2022 PittRace

Information about upcoming races, swap meets & shows

Moderators: MostMint, wxo, Fred32v, Basement Paul, ttamrettus

Post Reply
User avatar
TireSmoker
Site Admin
Posts: 2432
Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 1:45 pm
Location: roaming the Matrix
Contact:

2022 PittRace

Post by TireSmoker »

I spent the weekend at the track with Scott and Robin Wangler, Joey, Jason Paris and his son Jay, Dave Fesz, Ryan Link racing the Fickle Bitch Porsche 944 in the Champcar 8+7 event. (8hrs on Sat, 7hrs on Sun, 2 seperate races).

We chose not to practice on Friday, as we all know the track pretty well. On Saturday, Scott went out first and radioed in the within the first 10 minutes that the brakes were pulsating pretty bad. He was talking about bringing the car in and changing the front rotors. I was skeptical, and especially once I found its not exactly a trivial job (Saturn would be trival), I told him to keep the car going. Just Drive The Fine Car.

We were making oil stops at roughly 1 hour intervals, but we've gotten more efficient at them. I believe Scott the pace of consumption may have slowed.

The weather forecast for Saturday went from fantastic a few days out, to sketchy the day before, to full on rain by late in the race that caused a red flag and eventual calling the event without going back on track at ~ 6 hour mark. I was to go last that day, so I got in the car at 3pm, made one lap under FCY, and came right back in the pits. The rear hatch was so fogged up, I couldn't see a thing. While I was in the pits, they red flagged it, and we never got back out. While I was bummed to lose my stint, I had zero interest in trying to race in those conditions. Race director made the correct call, IMO.

While under red flag, we put a tarp over the car, but got something got wet and when the race was called and we went to move it to the garage, the car was dead. Great.. Got the car towed up to the garage. Scott and others worked on the brakes, ultimately deciding to change the pads instead of the rotors, because of which pads had been bedded in on those rotors. I went to work trying to figure out what was wrong electrically. None of the factory wiring is there, it's all add-in stuff. Not complicated. All the fuses and relays were good, but everything on the Painless Wiring panel was dead -- which is the starter, ignition, and fuel pump. I spent a bunch of time upside down under the dash tracing all the stuff We found some dampness in some places and used a hair dryer to dry up stuff. Ultimately, there was a connector on the Painless Harness that we had already had apart and re-connected (and it was clicked-in) , I dunno, gave it an extra squeeze and everything came to life. We got all the other prep done for Sunday and went back to our rented house. (btw, having done this twice now, it's totally the way to go)

Sunday came and the weather was beautiful. I finally got to wear my new OMP race suit that Gwen got me for Christmas last year. I love it, waaay better than my old suit. I got the start since I didnt get any time on Saturday, which is perfect with me. I love that inital chaos. I think we started somewhere around 30th place (of 59 cars) and I got us moved up several spots in my 2 hours. I was able to put down a fast lap of 2:09.74, which stood for the rest of the day. We were running all used tires for the weekend, so that would be a little bit limiting. But the car ran really good. I raced clean, no offs, no contact.

After a little while, the other guys (Scott, Joey, Jason) offered to run shorter shifts and they gave me the last hour to make up for Saturday, so 3 hours of racing, and I got to take the Green and the Checkerd! The second stint didnt go quite as well. Within 1-2 laps, the window net came out, so I stopped back in to get that hooked up real quick. Just had some mental mistakes, resulting in one spin at the corkscrew / turn 2 , off the track. No other cars involved, and I got myself righted within just a few seconds. The brake vibration was also a lot worse now. The whole front end just shook terribly under heavy braking. But it was still running good otherwise.

I took the Checkered Flag and we headed back to the garage to get packed up. We finished 25th overall (of 59) on Saturday and 23rd on Sunday, 13th in C-class both days. All in all, a really enjoyable weekend of racing with a great group.
Attachments
20220930_123537.jpg
20221001_134934.jpg
20221001_135020.jpg
20221002_083440.jpg
20221002_123510.jpg
20221002_142108.jpg
12939.jpeg
12990.jpeg
Post Reply