Our weekend sucked... how about everybody else?

steve remchak · **Posted:** Mon Aug 12, 2013 9:23 am

We lasted 37 minutes. I was home by 4pm on Saturday. I didn't turn a lap for the third time at a VIR race.

JohnByers · **Posted:** Mon Aug 12, 2013 9:56 am

steve remchak wrote:

We lasted 37 minutes. I was home by 4pm on Saturday. I didn't turn a lap for the third time at a VIR race.

What team were you with this weekend Steve?

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

He was on Silver Bullets.

If it makes you feel any better, Simon wasn't working right until 4pm.

steve remchak · **Posted:** Mon Aug 12, 2013 10:14 am

Andrew Jonell wrote:

He was on Silver Bullets.

If it makes you feel any better, Simon wasn't working right until 4pm.

I saw Max was in the top ten at one point. What happened there?

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

They were doing 70 minute stints and they waited until they were getting 4+ minute lap times before switching out to rain tires. I'm not knocking any of the drivers of Max (especially seeing how I didn't set any laps this weekend

), but I think they were taking it relatively easy since they would have had to face the wrath of Jason if they flipped it, that and everybody on Max looks slow compared to Simon's driver lineup.

The top half of the field was tough. I think when we finally got Simon working we were 26 laps down from the race leader and by the end we were only 22 laps down.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Mon Aug 12, 2013 5:10 pm

Sorry you guys had a bad race. It was good to see you (Steve), VK and Aaron.

Richard

JamesMilko · **Posted:** Mon Aug 12, 2013 5:58 pm

The fuel range on Max killed them. I want to say they got between 1:20-1:30 in between pit stops. They had some transponder issues as well and missed the last hour of the race due to a lug nut issue. I want to say Chumpcar credited them back most if not all of the laps they missed from the transponder issue though.

Here is what we replaced on Simon, there is something missing. I know I counted 13 things at one point.

Stop 1 (Before I was there):
Spark plugs
Spark plug wires
Dizzy
ECU

Stop 2:
Disconnect O2 sensor
Gauge cluster (Vehicle speed sensor)
MAP Sensor

Stop 3 (One of these fixed it):
Fuel Rail
Fuel injectors
Fuel pressure regulator
Fuel filter
Main relay

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Mon Aug 12, 2013 6:32 pm

JamesMilko wrote:

The fuel range on Max killed them. I want to say they got between 1:20-1:30 in between pit stops. They had some transponder issues as well and missed the last hour of the race due to a lug nut issue. I want to say Chumpcar credited them back most if not all of the laps they missed from the transponder issue though.

Here is what we replaced on Simon, there is something missing. I know I counted 13 things at one point.

Stop 1 (Before I was there):
Spark plugs
Spark plug wires
Dizzy
ECU

Stop 2:
Disconnect O2 sensor
Gauge cluster (Vehicle speed sensor)
MAP Sensor

Stop 3 (One of these fixed it):
Fuel Rail
Fuel injectors
Fuel pressure regulator
Fuel filter
Main relay

I lost track of the number of stop/fix/go back out cycles we had. It think we may have swapped out the distributor at least twice, maybe three times (at least twice in hot pit). We also swapped out the throttle position sensor and also messed with grounding wires as well.

Richard

Aaron Buckley · **Posted:** Mon Aug 12, 2013 7:04 pm

I swapped out my race clothing from my bag to a table and back to the bag after the motor let loose. I still had fun, as the car was really stout in practice. It's awful what an over-rev can do to a motor. - AB

RickyBeam · **Posted:** Mon Aug 12, 2013 7:20 pm

At least you still had your windshield :-) At the 8pm driver change, when we put the lights on, we forgot to put the hood pins back. (tired + rushed is a bad cocktail) Kraig made two laps (based on laptimes) before air got under the hood. On approach to T1. At over 100mph. He kept his cool and got off to a corner worker who put the hood down. The hood came back with enough force to fold the roof around the cage. 2 and half hours of hammering and the roof was fixed, the hood was (mostly) flat, the rear lexan wass pulled, the really-damned-well-glued-in windshield was out, and the millions of sparkly bits vacuumed up. As long as your visor is down and locked, we're good to go back out. Speed was somewhat compromised after that -- you could get it up to 100mph, but you really didn't want to. Also, driving without a rearview mirror is, well, a challenge. On the plus side, the driver never got hot.

