Note: I know this is long, okay really long, but this is as much for my own personal “diary” as anything else, as I want to remember the details of another fantastic week. As some of you have indicated you would be interested in reading about it as well, all the painful and rewarding details are included.
Summary (for those who won’t make it through my novelette):
On my 3rd lap of practice on Monday, the harmonic balancer bolt came out, causing me to miss Tuesday’s qualifying and ultimately leading to engine failure on the 1st lap of qualifying on Wednesday. Thanks to the help of David Pintaric, Kryder Racing, and Phoenix Performance, we replaced the engine on Wednesday night and returned to the track Thursday afternoon. After missing all three days of qualifying, I was positioned 31st of 31 on the grid. After something like six total laps of practice during the week, I slowly work my way up to a 16th place finish. Not exactly the top ten I was looking for, but given the talent in the field, and the challenges we had to overcome, I am extremely satisfied with the result and really look forward to watching the race on SPEED, Nov 21st at 3pm EST.
Prelude:
On August 14-15th, after achieving my primary goal for 2004, winning the SCCA Midwest Division T1 championship, something I wanted to accomplish before I roll back onto sea duty next year, I headed to Mid-Ohio to participate in the National races to get some more seat time on the track which would be host to the 2004 SCCA National Championship Runoffs. During the race, it was clear my car was down on horsepower to several of my competitors who had just put in brand new 04 crate motors in preparation for the Runoffs.
Not having the money to go buy a new motor, I took my car to my brother-in-law’s garagemahal in Norfolk, where he tested the motor and found 20% leakdown on cylinders 2 and 8. We decided to remove the motor, put in new rings and a new timing chain as a precaution, and had a valve job done on it. We also tested the springs and checked all other internal components.
Wednesday, Sept 15th
The Gift
The day before I left for the Runoffs, I was contacted by a fellow forum member I had never met, never even talked to, but who had been reading my posts on T1 racing last year and this. He offered me $500 to help with my expenses for the Runoffs. Remarkably, a few hours later, he upped the offer to $1000 when another T1 driver whom he had made the same offer to told him to give all the money to me. Taking a look at my bank account which had $1300 in it, and realizing the costs associated with the race, I swallowed my pride and took him up on the offer. Probably not surprisingly, both he and the other T1 driver wish to remain anonymous. I pass my most sincere appreciation to both.
Thursday, Sept 16th - Friday, Sept 17th
The Trip to Norfolk
The next afternoon, after picking up my father at the airport for the ride to Norfolk, my wife handed me a check for $1000 that had come in next day air, asking where that had come from. After explaining to my wife that this wasn’t a check from someone who wanted 15 cases of AMSOIL, bribe, a gambling debt being paid off or any other illegitimate source of funding, but a gift from someone to help cover my race expenses and who took the time to next day air it so I would have the money in time for the Runoffs, I deposited the check in my bank. I think the money accelerated when it hit my account…
My wife remains skeptical.
My dad and I decided to leave Thursday evening to try to get to Norfolk ahead of Hurricane Ivan. Thankfully, there weren’t too many other maniacs on the road that night with the same plan, because we certainly didn’t make it across Tennessee ahead of the hurricane.
Saturday, Sept 18th
Car Preps
After arriving in Norfolk, my dad and I helped my brother-in-law make the final steps to the engine installation and we fired up the car with no leaks, no codes and no faults, but an exhaust gasket leak.
Removing the exhaust headers, we realized the gaskets provided by the local Chevy dealership were for headers, not the stock manifold and didn’t have the covering for the EGR pipes. Unfortunately no gaskets were available in Norfolk, and we could find no aftermarket gaskets. Running a nationwide parts check, we found two dealerships within 70 miles of Mid-Ohio that had the gaskets, unfortunately only one at each…
We gave up on the gaskets with the intention of fixing them at the track and spent the remainder of Saturday setting up the alignment for the Runoffs based on my experience at Mid-Ohio the month before.
Sunday, Sept 19th
The Paddock
Hitting the road to Mid-Ohio before sunrise, and picking up Bacon, Egg and Cheese Bagel number 2, my dad, brother-in-law and I had an uneventful trip, arriving at Mid-Ohio at about 5pm.
