Great weather, great crew, re-paved track, paved paddoc area (yes no more pebbles!), a sighting of Paul Kaiser, and an issues.
Thursday night I flew into Raleigh/Durham airport, got my rental car, drove to the hotel near VIR scheduled to meet up with Brendan and Mark Dougherty as they are bringing my car down to VIR. Brendan and Mark make it to the hotel very late, set the alarm early for Friday morning as the car needs to get teched for 2014, and last minute seatbelt adjustments, etc.. From the first moment I fired up the new engine in FFR#48 I was ecstatic of the how good it sounded and felt driving around the paddock. I suite up in my race gear, made sure the new Live Stream camera system is working, then head out on track for the first test/tune session of the day. All I can say is WOW! new engine has power, car is prepped to perfection as usual, out on old Hoosier slick tires in the cold and new pavement. The track surprisingly has a ton of grip on the new pavement, even for these 4yr old slicks, and am getting all the cobwebs out that were building up in the off-season, slowly lapping faster and faster. I did notice a warning light turn on for a fraction of a second after a high-g turns 3-5, looked down verifying all gauges were ok, except for the oil pressure, a little low. On lap 5 just as I am close to pit-in the car shuts off suddenly. I coasted into the pits, back to the paddock. Mark and Brendan came to give me a hand pushing the car back, and jumped on analyzing what was going on with the new engine. After letting it cool, removing spark plugs, turning the engine by hand, the oil filter was removed and cut apart to verify all was ok. Well, a lot of debris was in there, all copper colored, which can mean only one thing.. a crank or connecting rod bearing has failed. With that we retired from the event and made plans to head home.
Paul Kaiser met us at the track missing the first test/tune session as he was still on-route, unloaded his car, headed to tech, once he came back noticed his front brakes were dragging severely. Mark and Brendan jumped on Paul’s car diagnosing and replacing a bad master cylinder (Paul’s car has been sitting since 2012 and the front master rusted itself shut.) He made it out for the last session running good getting re-acquainted with racetrack and his racecar. Mark, Brendan and I drove back to RDU to drop off the rental car, went to dinner, then back to the hotel with the plan on Brendan and I driving back to PA, then having my dad pick me up in his Tesla to drive me back home in NH. Mark, the Traveling Builder had other business commitments on Saturday and drove separately to another customers site.
Mark and Brendan will get FFR#48 fixed for the next race of the season. Stay tuned for more updates.
Pictures: http://www.johngeorgeracing.com/gallery/index.php?/category/316
Live video feed replay: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/45122359 (not bad running ustream on an iphone put in a waterproof case duct-taped to the top of the rollbar!)
Incar video: