For me, all things considered, it was a damn fine weekend. I’ve had better, but it could have been a whole lot worse. I had fun, and was able to drive the car home. Rewind my “incident” by 10 seconds and it very well may have made Stephen’s incident from last year look minor. Like Ryan always says, “I’d rather be lucky than good”. I was lucky for sure.
About two laps from the end of session two, I entered the infield and made my left headed out of turn three. Just as I get back on the throttle, I get a “thud” from the right rear. It felt almost like I de-beaded the tire, but not exactly. So I pulled onto the grass to get out of the way, and be in clear view of the corner worker in turn four. The corner worker told me to wait for the checkered flag, so I waited and tried to figure how I was going to get the tire fixed. When I got out of the car and looked the tire was fully inflated, but toed in about 10 degrees! The corner worker from station 5 came over and said he saw the RR lock up and figured it was a brake problem.
I waited along with the workers to get a tow, but all they could do was a flat tow which would essentially drag the car since that wheel was locked. I told the guys that if that was the case I could drive the car and drag it myself, which is what I did to get it off the track. Luckily there was an access road to use as a shortcut so the tire actually didn’t get damaged.
So after Ryan and I broke out the tools and remove the tire we saw the problem. It was a no-brainer since the hub stayed on the car and the flange with the studs fell to the ground. The bearing had seized, and the forward torque of the rotating wheel literally rung off the 1” diameter shaft. Yep, it snapped a 1” diameter shaft like a twig. The only thing that kept the wheel on the car was the brake caliper and bracket which was holding the rotor. It bent the ¼” steel plate bracket pretty good, but it held up…that’s the part I built myself. I
just replaced this bearing two weeks ago, so stupid me I didn’t think I needed a spare. After all the factory bearing lasted 190K miles so I figured maybe this one would make it at least one event. Will I ever learn? Maybe I need to bring another whole car (like my wife’s Cavalier) to the event to use for spare parts.
Luckily John Hines needed to head into Rockingham to get some tires mounted and offered to pick up any parts I needed if I could find them. I called Advance and fortunately that had one in stock, so Ryan and I disassembled the broken stuff while John was doing the parts run. I moved the left side bearing (a factory one) to the right since that is the heavily loaded side and would mount the Chinese-built replacement bearing to the left. I didn’t want to chance putting that new POS bearing on the “money side” of the NASCAR banking.
The next problem was the rear caliper mounting plate was bent, and three brakes were not an option. So I get out the old BFH and pound it back into shape as best I could. I got it pretty straight, but not good enough to make the caliper parallel to the rotor. I searched the pits for some washers or anything to use as shims to make up the difference, but I didn’t have anything that would work. Again I asked another fine gentlemen (sorry I didn’t get his name) and he had a whole box full of assorted washers and told me to take what I needed. Luckily he had the right size, and with a few extra shims the brake caliper was back in business.
With five minutes to spare, I was able to make it to the time trial grid, much to the amazement of the grid worker. He asked how I was able to get it fixed at all and then how I did it so quickly. I told him with a few good friends and some wrenches it was no problem. Thanks again to John and Ryan for the help to get it back together, as well as the gentlemen who helped with the needed shims. These guys definitely saved my weekend!
As always, thanks to Mark, Stacy, and the rest of the staff for putting on another great event. I'll be at VIR-F in February (new
FACTORY bearings installed) ready to do it again.
PS.
What's the official story on Captain Ron's woes?
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Especially when I realized I could go through it with my foot planted firmly to the floor from turn 7 to the braking point for turn 3.
He didn't think 2nd would gain me that much.
