Practiced, qualified, but did not race!
The last race weekend of the season was scheduled at NJMP Thunderbolt racetrack October 16-18, 2015. Registered in the ST2 class were 5 Corvettes and 2 FFR Challenge cars, the Corvette vs FFR showdown.
Pat McMahon and I arrived with our FFR’s Thursday night ready for Friday’s test day = 3hrs and 45min of track time! We grilled cheese infused burgers and had delicious bratwursts for dinner. Pat recently got his engine fixed by Dart, they found a bad crankshaft in his old engine and replaced it with a better one. His goal for the weekend was to make sure the engine runs. I had the goal of resolving my power steering issues, and making sure the newly installed clutch had no issues. The first session on track my power steering was not working, and the clutch pedal would stick. Not a good start! After changing the clutch cable to an adjustable one, trying to add extra springs to pull back the clutch fork, we finally figured out the clutch bite point and set the clutch to be at that point when the clutch pedal was fully pressed. The many test sessions were a blast with Pat and I “test racing” setting decent lap times.
Saturday morning Dad cooked the famous Poppa George omelet, bacon, eggs, cheese, peppers! Delicious! Practice had Adrian Wlostowski in his Corvette 4th overall, followed by Pat and I. Friday’s track time had finally chewed up my brake pads, so changing them before qualifying was top priority. The pads changed without issue but when putting on the wheels, they hit the caliper now with new pads. No problem, I had to “clearance” the caliper bracket before so I proceeded to do the same “clearance” to the caliper face with a grinder. Trying the wheel back to grinding seemed like a long process. I thought it cleared enough so put the wheels on for good, and go qualify. Well, that didn’t last long, within 2 laps I was stuck on the side of the track with front wheels not moving, and the calipers machined slightly.
Dad didn’t feel good the whole morning, and after getting towed back in he tells me he called the ambulance to take him to the ER, ambulance came, and I followed in the pickup. He got admitted, gave him pain meds and checked him over, eventually scheduling a CT scan around dinner time, and since we were just waiting there he promptly sent me packing back to the track to get my bad calipers changed out.
Pat in the meantime started the race, had a great battle with Adrian early, spun his car, then caught Adrian back up eventually passing him for the lead with Adrian off track in turn 1. Adrian had a bad wheel bearing causing the rotor to move slightly knocking the pads away from the rotor surface, so when he went on the brakes pedal went to the floor. Post-race inspection and dyno testing of Pats car found him over his HP limit and was disqualified from the race. Pat has an old school carburetor, which does not automatically adjust for anything, including cool air as it was tuned in the high heat of summer, where EFI systems, what is in my car, automatically can adjust based on many parameters giving a more consistent dyno test.
Dad called in the evening, said they found something but wasn’t urgent and the pain went away and that they were releasing him from the hospital. I went to go pick him up glad he was OK and had him back to the racetrack and the RV by 10pm.
Sunday had practice/qualifying combined early in the day, then the race around 4pm. I qualified P1 in ST2, 3rd overall followed by Pat, Adrian, and rookie Mark Petronis. The stage was set for a great last race of the season! The weather beautiful all weekend turned right before the race, at first starting to hail, sleet, and cold rain. I left my rain tires home and while waiting for race time in Pat’s trailer we decided nothing good would come out of running the cars in rain on racing slicks, so we loaded the cars and headed for home.
Looking forward for the 2016 race season with many upgrades planned in the off-season!
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