GO-Brennan.com - 8th Race

Race #8 at Bronson Speedway
08-06-05

Well, I guess I have a new favorite track! Bronson is really nice. It's fast and it's banked a lot and it's well maintained. The manager was real nice to us too and tried to give us as much practice as he could but we sort of messed that up...

It was raining all around us as we drove to the track. When we got there if had just rained but not that much. The short shower had cooled the temperature down to about 80 degrees and the sun came right back out and everything was drying really fast but it didn't stay cool very long and by the time we were ready to practice it was back up to 95! The track was dry though and the rains were gone for the night so it all worked out just fine.

During the 2 weeks we had off we worked on the car a lot. We even went to practice at Bronson one day so that we could get the car balanced a little better. The nose on the car was still damaged from the wreck at Waycross so we had some cooling problems and the car started to backfire a little before the practice session was over. Still, we did get the car to where it was nice and neutral in the turns and then we brought it back home and went over everything to try and find out why the motor wasn't running up to speed.

We pulled the old nose off and built a new bumper that was a lot stronger than the one we had before. Then we noticed that the muffler had a hole in it which explained the backfiring so we repacked the muffler and while we were at that my crew chief noticed a little dirt in the ram air tubes so he took that apart and cleaned it and then did some re-engineering on it thinking he was making it better. After all that we thought we were pretty ready for the race.

In the first practice the car wouldn't run. It would only turn 5000 rpm and then sputter. My crew chief asked me if it acted like it did when we were having the problems with the ram air in the spring and, after I thought about it for a minute, I realized that that was exactly what it felt like. So, we started looking around and sure enough the new ram air tube had completely fallen off.

We put it back on and I went out for the second practice and the car was awesome. I was real fast and I had tons of bite off the corners. After about 3 or 4 laps I was coming around turn 3 really trying to hit my marks and all of a sudden there were about 5 cars all pilled up in front of me in turn 4. I got on the brakes and spun the car around but I got it stopped before I hit anybody. 5 out of our 8 cars were wrecked in that deal. That was the end of practice. The track manager moved our heat race and feature up in the race order a little so that we would have more time to try to get our cars fixed before the race. We got all but one ready for the heat.

When I went out to line up for the heat the car started doing the same thing as did in the first practice. I made a few laps and realized I wouldn't be able to race so I just came back to the pits. It turned out that this time the tube got hot and softened so much that it collapsed and cut off the air flow. So, my crew chief took off his re-engineered set up and put it back to the way it was in the first place. Since I didn't race the heat I would now have to start at the back.

When the race started I tried to get the shifting right but I still can't get it going like everybody else. We have a memory tach that records the rpm for the whole race and when we got home we replayed the race and found that I am still shifting too soon. Anyway, they got a bit of a jump on me but I did a little better than usual and when we got to turn 2 I caught the 6th place car and turned under him to pass. He drove me all the way down below the white line to block me and then eventually ran over my right front fender and spun himself out so we had to restart the race. In the second start the exact same thing happened but this time, when this guy tried to drive me into the infield, I just let up a little and let him have the spot. He was so tight in the turns I figured I would get a better chance to make a clean pass on him once we were up to full speed.

A few laps later I was right on his tail and then the 8 car got loose coming off of turn 2 and spun into the infield. He stopped abruptly when he hit the curb of the figure 8 track but his rear axle and right front suspension didn't and proceeded to exit the left side of the car. Needless to say he was done for the night so I was now in 6th place.

We got lined up again and then as we were coming around turn 4 the 5th place car took off and went under the 4th place car like he was going to start the race so I tried to go with him. All of a sudden he slowed down again but by that time I was right on his bumper. Before I could slow down I popped him a good one. He had been involved it the big wreck in practice and had his rear bumper knocked off. They tried to fix it so he could race but it was just sort of hanging there so, when I hit him, it pretty much disintegrated. That turned out to be the end of his night so on the next restart I was now in 5th place.

This time I think I did even a little better than the time before. I stayed with the 4th place car and after about 4 laps he went real high in turn 3 so I turned down and got under him coming off turn 4. From there I had about a 1/2 a track between me and the 3rd place car and was holding my own but I couldn't make up any distance on the leaders. The rest of the race went without incident and then, with 2 laps to go, my oil pressure light came on and I realized I was loosing oil pressure.

Before I went out my crew chief told me that if the motor didn't run right I still had to start the race because otherwise I wouldn't get any points. He said not to come in even if I was real slow because there are always a few cars that don't finish the race so if I stayed out, and stayed out of trouble, I would do even better. I watched as the oil pressure slowly went to zero and it seemed that the motor was loosing power but he told me to stay out so I stayed out. At the very end the water temperature was rising too but somehow I finished the race and the motor stayed together.

When we got back to the pits we added oil a little at a time and it took 3 quarts to fill it back up! Funny thing was that there was no oil on the garage or the trailer floor, there was no oil on the bottom of the car or in the overflow, and no one said they felt any oil down on the track or that they saw any smoke coming out of my car. We couldn't figure out where the oil had gone! Turns out that there was an o-ring missing on the motor timing cover and whoever installed it last used sealer in its place. The sealer held for over 2 years but on Saturday, I guess from the heat, it finally gave up and began to leak when the motor was running. Since we still had about 2 quarts of oil and the motor didn't get that hot we don't think I hurt it but we went looking for a new motor just in case.

I've got to get this shifting thing figured out. My crew chief says that once I do it right I'll know how it's supposed to feel and I won't have any problem with it after that. I sure hope he's right!