[Fot] RiffRAF Racing National Chumpionship 25.5 hr. race report...

[Jamie Palmer]

We came, we raced...we did well...for a while.  This was the "National
Chumpionship" at Iowa Speedway, Newton IA.
 
Friday, Sept. 2 (practice):
Unfortunately, the initial trend (one of the first cars through the gate, one
of the first cars through tech, one of the first cars on the track for
testing) did not continue  

Spent most of the test time getting tire
pressures right and convincing me, who had never driven on an oval, that it
was ok to push through the turns. It was great seeing most teams for the first
time (and others again!) that we had seen on the forums and race reports but
not in person. Lacey2 seemed to settle in nicely, albeit rather slowly, to the
oval and our team coach managed to get my oval lap times down by 4 seconds by
the time we were done. The road course (the race alternated between the road
course and the oval with switchovers during caution periods...) was pretty
straightforward and fun...it was neat being able to outbrake anyone else on
the track!  Ate a nice team meal and got a little sleep.

Saturday, Sept. 3
(13 hours):

Rain! Rain is good! When you have an underpowered but
good-handling car, rain was a plus. We hadn't run in real rain yet (eat your
heart out Midwestern folks) as the Southeast ChumpCar races have been
surprisingly clear. We found that we could run with anyone on the road course
(getting passed on the oval turn and making it up in the infield) and had a
grand time battling with cars that ended up finishing much better than we did.
Ended up in 6th-10th (out of 47 cars) most of the time and were 7th at the end
of day 1. Surprised a LOT of people...running against BMW E30's, E36's,
Toyotas, Mazdas (Miata & RX7's), Hondas, etc...One of our drivers had a
terrific duel with a Toyota FX16 towards the end of the day that took out a
headlight (racing incident, no foul) but they both came in with big wide grins
on their faces.  Went over the car, fixed a few things, picked up another
battery at a 24 hour Walmart.  Got to sleep around 2:30 am.

Sunday, Sept 4
(12.5 hours):

All WAS well...until a half-shaft decided to break inside the
rear hub, RH side. One of the winning BMW E30 team members reported we hit an
altitude of over 4 feet as we careened off the track on top of some tire
barriers right after the hairpin. We needed to replace the wheel, drum,
brakes, backing plate, hub, halfshaft and trailing arm (ugh!). Iowa Speedway
tow truck was kind enough to hoist the TR6 into the garage and stayed until we
could get a jack stand under it! Kudos!!!! According to chumpstaff we got the
car back out in less than 40 minutes...haven't verified that through MyLaps
yet but I know it was quick. Had all the parts ready to go thanks to Jack
McGahey but that's still a lot of fasteners to get right. After that, things
continued to go downhill as we broke a third stock TR6 wheel (gonna buy some
real wheels before Sebring) and a wheel stud...and then the rack decided to
stop turning right. Unfortunately, we were on the road course at
 the time! After repairing all the above and replacing the rack, we were out
again, only to run out of fuel due to a miscalculation with 10 minutes to
go....at the other end of pit road from where we were pitted!

A Porsche
team was VERY kind to give us fuel, fire extinguisher, gloves, helmet to one
of our guys still in his suit so we could refuel at the other end of pit
road...nice example of the spirit of ChumpCar!!!!  We ended up 18th out of 47.
Had a great time, happy to meet folks, looking forward to 14 more hours at
Sebring on September 24th!    C'mon out and join us as we will continue to
wave the Triumph (and hopefully FOT if it gets here in time) flag at another
endurance race!
 
Pictures at http://riffrafracing.blogspot.com
 
Jamie Palmer
Squadron Leader, RiffRAF Racing
'75 TR6 ChumpCar