After signing in, we headed into a sea of motorhomes, trailers and cars, over 800 entries, an SCCA Runoffs record.
Fellow T1 competitor Ed Amonsen had found the RV we rented for the week and tried to save us a spot, but the Mid-Ohio security overcame his efforts and forced him to move the RV. Trying to find an unclaimed flat spot of land in the overflow area, we stumbled upon an open lane, somehow left vacant by the security staff. Realizing it was right next to fellow Midwest Division T1 driver Chris Brannon, we had what we were looking for. Nestling our RV, my pickup and trailer into the spot, we unloaded the Vette and set it up right next to Chris’ Vette. Beautiful.
After setting up, we walked around and talked to as many T1 teams as possible looking for manifold gaskets. Phoenix came up with one and gladly handed it to us, but we couldn’t find a second.
Monday, Sept 20th
Practice Day (Challenges)
Leaving my brother-in-law behind to start work removing the manifolds and replacing the one gasket we have, my dad and I hit the road for the local Chevy dealership at 7:30 am… Bacon, Egg and Cheese Bagel number 3. Making a final local check of parts, they confirmed the nearest gasket was about an hour away. After ordering two gaskets from them to repay Phoenix, we drove to the other dealer, picked up the gasket and returned to the track by 11:00am. By 1:00pm, my brother-in-law had both gaskets replaced and we made final preparations for the 2:25pm practice session.
Lining up on the pre-grid, I was very excited about my prospects for the week. Heading out onto the track, my spirits ran even higher. The engine felt strong with the new rings and the valve job. The balance of the car was perfectly to my liking, a slight low speed understeer that was easily controllable with throttle, and very neutral in the high speed turns. The new Kumho V710s grip was strong and their feedback was good, making it easy for me to quickly come up to speed.
On my second lap, I turned a 1:37.0, equal to my fastest lap there all of last year and I was still just getting a feel for the car, track and tires. As my father called my lap time to me as I passed down the pit straight, I cleared slower traffic. Deciding the car felt great, I began to start dialing up the speed. However, as I head up to the Keyhole, I began to smell smoke, but the gages showed everything was normal. As I headed down the back straight, the cockpit started to visibly fill with a light smoke and I could see smoke in my rear view mirrors. Probably more than a little oil burning off. Not wanting to chance a fire, I pulled off at a corner worker stand in the “esses” and turned the motor off.
After an SCCA corner worker gave me a good check and found nothing visibly wrong, I decided to fire it up and limp back to the pits. The car started fine with all gauges reading normal, but a definite smoke trail still followed the car. Thinking I probably had a minor leak of some sort and trying to stay off the racing line, I slowly brought the car back to the pits. As I approached the pits, the steering got heavier and heavier. Wondering if I had a power steering leak, I muscled the car into the pits. Just before I shut it down however, oil pressure plummeted, dropping to 10 psi.
A quick check under the hood didn’t reveal anything specific, but oil was definitely leaking from someplace as the front half of the motor was covered with a sheen of light fluid. Thinking we either had a power steering leak, or a bad power steering pump, but with the low oil pressure still nagging at me, we verified that the car had no fault codes, and fired it up to try to pinpoint what was wrong. My brother-in-law almost immediately gave me the kill signal. The main bolt in the crankshaft that holds the harmonic balancer on (the main serpentine belt pulley) had come out all the way and backed up against the power steering rack. The pulley itself was warbling around on the front of the crankshaft, bouncing off the subframe and probably a few other things.
As my brother-in-law started the process to remove the power steering rack (which essentially requires splitting the lower suspension ball joint then dropping the front of the whole front subassembly to pull the rack out of a wheel well), I walked over to Phoenix to seek advice.
Again, Phoenix came to my rescue, handing me the puller (didn’t need that as my balancer had found its own way off), a press on tool, a new balancer, and the seal that goes behind the balancer.
As darkness approached, my brother-in-law had the power steering rack out and we attempted to put on the new balancer, but were totally unsuccessful. The crankshaft was too badly scored from the beating it took from the old balancer bouncing around on it for the new one to slip on.
We called it a night.
