VIR and in order to make it I ended up working on the car every night after work and at least 10 hours each day of the weekend for about three weeks. Needless to say I was pretty much exhausted before I even got to VIR which was probably not a good thing.
Two weekends before VIR I felt some play in the left rear and it seemed like it was a bad bearing. A very knowledgable buddy of mine felt it and he thought so too so we decided it was best to build up a new upright (the upright is basically the "corner" of the car that the wheel and the suspension pieces mount to) with a new bearing. I had everything I needed but you don't just slap an upright together in an hour so it took a little bit of time to transfer some items from the upright on the car to the new upright going on the car. After the new upright was assembled and installed I should have felt for play again but it was now the weekend before VIR and I still had lots of things to do and I didn't think about feeling for play again. My wife, Terry, and I arrive at VIR Wednesday evening and it is time to get some test sessions in on Thursday.
The car feels terrible. It is pushing like a pig and we end up making some changes and although the car felt a little bit better it is still not up to snuff. After the 3rd out of 4 sessions, I was changing tires and when I felt the left rear I again felt play in it -- too much play for me to go out in the 4th session. So I end up taking things apart and I see grease coming from the new bearing. Not knowing enough about symptoms related to bad bearings on these cars it seems to me that this bearing is bad and again others verified that this was plausible. Unfortunately I didn't have an upright fully assembled to stick on the car but I did have a spare upright with a bearing in it. So with a lot of help I went about rebuilding that upright so that I could stick it on the car. It took a while but that evening I got it on the car and went to put the caliper on and it wouldn't fit with that upright. You see, not all uprights for these cars are the same and if the ears on the upright are a little too thick then the caliper wont be centered on the brake rotor. So now the frustration is really starting to set in and what was supposed to be a fun weekend is not so fun anymore. It is also getting late on Thursday and I know Terry isn't having fun either so I figured it was best to leave the track and go get some dinner and some sleep.
Friday morning we get back to the track early (6:30 am) and I remember my mistake of not feeling the wheel for play after changing the bearing at my house so I go ahead and feel the wheel for play. Guess what -- there is still play!! ARGGGHHH!! However, this time I see what it is. It is a bad rod end that is about 2 feet from the wheel itself. I have a spare so that is very easy to change but now I have gone down a path that has cost me lots of time and I'm not out of the woods yet because the rear caliper still isn't fitting. I do have an idea though. I check out the left front upright and it looks like it will work with the rear caliper so I come up with the idea of swapping the left front with left rear. That will still take some time and there are only two test sessions on Friday. One at 11 am and one at 5pm. I know I will miss the 11 am session but I should be able to make the 5 pm session so I get to work. I get the two uprights swapped and guess what -- the caliper still doesn't fit. Double ARGGGGHHH!!! At this point I'm ready to pack it up and go home -- and so is Terry. The only option that I know of at this point is to somehow get the ears of the upright milled so that the caliper will sit centered on the rotor -- not very feasible at the track. I walk away from the car for a little bit and come up with another idea -- get the caliper ears milled. This is much easier and there are race shops around VIR that just might be able to do it. I end up going to TMI who are located on the track property and they make the Ariel Atom track car. They have the caliper milled in less than an hour and I get everything together and make the 5 pm session. Unfortunately I had spent so much time on these problems that I didn't spend any worthwhile time with data or trying to figure out what to change on the car to make it handle better. I was hoping that getting rid of the play in the left rear would greatly help the handling but no such luck -- the car still pushed like a pig.
We put new tires on for the Saturday morning qualifying session and although the problem was a little better it still wasn't where it needed to be so I never did get a good time. I didn't qualify last but I was in the back for the afternoon race. More changes were made for the race but there was unfortunately a pretty big wreck which I narrowly avoided (but at least I avoided it!) which caused a long full course caution period along with a short red flag period. As a result we only got a few green flag laps. I could tell that the car was still pushing and getting worse. Plus my fuel pressure light started coming on pretty consistently and I knew I had plenty of fuel so that was something else I needed to address.
The qualifying session on Sunday wasn't until 1pm so I changed the fuel pump in the morning and we made a lot of setup changes for qualifying. The car was finally feeling better in qualifying but on my 4th lap my left front tire suddenly blew. I managed to keep it on course and I wasn't too far from pit lane so I got it in there using the three good tires. It turns out that a nut had come off somehow (they are supposed to be locking nuts) and the left front lower a-arm dropped onto the wheel and milled it down until it got to the tire bead which blew out the tire. I'm sure I could have fixed it before the 4 pm race but I was frankly really ready to go home at that point -- which is what Terry and I did.
So, even though the car didn't get balled up in a crash it was still a bruttally difficult weekend and certainly not much fun. To be honest, most of the problems were my own damn fault. But it isn't helpful to dwell on such things. It is helpful to learn from the experience and that is what I am doing. The main thing that I have learned is that these cars are much more labor intensive than the FVs that I raced for 14 years and therefore it is really a necessity to have a mechanic/engineer with you to help out when there are mechanical problems and to decide what setup changes to make -- at least in the F1600 Championship Series.
