Warning, vintage race report follows: (not too lengthy)
Just returned home from the HSR event at Mid-Ohio after taking part in the
Sprite-Mini Challenge.
The weekend began with rain, rain and more rain. It rained on the way there
and rained all day during Friday practice. I discovered that worn Yokohama
A008s are pretty poor for wet traction. Performed a couple of lazy harmless
spins with no damage.
Saturday was dry windy and cool, quite cool. About 19 minis and 15 sprites
showed up for the qualifying race. The grid for the qualifying race was
completely screwed up due to merging of the files for a couple of race groups.
despite that, I was gridded about 14th overall out of 37 present.\
after qualifying, we were all pulled in for a group photo in the infield. it
was great seeing all the mini race cars and spridgets.
Due to cars in previous groups inablility to keep their cars on the track, our
race was shortened to 6 laps. I decided to up my mental rev limit to 7700 or
7800 for the race instead of the usual 7500, to keep up with and pass the
fast Canadian Minis (except for baker and sobering)
despite baker's efforts, one of the "speedwell" sprites, driven by Dr. J
finishined in first. these are lightweight 1380 powered sprites, with very
hot motors.
Just an aside the baker and sobering minis were both prepared by sobering at
great cost and were real fast and light. baker is also an excellent and
aggressive driver to boot.
I worked my way up to 8th overall 2d in M3W (some strange class system) by
passing the minis of morgan, famme, gibbs(of Seven Ent.), and holding off the
mini of wold. I was able to keep on the tail of haile, one of the speedwells.
I was right on his tail through all the corners, but he pulled away on the
straights due to power and aerodynamics.
Then on the last lap I got sideways in the keyhole turn,
because of or causing my left rear shock mount to snap and without the
limiting effect of the shock the brake line to that wheel was sheared off.
I thus had zero brakes for the last lap and lost a few places, dropping to
13th overall, 3d in M3W.
with my friends help (jim fletcher) and some tools from bob tarzewell, the
second fastest of the canadian minis, we extracted the broken off shock stud
>from the trailing arm and fitted a close length graded bolt to replace the
stud. bob t also said that the stud may have broken because I had the shock
set too stiff. he sets his spax between 0 and 1 click, I had mine at about 8
out of 15. we reset the shocks, made a new brake line with the fittings I
carry and thought we were ready to go.
we left the track at 830pm and still had time to make the very nice and
generous party sponsored by Square A motorcars. prime rib shrimp and the food
kept coming. it was luck we were two hours late, the crowd had thinned enough
so that there was no line.
returned to the track the next morning, found soft brakes. after a quick
morning warm up to test the new susp. settings, we bled brakes again and
again, replaced a wheel cylinder and after about 3 hours, finally got all the
air out of the system I sucked in trying to pump the brakes when I found they
were gone...
the race was to be 8 laps. I started where I finished the qual. race., 13th
overall. it took me a couple of laps to pass the very wide sprite ahead of me
then one lap to pass morgan's mini and another 2 to pass famme faster mini.
I got a good shot out of the carousel and passed him on the pit straight just
before turn one and started to gain on the cars further ahead. I was passed
by the sobering and faille minis which started even further back due to
mechanical difficulties. there was red midget which was gaining on me and
on the second to last lap passed me through corner 5 at the fastest part of
the course, but as we both went up the hill to 6, we saw yellow flags and
cars off at the rail. the midget went off and joined the cars at the rail.
I backed off and spun on the track, getting repassed by famme and morgan.
I immediately rejoined the race, but there was not enough time to catch and
repass them.
Dr. Jahimiaks speedwell finished first, followed by baker (mini), tarzewell
(mini), the other speedwells, faille (mini) wold (mini). I believe I was
top ten, but have not yet seen the final results. the accident over the
hill turned out to be oil spilled by a sprite, resulting in the crash of
kermit wold and gibbs (minis), joined by the aforementioned spridget.
It was great weekend despite a few disappointments and I look forward to
the next mid-ohio event next june.
jim fuerstenberg
jfuerstenberg@dcmdc.dla.mil or xgg2356@dcmdc.dla.mil
Warning, as the velocity of this vehicle increases, so does it mass and extra
braking force will be required!
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