My practice time of 1:37.0 was 16th fastest of the day. Given that it occurred on only my second lap of practice, despite the balancer problem, I was still pretty optimistic about my chances for the week. That would change.
Tuesday, Sept 21st
Qualifying Day One (or not)
As my brother-in-law set off to clean up the crankshaft, my dad and I hit the road to the local Chevy dealership, who I was now on a first name basis with, to pick up the replacement parts we had ordered to replace those borrowed from Phoenix… Bacon, Egg and Cheese Bagel number 4. In addition to the payback manifold gaskets, seal, and balancer, we also picked up a new belt, Emory cloth and some fine grit sand paper to help clean up the crankshaft.
Returning to the track, we found my brother-in-law having a really hard time cleaning up the crankshaft. In addition, in the light, he could see the seal behind the crankshaft was pretty badly beat up, and we suspected all the oil we had on the front of the motor had come from this seal. This also explained the drop in oil pressure I had just before turning off the car.
Telling by brother-in-law to take his time, Tuesday’s qualifying was paired with T2 and not likely to produce any really fast times, I headed off to talk to other T1 competitors. I found three who had had the harmonic balancer bolt come out after taking apart the motor. Apparently the lesson learned is to use red locktite on this bolt, which isn’t called out for in the service manual so my brother-in-law hadn’t done this when he put the motor back together.
By late Tuesday evening, my brother-in-law had the new seal in, new balancer on and the car put back together. We held off on starting it due to darkness and called it another night.
Wednesday, Sept 22nd
Qualifying Day Two (Bigger Challenges)
With qualifying at 9:25am, we got up at first light and fired up the car. It started fine, with no leaks, no codes, no faults, but the balancer seemed to have a vibration to it that we were very worried about. In hindsight, we were right and I should have made the decision to not run the motor any more.
As we headed out onto the track for qualifying, I took it very gingerly to monitor things for a lap or two. As I headed up the first straight towards the keyhole, oil pressure dropped from 60 psi to 40 psi. Not feeling good about the oil pressure, I pulled into the pits without having completed a lap. As I pulled into the pits, oil pressure fell to 17 psi, but after minute returned to 40 psi and stayed there. Knowing I hadn’t even completed one lap, and with oil pressure remaining steady at 40 psi, we decided to attempt anther lap and monitor oil pressure. Bad move.
Despite being very delicate with rpms, oil pressure stayed at 40 psi for only about two turns, then started to plummet. Not wise enough to shut it down, I tried to limp back to the pits again. Just before the engine let go, I saw a message you really don’t want to see “Low Oil Pressure, Upshift Now”. Can’t remember if I saw this on the HUD or the DIC.
Important safety tip: That message is there for a reason.
Shortly after receiving this message, with oil pressure falling to 10 psi, and after upshifting and lifting, something inside the motor let go and I spun in my own oil one turn from the pits.
Calling my dad on the radio, I asked him to call my wife, daughters and father-in-law who had hit the road for Mid-Ohio from Memphis not a half an hour earlier, and my sister-in-law and nephew who had similarly just hit the road from Norfolk, and send them home. My week seemed done.
After seeing my car loaded on a flatbed trailer and dropped off at my pits, I sat dejectedly in my paddock trying to mentally come to terms with losing my 2nd motor (1st was last year). Not 10 minutes later, David Pintaric rolls into my paddock, declaring “Brad, we need to talk…” Seeing the writing on the wall, I immediately say “No” before he has even started talking, but David was having none of it. Explaining that he was going to buy a new motor anyways, it wouldn’t cost him any more to buy the motor now and “loan” it to me for a few days.
Dismissing the financial implications for a few minutes, David, my brother-in-law and I talked logistics. 1st, could we find a motor. 2nd, could we find a shop. 3rd, did we have the tools. 4th, did we have the time. 5th, would the SCCA allow me to start without qualifying. It just all seemed so implausible that there would be no harm looking into it.