The big teams that we are competing against are absolutely top notch with really quick kids (17-20 years old) that are looking to be professional race car drivers. I'll give you an example of just how good these teams are. One of the kids hit a deer in the Sunday 1 pm qualifying session (yes, a deer -- it happens more than you might think and the gruesome pic is below) and it tore up the right rear corner of the car. The race was at 4 pm and the team had that corner rebuilt and the car entered in the race -- fixing something like that by myself would have taken me a good part of a day. The kid started dead last and finished 2nd. Wow, just WOW! Oh, and btw, the track record was broken by one of the youngsters over the weekend as well.
So I have definitely dived into in the deep end of the pool by entering the F1600 Championship Series but I don't have any regrets even with all my problems. I'm not looking to win a race but I am looking to improve and learning lessons from VIR will only help me to improve. I think if I can just have a weekend where all I need to do is focus on driving the car then that should help a lot. Therefore, I am hiring someone to help me for Road Atlanta which is May 9th to 11th. Unfortunately spending money on a mechanic/engineer was not part of the budget for this year and it may mean that I do only three out of the six F1600 races but I know it is the right thing to do. Road Atlanta is right around the corner -- please send good vibes my way!! :)
First, I was behind the eightball a little bit in getting the car ready for VIR and in order to make it I ended up working on the car every night after work and at least 10 hours each day of the weekend for about three weeks. Needless to say I was pretty much exhausted before I even got to VIR which was probably not a good thing.
Two weekends before VIR I felt some play in the left rear and it seemed like it was a bad bearing. A very knowledgable buddy of mine felt it and he thought so too so we decided it was best to build up a new upright (the upright is basically the "corner" of the car that the wheel and the suspension pieces mount to) with a new bearing. I had everything I needed but you don't just slap an upright together in an hour so it took a little bit of time to transfer some items from the upright on the car to the new upright going on the car. After the new upright was assembled and installed I should have felt for play again but it was now the weekend before VIR and I still had lots of things to do and I didn't think about feeling for play again. My wife, Terry, and I arrive at VIR Wednesday evening and it is time to get some test sessions in on Thursday.
The car feels terrible. It is pushing like a pig and we end up making some changes and although the car felt a little bit better it is still not up to snuff. After the 3rd out of 4 sessions, I was changing tires and when I felt the left rear I again felt play in it -- too much play for me to go out in the 4th session. So I end up taking things apart and I see grease coming from the new bearing. Not knowing enough about symptoms related to bad bearings on these cars it seems to me that this bearing is bad and again others verified that this was plausible. Unfortunately I didn't have an upright fully assembled to stick on the car but I did have a spare upright with a bearing in it. So with a lot of help I went about rebuilding that upright so that I could stick it on the car. It took a while but that evening I got it on the car and went to put the caliper on and it wouldn't fit with that upright. You see, not all uprights for these cars are the same and if the ears on the upright are a little too thick then the caliper wont be centered on the brake rotor. So now the frustration is really starting to set in and what was supposed to be a fun weekend is not so fun anymore. It is also getting late on Thursday and I know Terry isn't having fun either so I figured it was best to leave the track and go get some dinner and some sleep.
Friday morning we get back to the track early (6:30 am) and I remember my mistake of not feeling the wheel for play after changing the bearing at my house so I go ahead and feel the wheel for play. Guess what -- there is still play!! ARGGGHHH!! However, this time I see what it is. It is a bad rod end that is about 2 feet from the wheel itself. I have a spare so that is very easy to change but now I have gone down a path that has cost me lots of time and I'm not out of the woods yet because the rear caliper still isn't fitting. I do have an idea though. I check out the left front upright and it looks like it will work with the rear caliper so I come up with the idea of swapping the left front with left rear. That will still take some time and there are only two test sessions on Friday. One at 11 am and one at 5pm. I know I will miss the 11 am session but I should be able to make the 5 pm session so I get to work. I get the two uprights swapped and guess what -- the caliper still doesn't fit. Double ARGGGGHHH!!! At this point I'm ready to pack it up and go home -- and so is Terry. The only option that I know of at this point is to somehow get the ears of the upright milled so that the caliper will sit centered on the rotor -- not very feasible at the track. I walk away from the car for a little bit and come up with another idea -- get the caliper ears milled. This is much easier and there are race shops around VIR that just might be able to do it. I end up going to TMI who are located on the track property and they make the Ariel Atom track car. They have the caliper milled in less than an hour and I get everything together and make the 5 pm session. Unfortunately I had spent so much time on these problems that I didn't spend any worthwhile time with data or trying to figure out what to change on the car to make it handle better. I was hoping that getting rid of the play in the left rear would greatly help the handling but no such luck -- the car still pushed like a pig.
