Hi all!
This weekend was the CVAR winter school and races at the Texas Motor
Speedway (gotta love living in the south!). It was a well-attended event
with a test and tune day on Friday, and a lot of people were breaking in
new engines, including ourselves.
The weekend went pretty well. It was dang cold with 20-mph winds Friday,
pretty darn nice Saturday, and dang cold again Sunday. TR's in attendance
were ourselves, Joe Hovey and his green Spit (yay, another Spit!), and Jim
McAndrew with his GORGEOUS TR3. It was really wierd to not have Larry
Young, John Price and Bob Kramer racing (Larry had car issues and a son
graduating, John had torn into his suspension and didn't get it back
together in time, and Bob didn't get his new engine installation completed
in time). John worked corners all weekend (yeah, John!), Bob showed up
Saturday to check cars for authenticity and legality (CVAR is cracking down
on non-compliance with a new regulatory system, to make sure people are
following the regs) and Barbara gracefully froze it out in the morning with
the rest of us and enjoyed the sun in the afternoon.
There were 32 new drivers signed up for the school, which beats the
previous record from last fall (19 or 20, I believe)! There were 155
drivers signed up for the weekend, and I am not sure what the final count
was with walk-ins.
Weekend results:
We suffered through some fuel delivery problems and ended up replacing the
regulator. We still had starving or flooding in turn 2 and the last turn
heading out onto the straight in the last race (but still got by a bunch of
folks and had a blast). Maybe too much fuel pressure? The new engine ran
strong and well and I shifted it several times well over 7300 rpms on the
straight, and it still had more to give. The 4.11 rear end is well-suited
for TWS -- it came out of corners well and I actually blew by people toward
the end of the straight (OD helps)! I clocked my personal best TWS time of
2:17 and some change Saturday afternoon, and that was with fuel delivery
issues and more careful driving due to the cold. I am looking forward to
seeing how the next event turns out! Thank you, Ed, for the great engine
work, and Brad for everything else!!!!
Jim's car ran very well and looked great on the track. He had some minor
issues but made every session and sported a huge grin most of the weekend!
He is very dedicated to his car and worked hard to keep it performing well
and looking very nice.
Joe had a pretty good weekend in his green Spitfire -- he was taking
driver's school (three days) and I think he made every session but one. He
had problems with his head gasket and retorqued the head and added water to
the radiator most of the weekend, but soldiered on and got a LOT of seat
time in.
There were several incidents over the weekend, mostly due to cold tires,
cold track and cold brains. One problem occurred in the garage area Friday
night -- apparently a couple folks got into a head-on collision and one of
the had to go to the hospital for stitches. (It is getting VERY crowded
and busy in the paddock area and people drive too fast and don't look out.)
The next incident happened on the start as group 2 was going into Turn 2 --
Stacy Rodgers (Pinnacle Motorsports Sprite) lost it on the cold track, spun
out and got tagged pretty good by the #3 Spridget. They were okay, but it
was interesting going through Turn 2 with tow trucks hooking them up at the
outside edge of the corner (hopefully everyone slowed way down for them).
Another one happened in Group 7 when two Caterhams got into it, and Bobbi
Marshall's husband went to the hospital with a concussion. He came back
Sunday to watch, and was okay. His bell got rung against his roll bar, and
you could see the color of the CVAR stickers he had on there that
transferred to his helmet! Another reminder to pad EVERYWHERE you think
your helmet might rap against in an incident, and about another foot
farther past that!
Two more problems happened as drivers lost it on the straight -- the Lola
driver gunned his car for the green, spun out and hit the outer wall (by
the bleachers) with his back left corner. We heard all sorts of things
from a broken CV joint to driver error, so not really sure what happened
there. It was very sad to see it sitting on the trailer with the back end
cracked up. A formula car driver did something similar in the same place
but I am not sure what happened -- Brad said he saw something blue fly up
and then the car was stopped against the wall. Maybe his bodywork came off?
It was cool to see that Digital Race Photography had used a shot of me
passing the #74 Sprite on Saturday as the main picture in one of their ads!
Guess the bright green paint is starting to pay off! ;)
The funny sighting of the weekend was the dark green #116 Spridget that had
the letters, "call" upside down under his number with a circle around the
whole thing. If the car were to be upside down, it would read, "call 911"
I laughed out loud when I saw him for the first time.
I hope everyone else had weekends as good as ours!
Keep Triumphing,
Susan :)
#42 FP Spitfire Tristan
PS -- The next CVAR event is at Hallett April 2-4, featuring a 40th
anniversary of Mustang race. We'd love to see FOT members there! You can
go to www.corinthianvintagerace.com for details.
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