First stop, Phoenix Performance to see if they knew where we could find a motor. It turned out to be a short stop. Joe Aquilante, the owner, pointed to his pickup truck and said they had a brand new 04 crate motor, leakdown checked and ready to go. Talk about being prepared. Second stop, a shop. David headed over to the team that supports him at the track, Kryder Racing, who has a fully outfitted race shop about 70 miles away. Sandy Krdyer said not only could we use it, she would take us there and open it up for us and show us everything. With a motor and a shop readily available, I went back to my brother-in-law to ask him if he thought this was really possible. After thinking about it for all of 10 seconds, he responded 12 hours out and 12 hours in, no problem. Any special tools needed? Only one, a spline shaft to align the driveshaft splines with the clutch splines. Back to Phoenix. Of course they had one. Uh oh. This was starting to look possible. Finally a quick trip down to the Chief Steward to explain my situation. Based on my practice time from Monday, he would guarantee I could start.
No more hurdles to overcome…
As I headed back up to my paddock, I thought, what the hell. Would make a good story, even if we didn’t make it. I stopped by Kryder and told David and Sandy I’d be happy to take them up on their offer.
We made a quick call to my wife and sister-in-law, telling them both that maybe it was over, maybe it wasn’t. We put the ball in their court as to whether to risk the long drives to Mid-Ohio. They both came.
As we loaded the car onto the trailer, David loaded the new motor in his pickup truck with the help of Phoenix, then grabbed Sandy and led us to Kryder Racing. Sandy was great. She essentially just handed us the keys to her shop, told us to use whatever we needed, gave us the all too important number to Domino’s, wrote out directions to the local AutoZone for any consumables we might need, and asked us to lock up when we came back.
By midnight, my brother-in-law, dad and I had the old motor out, oil lines and intake flushed and the new motor in and bolted to the subassembly, and we decided to sneak off for a few hours of sleep.
Thurday, Sept 23rd
Qualifying Day Three
Well before first light, we got up and headed back to the shop, picking up Bacon, Egg and Cheese Bagel number 5 at the always handy McDonalds.
By noon, the car was back together, all fluids replaced, new brake rotors and Carbotech pads installed for the race, the alignment checked and ready to test. Always amazed that the car runs after such major surgery, I turned the key and it started up and ran great, again with no faults, no leaks, and no codes.
Taking it out for a quick test, race tires and all (but DOT legal and the car is licensed and insured), I checked out everything and bedded in the brakes. All good.
I went back to the shop for a last check, let the brakes cool off for 30 minutes, then drove the car the 70 miles back to the track to put as much break in as possible on the motor. Although we had missed the 9:50am qualifying, the car felt great and despite the fact that I was exhausted, once again, I felt pretty good about things.
Friday, Sept 24th
Race Day
9:50 am, morning warmup. A ten minute test session to make final checks of cars. For me, the first real opportunity all week to get in a couple laps. I wondered if I could get in more than three trips around the track.
Heading out, everything felt great… and for a change, it stayed that way. The motor felt strong, temps were good, oil pressure good, the car’s handling was still neutral. Although the SCCA frowns on running at full race speeds in the morning warmup, I went fast enough for three laps to know everything was finally working.
The Race:
Taking my dead last spot on the grid, I was faced with a fantastic view. 31 entrants. 27 of them Vettes. Freddy Baker’s Porsche GT3 sat second on the grid, right behind John Heinricy. But just in front of me was Cheyne Daggett in his Ford SVT Cobra, Chuck Hemmingson in his Subaru WRX STi, and Mark Boden in his Porsche GT3. Yeehaw… let the fun begin.
As the 1 minute signal was given, the SPEED channel commentators came directly in front of my car and said who knows what, but I suspect David Pintaric played a roll. I will find out what they had to say on Nov 21st with all of you.
We didn’t get a green the 1st time by the starter. Pretty sure it wasn’t because of me.
Even with the race starting on the back straight, I was so far back from the leaders that I was still in the Keyhole when the green flag fell on the 2nd lap. Despite my dad calling the green for me, I couldn’t get a good start as I was in a corner, behind Natha Walbaum and beside Cheyne in his SVT Cobra. But I came out of the turn hard, pulling Cheyne and carefully passing Natha as we entered turn 7.
We went two by two for at least the next three corners before we managed to squeeze into single file. 27th after the first race lap.