We put new tires on for the Saturday morning qualifying session and although the problem was a little better it still wasn't where it needed to be so I never did get a good time. I didn't qualify last but I was in the back for the afternoon race. More changes were made for the race but there was unfortunately a pretty big wreck which I narrowly avoided (but at least I avoided it!) which caused a long full course caution period along with a short red flag period. As a result we only got a few green flag laps. I could tell that the car was still pushing and getting worse. Plus my fuel pressure light started coming on pretty consistently and I knew I had plenty of fuel so that was something else I needed to address.
The qualifying session on Sunday wasn't until 1pm so I changed the fuel pump in the morning and we made a lot of setup changes for qualifying. The car was finally feeling better in qualifying but on my 4th lap my left front tire suddenly blew. I managed to keep it on course and I wasn't too far from pit lane so I got it in there using the three good tires. It turns out that a nut had come off somehow (they are supposed to be locking nuts) and the left front lower a-arm dropped onto the wheel and milled it down until it got to the tire bead which blew out the tire. I'm sure I could have fixed it before the 4 pm race but I was frankly really ready to go home at that point -- which is what Terry and I did.
So, even though the car didn't get balled up in a crash it was still a bruttally difficult weekend and certainly not much fun. To be honest, most of the problems were my own damn fault. But it isn't helpful to dwell on such things. It is helpful to learn from the experience and that is what I am doing. The main thing that I have learned is that these cars are much more labor intensive than the FVs that I raced for 14 years and therefore it is really a necessity to have a mechanic/engineer with you to help out when there are mechanical problems and to decide what setup changes to make -- at least in the F1600 Championship Series.
The big teams that we are competing against are absolutely top notch with really quick kids (17-20 years old) that are looking to be professional race car drivers. I'll give you an example of just how good these teams are. One of the kids hit a deer in the Sunday 1 pm qualifying session (yes, a deer -- it happens more than you might think and the gruesome pic is below) and it tore up the right rear corner of the car. The race was at 4 pm and the team had that corner rebuilt and the car entered in the race -- fixing something like that by myself would have taken me a good part of a day. The kid started dead last and finished 2nd. Wow, just WOW! Oh, and btw, the track record was broken by one of the youngsters over the weekend as well.
So I have definitely dived into in the deep end of the pool by entering the F1600 Championship Series but I don't have any regrets even with all my problems. I'm not looking to win a race but I am looking to improve and learning lessons from VIR will only help me to improve. I think if I can just have a weekend where all I need to do is focus on driving the car then that should help a lot. Therefore, I am hiring someone to help me for Road Atlanta which is May 9th to 11th. Unfortunately spending money on a mechanic/engineer was not part of the budget for this year and it may mean that I do only three out of the six F1600 races but I know it is the right thing to do. Road Atlanta is right around the corner -- please send good vibes my way!! :)
Friday, April 5, 2013
Fisher House Press Release
Here is the press release announcing the partnership between us and Fisher House. Hopefully we can raise a lot of money and awareness for them!!
http://www.f1600series.com/news/633-phillips-fisher-house-foundation-set-for-partial-season.html
http://www.f1600series.com/news/633-phillips-fisher-house-foundation-set-for-partial-season.html
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
The 2013 Season
I haven't posted in a while because I have been heads down getting the car ready for the 2013 season. I will again be competing in the F1600 Championship Series (www.f1600series.com) and the series kicks off at Virginia International Raceway (VIR) next weekend (April 11th - 14th). My wife, Terry, and I will be there and we are really looking forward to it! The series announced that there will be a Master's Class which means that old guys like me (over the age of 40) can compete for points separate from the overall points distributed throughout the field. Right now there are 28 entries for VIR and half of those are Masters entries. Here is a link to the entry list: http://www.f1600series.com/drivers.html Believe me, most of the Masters drivers are renowned competitors and it definitely won't be easy to get on the Masters podium. And frankly, my only focus is to do the best I can and continue to improve and learn about the engineering aspects of this car. I also really hope that I have worn out the bad luck that I had last year! It doesn't look like I will be able to make all six race weekends but I'm planning on attending four out of the six race weekends.
The one thing that I'm really excited about is that Terry and I will be raising money for the Fisher House Foundation (www.fisherhouse.org). Fisher House is a fantastic charity that helps our wounded/ill military personnel and their families. They have several programs but their main program is building houses near military hospitals so that families of hospitalized military personnel can stay in the houses free of charge for as long as they need to. Be sure to check them out and stay tuned for a press release announcing this partnership!
The one thing that I'm really excited about is that Terry and I will be raising money for the Fisher House Foundation (www.fisherhouse.org). Fisher House is a fantastic charity that helps our wounded/ill military personnel and their families. They have several programs but their main program is building houses near military hospitals so that families of hospitalized military personnel can stay in the houses free of charge for as long as they need to. Be sure to check them out and stay tuned for a press release announcing this partnership!
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