(Yes, we were all aware of how dangerous that was. There's nothing to stop debris from hitting you.)

steve remchak · **Posted:** Mon Aug 12, 2013 10:06 pm

You know, we had running issues late in the day Friday also. It seems several other teams did also. I wonder if maybe VIR doesn't have a contamination issue in one of their fuel tanks........

Michael Westerfield · **Posted:** Mon Aug 12, 2013 10:42 pm

steve remchak wrote:

You know, we had running issues late in the day Friday also. It seems several other teams did also. I wonder if maybe VIR doesn't have a contamination issue in one of their fuel tanks........

Don't tell VIR. What you call "contamination" they call "additive" and will charge more for it.

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

JamesMilko wrote:

Here is what we replaced on Simon, there is something missing. I know I counted 13 things at one point.

Ha, thanks guys for keeping track of all that... I *think* it went down like this:

Stop 1 in hot pits:
Spark plug wires + Dizzy (turned out to have a flaky igniter)
ECU

Stop 2 in hot pits:
Spark plugs
2nd dizzy
MAP Sensor
Mess with grounds

Stop 3, bagged it and went back to pits:
Throttle position sensor
Intake air temp sensor
Disconnect O2 sensor
Gauge cluster (Vehicle speed sensor)

Stop 4 (One of these fixed it):
Fuel Rail
Fuel injectors
Fuel pressure regulator
Fuel filter
Main relay

My money is on FPR malfunctioning somehow to cause low pressure. The main relay had already been reflowed (common to have cold solder joints on those). Or could be a bad reed relay in there which was power cycling the fuel pump.

Funny thing is, we have all the old parts from stop 4 in a bin and we're planning on swapping them back on the car at VIR in Sept at the DE to figure out which part it was!

All in all, no complaints about the race. The car ran so freaking well at CMS in June that the team orders was to "not mess with it". We just had a random 21 year old component which decided to crap out at a most inopportune time. That's Chump. Actually, that's racing in general.

I think Jason did some monday morning quarterbacking and found out that when we stopped for problems, we were on the same lap as the eventual winner. When wee re-entered the race we were 26 laps down on the eventual winners, then when we finished the race after running strong for the next 14 hours, we were 22 laps down on them. Ergo, were it not for the problem we would have won by 4 laps

That's the story I'm gonna stick with a least

Thanks again guys for helping out. Still had a good time and looking forward to next year!

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

I should mention ... it really, really, really helps to have a complete, organized, tested spares package. All of the stuff we needed was mostly at hand to get the car back on track. There are far too many teams that do not think through this stuff well... random parts keeping them off track. Next item on the list (#15?) to swap would have been a fuel pump, and that is one thing that we did not have a ready-to-go new spare (only an old rusted one). Considering how hard it would be to replace (drop the tank) we plan to have a new one on hand at the next event.

In fact, Booksmart (Scott Lusted and others) borrowed our spare alternator bracket to get themselves back on track and to an eventual 5th place. I wonder how much better they would have done if they didn't need to go scrounging for that part?

Congrats to those guys, btw, well deserved. It was fun seeing one integra surrounded by 4 cheaty-ass BMWs on the (5-deep) podium!

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

steve remchak wrote:

You know, we had running issues late in the day Friday also. It seems several other teams did also. I wonder if maybe VIR doesn't have a contamination issue in one of their fuel tanks........

Fyi, we were not using VIR gas. Brought our own.

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