The next lap brought the first attrition as hard charger Jeff Robbins went flying, literally, into the keyhole, damaging Pete Looby’s right rear tire. Jeff left the track, again, literally. Pete limped back into the pits. Ryan Snodgrass checked up and was hit by Jason Berkeley, spinning Ryan off. Jason didn’t know it, but he damaged one of his tires, left rear I think, and he spun off later in the race as the tire deflated.
I out pulled Chuck in the STi in Thunder Valley and completed lap 3 in 22nd.
Moving up in the field was much harder from that point forward as each car was progressively faster. It took me about three laps to get by Mark Boden in his GT3. At Mid-Ohio, the GT3 was matched up very well with the Z06. I was clearly faster, but it wasn’t in the places I could pass. He could get out of the slow speed corners better than me, maybe because of gearing, as he pulled out a car length or two on the first half of each straight. I’d make up the difference in the second half the straight, but his GT3 was fantastic under braking. I finally dove inside him into turn 7 on lap 8.
On lap 12, I passed David Pintaric on the back straight as he graciously waved me by, feeling almost as guilty passing him with his motor as I did taking the $1000 gift to start the week.
I spent the rest of the race trying to pass Peter Kulka unsuccessfully. He would not give me the inside on the back straight. I tried to pass him on the outside at least three times, but I wasn’t willing to rub fenders with him fighting for 15th spot.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. My experience at my 2nd Runoffs wasn’t exactly how I planned it, but things rarely are. The week was extremely rewarding, maybe because of all the challenges we overcame just to start the race, and certainly due to all the good will we experienced along the way. The race was certainly “fun”, but more importantly, I feel I achieved something, not only by qualifying for the race, but by starting and finishing it.
Now I have to figure out how to get the carcass of my old motor out of Kryder Racing, and to tell David I really don’t want to give him his new motor back…
P.S. On the way home to Memphis, Bacon, Egg and Cheese Bagel number 6…
The Phoenix Performance SCCA T1 Vettes:
David Pintaric in the background behind #37 Lance Knupp:
My “crew”, father-in-law, youngest daughter, and nephew, making final race preps:
On the grid, pre-race:
David, apparently wondering what the heck he has gotten himself into:
Turn 8, on the first race lap. At the back…
At speed between turns 9 and 10:
Entering turns 9:
John Heinricy enroute to his 4th Consecutive T1 National Championship:
Nice write up. Ray, your father and you really did a great job getting that car back on the track. Kuddos to you!
As I said before, I am proud to be a part of what you accomplished. While I would have liked it better if my Run Offs experience was a bit more successful, helping you made it still satisfying.
That picture of me looking completely "overwhelmed:" I wish I can remember what we were discussing. BTW, that is Matt Miller next to me, and Tim Walton standing with his back to the camera. Eric (I don't know his last name) was applying the third Valvoline sticker to the front of my car.
SPEED Channel was talking about you; when we lined up for the Phoenix Group Shoot, I saw the woman who interviewed my brother and I. I told her about the efforts you and Ray had put in to just make the grid. She was excited about the story, so my gut tells me that is what the reporter was talking about. As I said before: I am such a "touble maker."
My motor: we will figure out how to work this out. To me, it seems dumb to take it out and ship it to me. Leave it in the car, and we can work on other alternatives.
__________________
Kryderacing/Phoenix Performance/Hoosier/WRP Investments #40 SCCA T1 Dodge SRT10 Viper
Other cars: 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe LTZ/2002 Chevrolet 3500 Crew Cab Dualie/2005 Cadillac STS 4
Great story Brad. Sure have to admire your don't quit attitude and with the help of David and the rest of the racing fraternity, who could ask for better comrades to swap paint with.
All,
Thanks for the kind comments. Its nice to know that some of you not only took the time to read what may have been the longest post in forum history but actually enjoyed it as well.
David,
What can I say. Thanks just doesn't seem to cut it. I hope we can get together for an early season race next year before I head off to parts unknown...
Fine story. As the old saying goes, sometimes its better to be lucky than good, and bad luck sure hit you in the kisser. Nice job just getting into the race. I'll look forward to the telecast on Speed.
Brad - great write-up, and "if it weren't for bad luck, you wouldn't any luck at all"! But, I've said it before, you married well and have a good core of well deserved friends. That's probably as good as any podium could ever be.
Thanks for sharing!!! 
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