ChumpCar Racing

[EvoVIIIurV8]

chump cars as dds! Matt D your avatar rocks lol

[s1ngletracker]

Got back from iowa a while ago. Our motor threw a rod 30 mins into the race. Swapped in the spare motor (4 hours flat, out and in, new one buttoned up), but refused to start, and then for some odd reason we were getting all kinds of phantom electrical issues.

Matt's team went most of the day, but I think had transmission/overheating issues and ended up calling it quits as well. Maybe he can elaborate? Thus is racing, I guess.

[Matt D.]

Nice meeting you, s1ngletracker. I was bummed to see you guys swap in that engine and then still be sitting in the garage only to hear that it wouldn't run.

We put in one final night of work on the car Thursday before the race at Iowa Speedway and actually got the brakes working well, somehow. None of us even understands how, and every mechanical part of the brake system has now been replaced and who knows how many gallons of brake fluid has been used, but the brakes work, and boy do they work good. Brandon got us a new set of Falken Azenis RT615s for super cheap, so he picked those up Thursday night and then we got them mounted Saturday morning in Iowa at the Wal-Mart that was near the track. We also put a new starter in since the old one failed at Brainerd.

The entire team didn't get to the track until around 8pm on Friday, we were one of the last teams to check in and have their car teched. Most of the evening was spent getting settled in and preparing the car to have the tires changed in the morning, and I installed a water cooler in the car so we'd have something to drink since we knew it was going to be hot.

Saturday morning we got the new tires on, got the new radio system set up that Dustin rented from a local Motorola dealer, and hauled all of our necessary equipment to the pit area. The race officially started just after 11:00am and it was a pretty uneventful time all the way up until the mandatory safety stop at 7:00pm. The car was having the same transmission problems as it did at Brainerd on Sunday, so I knew how to make it work. The three guys in the car before me ended up just leaving it in 3rd gear the whole time and didn't want to worry about trying to make it shift. At some point in time the starter stopped working again, no idea why. Oh well, at least it push starts easily.

I got in the car around 4:45pm, when it was about as hot as it could have been throughout the day. Weather.com says the temp was 91 with a heat index of 111 at 5:00pm. Needless to say I was sweating before I even got in the car. My face was hot, and my breath felt like fire inside my helmet. Once the car was rolling I forgot all about that. The first lap I took it easy, made sure the track was as I had imagined from walking it Friday night, and then put the hammer down on my second lap.

Barreling into turns 1 and 2 on the oval was quite a thrill, 26 degrees of banking on a 7/8 mile oval driving your car for all it's worth and hoping it will keep sticking, it's not something everyone will get to experience, and there's no way to describe those banked turns without seeing and doing it yourself. At the end of the back straight I dove into the infield just as someone was talking to me on the radio, I lost my concentration, started braking as I was turning and thought "Oh shit, pea gravel!" Pea gravel so deep and abundant you'd think it was a rock quarry. Thankfully I gathered it up enough to only spin on the pavement in the turn and hit a couple cones in the paved area of the infield. The next time by the line I was black flagged and then pitted to learn my fate from the head tech guy/pit chief. I pull up to him and he says, "Alright, Ricky Bobby, you know you hit those cones, right? Take it easy now." I laughed and said okay and drove off. Had lots of fun, close racing in the infield. Cars that would blow by us on the straights were doing all they could to keep up in the oval turn and couldn't keep up much at all in the infield, so it was really anybody's race.

As I was driving I began thinking about the transmission, and then for whatever reason I double pumped the clutch and it went right into gear with little effort. It was like I had discovered some automotive miracle and I excitedly reported the news to the pits saying we needed to bleed the clutch during the mandatory stop.

I was scheduled to get out of the car at 6:45pm, just 15 minutes shy of the 7:00 mandatory stop. Somewhere around 6:20 I was following Team Bear Patrol (Lexus SC400) into the infield and the driver went in too hot, lost it to the left, then had the car snap back to the right and they spun into the gravel and all the way to the tire wall making light contact. I radioed it in to our pit since we were right next to them. The yellow was out immediately, then the next lap as I was rolling through turn 1-2 on the oval the red came out, so I parked it about halfway up the banking because I knew if the car stalled I wouldn't be able to restart. It took about 15 minutes to get Bear Patrol out of the gravel, which turned out to be the longest 15 minutes of my life. No air flow, the water was either gone or the tube wasn't able to pick up any, and it was hot. I had already begun getting a little headache which I'm guessing was caused by a combination of the noise, the heat and the exhaust. On top of that I was getting hungry, which I of course relayed to Brandon over the radio. I just stayed focused and confident, and kept talking on the radio to take my mind off the heat. Once the yellow came back we did one more lap I pitted and bailed out of the car, and Barry got in to do the last few minutes before the break.

It wasn't until I was walking around and taking off my gloves and helmet that I realize how physically drained I was. I'm not one to complain about how cold or hot it ever is, but I was hot, I'm not going to lie. So hot in fact that I was worried about exhaustion, dehydration and heat stroke. Thankfully I had been pounding water since Friday night, so I can only imagine that helped out. Once I got my helmet off I took my driver suit down to my waist, took my shoes and socks off and laid down on the concrete in the pit. My shirt was wringing wet, as was everything else that I was wearing. Even the outside of my fire suit felt damp. It was a good 10-15 minutes of doing nothing but sitting there drinking water before I regained enough energy to be able to walk to the camper and change clothes.

During the break we bled the clutch, checked the car over and went back out with Barry behind the wheel again. He said the transmission felt perfect and he was able to use any gear he wanted. As the race went on he suddenly reported in that he heard something, the temp was rising and he was coming in. As luck would have it one of the radiator hoses blew off the line going under the car to the radiator and spilled all the coolant on the track. This caused the car to severely overheat and we are able to best guess that the head gasket is shot. We let the car cool off, filled it with water again, bled the system, and within 1/4 lap it overheated again and it had to be towed back.

All in all we are happy that we all got to drive the car, and that it was working so well up until that point. There are no more races in the upper midwest that we are interested in going to this year, so we have plenty of time to freshen up the engine and come back swinging next year.

[Kracka]

Sounds like a lot of fun and can't wait to see what happens next season for you guys!

[Matt D.]

Forgot to mention, here is our Facebook page with a lot of pictures: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Team-Shake-and-Bake/100587856659368

Iowa Speedway is an amazing facility and I only hope I can race there again. The garage spaces alone were worth their price, let alone the track itself, the spacious pit areas and their safety crew. Something is to be said about racing at world class race tracks like this place.

[s1ngletracker]

Agreed. Iowa speedway was pretty awesome. I'll be back next year, already have a new car in the works :)

[Matt D.]

Agreed. Iowa speedway was pretty awesome. I'll be back next year, already have a new car in the works :)
Did you get to drive on the track at all?

[s1ngletracker]

nope. not one bit.

[Matt D.]

nope. not one bit.
Damn. :( I think we're fortunate that everyone on the team got to drive at least once even if the car broke because that track is something to experience.

[scheides]

Nice work dizzle! Sorry about the coolant spill, too bad it didn't get caught asap. If something like that happens and you kill the car immediately and get towed back to the pits, can you then fix it and get back out there? or are you just done b/c of the tow?