Back from Black Hawk Farms Raceway in Rockton, Ill after a very nice
fall weekend
of racing. This is a midwest council(sports car club)event that runs a
mini vintage race in the midst of their regular races. By regular races
I mean VW Rabbits, Honda Civics, Mazda Miata's, all the regular SCCA
stuff.
Those cars got races of 80 minutes in length, while us vintage guys got
30 minute races. Plenty of time for these old cars. With three
sessions on Saturday and two on Sunday, the track time was a great deal
for the money.
Of course, since there is only one vintage class, everything and
anything that qualifies as a vintage race car is put into that one
class. We had everything from us bottom feeder Sprite drivers to muscle
car 'Vettes, Camaro's and even a few Formula cars thrown in for good
measure. The most used part on the car this weekend was the rear-view
mirror.
Team Thicko was represented by yours truly driving old Black Bart, Jon
Big Rig Bauer in another Bugeye Sprite, John Saccamono(I have no idea
how to spell his last name, sorry)in his red Bugeye, and the Beady Eye
race team. I guess there were over 50 cars registered in the vintage
class, so there were a lot of cars we usually don't see at the VSCDA
races.
This was my first experience using the mandatory transponder for timing
and scoring. The midwest council people made it easy for us, supplying
rental units and detailed instructions on how to install them. I like
them. You get accurate lap times for each and every lap. Of course Big
Rig will dispute that.
Saturdays sessions went off without a miss. Black Bart was running
great and I had many interesting dices with others. Big Rigs car was
constantly over heating, but since this was the last race weekend of the
season for us, he decided to run it til meltdown. That happened on
Sunday, literally.
I got almost a full lap in the morning warm-up, when the engine cut
out. I coasted to the pit entrance and got a tow back to the pits.
Opened the hood and everything was wet. The middle freeze plug of the
948 engine had blown out, soaking the distributor and killing the
ignition.
Off to look for a freeze plug. Asked an FP Sprite driver and he said he
had one. Well, the plug size is different on a 1275 engine so that
didn't work. Wandered up and down the paddock, looking for a freeze
plug, nothing to be had. I called Ron Soave who lives nearby and he
said he had one. Great! I would come and get it if I couldn't find
anything else. Called him back 20 minutes later and said I was on my
way, when he said...."It wont work" He had one from a 1275 too. damn!
I was screwed.
John Saccosomething had a buddy racing a 1969 Chevelle ex-nascar with a
327 in it. Cool car
and guess what? The freeze plugs for that engine are apparently the
same diameter as the 948cc engine. We mixed up some JB Weld, just for
reassurance, stuck it in the hole, pounded it in, and let it set up.
Race time came and we went out. Ran the entire race with it in, not a
drip out of it. Had some interesting dices with Datsun's and of course
the ever present Vettes and Mustangs trying to get past in the corners.
They cant do that at Black Hawk, but they sure do blast past you on the
straights.
We had great weather all weekend, with plenty of track time and no
broken cars.
Time to winterize...
Gary
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