World Racing League @ Circuit Of The Americas 12/01/18

United States Endurance Championship

Friday I got to coach this fine gentleman in is BMW 235

Almost 90 cars take the field!

From the peak of corner 1

Part of my stint Sunday...@ 9:17 the BMW e30 spins in front of me and dive to the dirt to avoid hitting him

Saturday12th of 25 in GP3 class. 48th of 88 overall. Too much drama for us with a wheel bearing, then a hit and another bent/broken wheel and alignment issues, and then the loose battery later (again from the hit).  Sunday finished 32nd out of 83 overall and 11th out of 23 in class.

World Racing League @ Hallett Raceway

At Hallett Raceway 44 cars took to the 10 turn 1.8 mile track October 20 for the World Racing League 8 hour endurance race.  Saturday we ran the course clockwise.  I will update with video clips and other pictures as I get them.....

Sunrise shines on the control tower, each morning the "chicken song" plays over the PA, and before any cars take to the race track we begin with the national anthem (as it should be!).

This actually happened during our practice day.  The driver of our car says he didn't drop it off of any curbs or anything, it just let go.  Apparently these 949Racing 6UL wheels are notorious for breaking.

Saturday we finished 4th in class, and 14th overall.  Honestly we only got 4th because the previous 4th place car had a hub fail and was unable to repair it before the race ended.

Sunday 41 cars took to the field, which we ran Counter Clockwise.  Our Miata actually had three car to car contacts which is super rare.  I was in the car for two of the incidents.   One of them I was the 3rd car of four car group, all of us were pretty close to the same speed.  The car behind me tried to dive in ton the inside of a turn, which has a low percentage of success anyways.  That car ended up doing a pit maneuver on my passenger rear, spun me around.  Fortunately no one else hit me.  I got the car back to pits, and we found that both the front & rear alignment was knocked out of whack, and the was damaged.  We got the car back on track and were able to finish 9th in class, and roughly 18th in class.

Atlanta Motorsports Park & Georgia Racing Hall of Fame

I was traveling for work, in Atlanta, but was able to schedule some time to play tourist.  I went to Atlana Motorsports Park to check out their out door karting track. 

I got the fastest damp lap of the day, the two other times were by drivers during the day. This place has 45' of elevation change, and the track is 0.85 miles long. The automobile road racing track was closed so I couldn't even get a sightseeing lap in. I shall have to schedule a return visit! https://atlantamotorsportspark.com/karting/

Up the road a little ways in the city of Dawson, is the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame.  

JAB Motorsport with World Racing League at Brainerd International Raceway 9/8/18 & 9/9/18

Abbreviated race report from World Racing League at Brained International Raceway.

A little bit of rear bumper cam footage from Sunday.

Saturday the first driver came in 25 minutes early due to a vibration; couldn't find anything but it was puking transmission fluid. Swapped vehicle speed sensors which was a debacle because the plastic speedometer gear fell apart in the gear box, discovered the gear box was over full, which was the source of the gear lube all over the place.  Sent the 2nd driver out, he came in at 5 laps with vibrations, found all of the passenger side axle bolts were loose, that was a disaster narrowly avoided.  An hour later that axle needed replacing.  After another hour the spare used axle also needed replacing!  The damage to the axle also damaged the bearing.  So that night the spindle was swapped and a roughed in alignment was done using borrowed Intercomp Racing Products.

I started the race Sunday.  Discovered during the first lap that I have virtually no front brakes.  The rear brakes would lock up and send the tail of car off to one side or the other.  I was forced to move my braking points way back to avoid tire lock up.  In turn #3 I would brake about the 4.5 marker were as I would usually brake at the 2.5 marker or so.  After 1.75 hours in my stint, the brakes came back!  My only theory is that all of the gear lube, axle grease, and touching the rotors, contaminated the pads/rotors.  In hindsight we never did use brake cleaner the night previous.  Apparently we miss a few things when doing 1:30am repairs.  Lap times dropped by nearly 3 whole seconds.

The car went off of the track at least four times that weekend, but the only definite damage was the partially torn front air damn.  The fourth driver went out and after a bit he calls in "I have no power, car dead!".  Turns out that the on this generation VW the cast aluminum starter is sandwiched between the front motor mount and gear box, a long bolt goes through all three.  Which makes it a real PITA to get all parts to align up.  The "ear" of the starter sheered off, the starter fell out of position.  The motor mount came loose, ripped out part of the air inlet tubes, making the car not run.  The motor also came crashing down, where the oil filter was bashed into the front sub-frame.  This is a first time I have ever seen a failure like this!  We got the car back out on track, and we were still in 2nd place, a few laps up on 3rd.  Fearing the motor ran without oil for a while we asked the driver to keep it under 6000rpms.  We had no hope of catching 1st place, and at that pace we would keep 2nd.  

Not very exciting bumper cam footage of the failure.

The car held together, and we came home with a 2nd place trophy.  

Stupid Racecars....

Team JAB has decided awaken from it's hiatus and enter the World Racing League "Comp du Lacs" race at Brainerd International Raceway September 8~9.  Those that have been following the team might remember that the last time this car raced, we went through not one but two motors!

A few lessons we learned from that race:
-Hydraulic lifters are a wear item (replace them once in a while)
-Lighter weight hydraulic lifters are not necessarily a good thing
-Drivers come out of the car after driving a stint are not to touch anything mechanical

I purchased a motor that was "recently" rebuilt from an acquaintance I know from the VW world who also works as a non-VW dealer technician.  So the thought was "we should be good".  The previous owner did run a low boost super charger on it, but assured me that proper tuning was used to keep air/fuel ratios in check.  We replaced a bunch of gaskets, installed it in the car, and took it over to DB Performance for a dyno session.

This motor made 11 less HP than our previous motor and smoked quite a bit out of the crank case breather and tail pipe.  

Got the car back to the garage, did a compression test, the numbers were: Cyl#1=190psi, cyl#2=180, cyl#3=195, cyl#4=100.  DOH!  A leak down test on cyl#4 had bad news to.  Pulled off the cylinder head and found that one of the ARP head studs had busted through a water jack, I am assuming that the hole had debris or too much oil in it.  Remove the motor as it is junk.  Pull out cylinder #4 to find the ring lands are busted.  Good catch!  It would have been moments away from disaster!

A few lessons learned:

-Don't trust other people to build motors, even if they are a dealer technician

-Compression test motor before going to a dyno session

What you are looking at, is a broken coolant jacket.  The person who installed the ARP head studs did something majorly wrong to bust it out!  Mostly like the bolt hole wasn't clean and or had oil/debris inside.

We acquired another motor with unknown history.  A compression test was conducted with it out of the car and it passed, so we cleaned it up, swapped heads, our good bits, and installed it in the car.  Got the car fired up, found it has an exhaust leak.  Found a crack in the exhaust manifold.  Right were the factory crimp on the tube.

Racin' Song!

I have been following a local artist for a few years now.  His last album now contains my favorite song ever!  It is about life and racing!  He is performing at a local track, so that track made a music video.  As you may have guessed, I much prefer turning both left and right vs roundy-round but the video is pretty good!

Crank Shaft & the Gear Grinders webpage

A few pictures from the O'rielly Summer Nationals/QA1 Auto-x (hosted by SCCA-LoL)

I have a short video clip of me doing a practice run, that I will upload later.

A lifted Geo Tracker on mud tires, at an auto-cross?!?

Sweet Chevy C10

RatRod with a 5th wheel

Me!