Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

chump cars as dds! Matt D your avatar rocks lol

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

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.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

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.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

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

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Forgot to mention, here is our Facebook page with a lot of pictures: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Tea...00587856659368

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.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

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

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Did you get to drive on the track at all?

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

nope. not one bit.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

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.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

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?

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Awesome! Glad you had a good time and were able to get out on the track! This sounds like alot of fun, I hope I get to do somthing like this someday!

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

you can get back out there. One car got flat towed like 3 times on saturday and still kept fixing problems and racing... ha

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

LOL, that purple Neon had to have gotten towed back at least a dozen times, not joking. I think the safety crew was getting sick of them, haha.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

yeah, thats the team i was talking about. I wasn't paying really close attention, but i knew it was at least 3!

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Cool story. I know a few of the members from Team Cougar Bait

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

YES, the road course is a blast! I have spun out a few times at BIR without any damage nor any close calls. You have some room for error at that particular track. We go to a few of the performance driving school days and they have an in car instructor all day for you to help with the line, etc.

We were going to try to do the chump car deal with a 95 awd dsm we bought for $700. Sell the seats, scrap the alloys, etc but it wasn't a priority and never got done. Will for sure try next year. Congrats on 3rd.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

We had a 1g AWD DSM as an option as well, but there's no way it could keep up to an MR2 so that's the way we went. Lots more to go wrong with an AWD turbo car, too.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

I think it's worth the money. Every now and then someone will pass you but the BIR Performance days are nothing like racing. The huge majority of people are on a track for the first time and not that many people even try to pass.

I wish my car would be ready for the 11th but I'm still shooting for the 26th. They are running the full track that day so I can see what 150 is like...the fastest I've ever gone is 130's on the SV650 that I use to have.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

I really really enjoyed the short course and what it offered. I'd like to do the long course at least once, but I have a good feeling that the short course is where my heart is.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

agreed. As much as I like DSMs, I dont think i'd wanna do chumpcar with one.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

This cump car race thing is really interesting. I'm gonna look into this some more. hmmm...

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Yea the big issue in the dsm would have been..... Reliability. No doubt.

On the long course I can get up to 150 or so in the viper before making sure the brakes are still in good shape. Could prob push it further but cost/benefit stops me. The big track is better for the higher HP cars. I think my average speed on the long course is 90+ mph but I run the long and short course in about the same amount of time. HP seems to rule quite a bit on the long course due to the 2 big straits. I think the short course is as much fun if not more than the long. Sitting with the foot to the floor for a bit isn't that amuzing to me. The viper doesn't feel fast on the straight after all the turns leading up to it.

The front straight is where you learn who has the faster car though. I passed a "600+ hp" Mustang GT500 with mods, tune, etc in my viper. I think his gauge of power is a little off ;)

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

October 2010 issue.

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/a...r/chumpcar.jpg

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

"A Toyota MR2 inspired by Ricky Bobby's car.." pretty good! hahah.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Hell yes! Cougar Bait's rebuild far surpassed our comeback, though. They completely built a different car overnight.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

It lives to race another day, my friends. This winter we brought Shawn Carroll (simulatedwood) on board and he rebuilt the overheated and worn out 1.6L 4AGE for us. We got it fired up last night for the first time and we were all smiling ear to ear. A couple of the guys took it out for a quick spin to make sure the clutch was working and get some break-in time on the engine. Got a couple minor things to fix, but it's heading to RS Motors in the next week or so for some dyno time, then to The Alignment Guy for a once over on the alignment, then we're off to Road America on March 25th for the dual 7 hour races.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

That is awesome, good luck this season.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Shawn has some skills. Do you guys have a camera? Let me know if you want to borrow the GoPro. I'd be curious to see a few laps.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

If this engine lasts then it's proof that you don't need to have a specialty shop build your engine. He has a lot of time into it, but we all wanted it to be done right the first time.

The closest thing we have are point and shoot cameras that we mount in a cradle. If you want to let us use your GoPro for the weekend we would be very appreciative.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Yeah, I'll get it to one of you.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Awesome! Glad to hear its going again!! Good luck at RA

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Awesome! Good luck guys!

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Sounds a lot like our current situation!

http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/3666/sdc11066.jpg

stock rebuild of our 1.6 honda single cam

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/5206/img0018gt.jpg

on the dyno at DB on saturday

http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/8130/img0020vx.jpg

finished with a pretty good power curve, and more power at the wheels than that thing is rated at the crank! we were pretty happy.

Thanks to Shane (the newest addition to our team) and DB! Lots of work to go before RA!

Edit: I hope I'm not hijacking your thread. Let me know if I am.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Holy shit, that's good power. What does your car weigh? I think our car will be on the rollers at RS Motors this week. The test drive seemed promising.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Thanks Matt. I'm not really sure how much it weighs, my most educated guess is about 2100 lbs.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Apparently Tubby Butterman claims their car (BMW E36) dyno'd at something like 86 or 93 horsepower at the wheels. They pulled us on the straights like we were standing still.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Yeah, us too. I think a lot of people are full of crap. Of course it is to your benefit to brag about how little power your car makes. An E36 would have to be running on 3 cylinders to make that much.

But seriously though. at Brainerd our 240k+ 1.5 d-series was making 135 psi across all 4 cylinders, when the stock numbers are like 185. Most literally there is no way our car was making much more than 75-80 at the wheels there, stock being just under 100 at the crank. ha!

no matter how you swing it, our car will be accelerating faster this year! which is going to be fun. I haven't driven it yet but my teammate who did said its a lot quicker than its ever been.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Is Shane driving with you guys or is he just spinning wrenches?

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Shane's gonna be joining the fun and driving. He just ordered all his safety gear, so he's hooked now!

Matt, does anyone on your team have a HANS or defNder? I'm thinking strongly about getting one, with all the time i'm gonna be spending on the track this summer. Safety seems like a good thing to invest in.

Re: My ChumpCar experience
 

Sweet, that will be cool to have him at the track. He quickly asked me about Chump Car last week at the Wednesday La Casita meet so now I know why. :)

BTW, we are getting a garage spot at RA and they are allowing you to share it with another team, are you interested in splitting one with us?

From the email sent out last week: