MidOhio 2011 - F1600 Series rounds 5 and 6 (continued...)

The Mygale of Steve Bamford was 'beached' after the first race.  An 'off' filled the sidepods with grass and caused severe overheating. 

Interesting packaging solution...

With my dad experiencing severe Piper lust, we spent a lot of time going over John Grooms DF5.  It was extremely clean and well put together.

The engine bay bracing and fabricated bellhousing/oil tank are works of art.

I particularly liked the sanitary and simple oil cooler arrangement.  Maybe something similar for the Citation for 2012?

MidOhio 2011 - F1600 Series rounds 5 and 6

The paddock was cramped at MO.  We squeezed into a little bit f space between the RFR factory team and Andy Brumbaugh.

Honda brought along the "Indy Car" Hospitality seetup and fed us all very well all weekend.  This was first class treatment and a really nice gesture from the folks at HPD.  Wish they could be at all the races.

Side view of the HPD Hospitality Rig. Pretty cool setup.

Like the racing equavalent of a sidewalk cafe.  Great food, nice accomodations, big screen TVs to check out the other racing action and the Weather Channel.  I could really get used to this.

Load out

Tonight I am all loaded up and ready for the Glen races.  At 6:00 we leave for the track.  Wish me luck!

Sean

Final Race Prep

Newly re-rimmed Panasport C3 wheels with rains. They were a bit of work to get together, but they seem to hold air nicely. So now I am ready for the wet weather.

Front repairs all done. Nose came out perfectly nice. New lower a-arm was a pain to install, but in the end it all came out looking good during the alignment process.

One brain fart to tell on myself. After the repairs were done, I wanted to scale the car to make sure that the new a-arm hadn't changed the corner weights... So up on the scales it went, and to my surprise the readout read 167/276 for the fronts. I sat there scratching my head for a while wondering how I had managed to get the corners 100# off with a simple a-arm change.

Well after a few minutes, I figured it out. The rears were reading 274/170. Checked my scale cables and yep, I had one set reversed (front in rear, rear in front). So the real corner weights were spot on...Whew!

Tonght is the final load up for the Glen. Hope it cools off soon, becuase pushing aropund a 800# racecar in 95 degree weather kinda sucks.

Later,
Sean

Nose job complete!

So after several hours of prep work, out came the paint gun and the part is now "finished". A little wet sanding and polishing tomorrow morning, and it will definitely pass the 50/50 test (looks good from 50 feet at 50 mph).

Tomorrow I should finish up my prep for the Glen round of the F1600 Championship Series. I still need to reset the front toe and check out the camber/castor/corner weights. Then load it all up for next weekend.

I am getting pretty excited about going back to the Glen. I haven't raced there since 1995 (in my old Reynard FC). But I really enjoyed the track and the area back then. So I am hoping for a similarly positive experience this time. My dad (Bill Maisey) will be tagging along as my 'crew' and chief engineer. Hopefully we can pull off a couple of respectable finishes...

Sean

Nose Job

Repairs to the damaged upper nose are nearing completion. There were two big jagged tears in the part about 9" and 12" long. All bonded back together and filled. I spent the better part of the Indy 500 sanding and finishing the repairs.

Post Summit Damage Assessment

On the opening lap of the Summit Point National this weekend I had a little coming together with Jim Oseth in his Van Diemen. I can't really blame Jim at all - Colin Thompson was fighting for the lead into turn one directly in front of us, and inexplicably he either missed a shift or brake checked us. At full accelleration under green things happened VERY fast and before I could zig enough to miss them I was climbing Jimmy's left rear wheel. The impact was enough to send the nose of my car skyward to about 45degrees.

My dad was running a couple of positions behind and caught the action on his incar: Here

The rear tire ran up the right side of the nose and dinged the lower a-arm and tie rod. I continued on and ultimately worked my way up to 3rd overall, but the race was not kind to me. On lap 8 I developed a slight miss. By lap 9 it was getting worse and coming into turn 9 the car quit completely. The AIM system was in alarm mode and the fuel pressure was dropping like a stone.

Poor focus in the photo, but the point here is that the failure was the spade connector on the fuel pump switch on the back of the dash. The hard impact of the car coming back to the tarmac apparently knocked it a little loose. Over the 9 laps afterward it started to arc and voltage to the pump dropped. By the time the engine quit pressure was down to 7psi. I wish I had thought to reach under the dash, bacause a quick reseat of the connector returned operations to normal and 52psi. A probable National podium finish wasted.

When it bagan to rain around noon at Summit I was really sweating it. I had rain tires in the trailer, but they were not mounted. Fortunately the rain let up shortly after lunch and the group before us largely dried the track, so I did not have to go out on a wet track on slicks (the tire guys were long gone).

Monday afternoon my new wheel halves arrived to allow me to rerim the Panasport C3 wheels to 5.5". Another small project for this week as I prepare for the next Pro Series races at the Glen. They look very pretty and seem pretty light too.

As the week progresses:
1) Replace bent a-arm
2) Replace bent tie rod
3) Fix Nose and paint
4) Fix crush box cover and paint
5) Rerim the C3 wheels and mount the rains
6) Install Glen gearing
and so on...

Sean