about everything minor but time consuming that could go wrong did. This year we were
much better prepared ... but so were The Racing Fates.
02May14; Fri. We arrived at CMP at dawn, towing the Blitzwagen, locate our garage space and find Hawkeye & Dr. Steve sobering up
in their tent. We unload as the sun rises, set up the tool boxes, tables, and tire stacks in garage, and go through tech. There is 8.1 hours
on the engine hours meter.
Above: Hawkeye (aka Yodogg) in blue. That leaves Dr. Steve in so-orange it hurts. They are supposed to be dressed for the LeMons
team-theme. One can only hope.
Tech makes us unbolt the fuel cell and reinforce all the fasteners with larger washers. As we lift and shift the (heavy, full) 12-gallon fuel
cell around, we are unaware we are moving the fuel pickup line inside off its pickup connector. This allowed a bit of old (Daytona May 2013)
undetected, disintegrating anti-slosh foam bloc debris too big to have been sucked up the intake to the filter to get into the line. Fate has
moved on us preemptively.
After tech, we unbolt the mandatory muffler and replace it with a good loud racing stinger. The kind that stuns birds in the trees.
Friday is a practice day. Very light rain at times. Team driver David Scott is not with us this event. Replacing him is novice Jamie
"Jamrod" Chambers. Hawkeye, Jamie, and Dr. Steve run hours of smooth, uneventful practice laps. Barret gives up seat time Friday
to make sure Jamrod gets trained. It is his first time to drive in wheel-to-wheel road racing competition. Our routine of having a
crew member on both doors to help strap in the driver looks like we're preventing a nervous Jamrod from going in the driver's
door and escaping out the passenger side.
If there was ever a track to learn on, it is CMP. Most of the driver's love it. I am something of a track elitist, favoring VIR, Sebring,
Road Atlanta, Daytona (with infield), but CMP has a simplistic charm. I like it.
Above: LeMons always features many a V8. The big, heavy Detroit Iron clunkers come in two types, fast and dangerous
and slow and dangerous.
Friday night, we have steak dinners at the upscale and crowded Sam Kendall's in nearby Camden, S.C., aggravate some of the
locals and amid the partying and alcohol, withdraw in order before we are thrown out.
Above: Kaddie Shack Kads under big velocity stacks. They performed over the long weekend with nary a hiccup.
03May14; Sat. The race begins at 0900 hours. Beautiful weather. The track is 2.27 miles around. 87 cars start, in A, B, and C
classes, of which we are C. The Kads are jetted to 180's fitted with 36mm venturis. Hawkeye goes out first. We are running
one hour driver shifts between refueling. Very roughly, one hour is an average of 7 gallons, as we get about 10 mpg.
Above: All of our refuel stops went smoothly. No fires, no fistfights.
Early into Hawk's session, he overcooks turn 1 going into 2, spins, and hits a Volvo with the Blitzwagen's right rear fender,
smashing it and the taillight assembly. He gets a black flag and penalty. Going back out, he promptly spins at exactly the
same place and gets black-flagged again. Three black flags are the charm, getting the team dismissed for the day and
maybe the race. We have no margin of error left.
Above: Racin' is rubbin'. A V8 taps the Blitzwagen's rear bumper and lifts the rear tire off the pavement.
By midday Saturday, we are having ignition trouble and minor oil leaking causing smoke. Smoke can get us black flagged.
The car has to be driven all the way back to the garages for any repairs or adjustments ... time and time again. We
discover the distributor cap rotor contact button has become stuck and burned, and on another stop find the electrodes -- en total --
on cylinders 1 and 2 have totally burned away. The crossover tube brass fitting on that manifold had vibrated slightly loose and
was sucking air around the threads. Only my initial over-jetting of the carbs had accidentally kept the engine alive. Over the
weekend, we jet down from 180's to 170's and last to 160's, finally reaching the sweet spot.
Above: If there is no oil or fluids leaking out of your race car, it is safe to presume there is no oil or fluids within. To leak.
Some of the smoke was obviously from the oil pressure sensors, both VDO and VW, connected on another brass adaptor. Each
time we tighten and clean them, the smoke stops for a while. But it comes back.
We also experience erratic fuel delivery. We replace the BW's new Holley fuel pressure regulator and Jegs gauge with a duplicate
pair but that doesn't fix it. It gets so bad our twin Facet pumps won't even prime. In desperation we remove and blow out the fuel
cell's interior pickup hose, finding old fuel cell foam caught in the line. We now show proper fuel pressure that responds to adjustment.
Above: Barret's seat time was cut short by the fuel and ignition problems.
A minor but disrupting problem is the 3-4 spark plug wires are frequently coming off, breaking at the Bakelite insulator
connectors whenever one of our driver's makes a hard shift and torques the engine to one side. We resort to more secure
plug wires that require screw-on spark plug tips to be used, and that fixes the problem.
Above; Racing Fates aside, the Blitzwagen can lap with the BMW's.
The numerous trouble-shooting garage stops are taking up vital lap time. On Barret's short few laps, he turns a 2:10
without effort. The BW is capable of at least a 2:05 in traffic. David Scott turned a 2:06 here last year. That's BMW E30 territory.
Fast is fine, but total lap count wins. We need to lap, not to race. Hawk, Steve and Jamie are running consistent 2:15 to 2:20
laps. No spins, no collisions. We are proud of ourselves, and the Saturday night mid-race party in the garage and camping
areas is energetic. Hawkeye and Dr. Steve have an exotic collection of FIA-approved, weapons-grade moonshines. A young
attractive, female race official drops by, asking for "naw-te-wah-tah" (naughty water) and gets it. Then another. I duck out
and crash onto my bunk.
04May14; Sun. Again, a beautiful day. As Hawk and Steve drive, we completely fix the smoking problem. Oil mist from the
not-quite-tight fuel pump block off was collecting on the inside of the engine lid, and dripping down on the exhaust. But, we
are loosing oil at a much higher rate than misting, having poured four qts in the dry sump since yesterday. We see the
main seal is leaking.
Above: This bumblebee-themed Civic shows off its tirewall penetration abilities.
Then, Hawk's power goes away just before 1100 hrs. The new 1-2 cyl side SCAT 1.25 rocker arm assembly shaft
has broken in half at a stud hole. We conduct an engine swap while Barret fixes a loosening main power connection
in the dash kill switch.
Above: Engine swap in process of taking too long.
The engine swap takes about two hours, too long, because of differences in the exhaust system clearances, which
affect oil line routing and heat shielding.
Back in the race, the engine swap quickly brings its own problems. We are seriously falling behind. We find the 1-2
cylinder side spark plugs are being touched just enough by the pistons to close the gap. I have not allotted quite
enough deck space to compensate for parts expansion at high RPM. Double-gasketing the plugs fixes the problem.
There is no evidence of the pistons touching the valves.
We are now well into the afternoon, about two hours to the end of the race. We run Hawkeye and finally Dr. Steve,
who laps until five minutes before the checkered flag, where he is stopped by a seizing engine. Another deadly
leaking main seal has struck. Ironically, the same engine had a leaking seal just after its rebuild, and we had just
replaced that seal with the one now leaking.
But even though we have about 120 laps in the bank, the most time we've ever posted. it's not enough. Too many
trips to the garage. No win for us.
We pack up, 26 hours now on the hour meter, and tow home tired but happy. A bad day at the track is better than
a good day at the office.
FJC
and doing an engine swop at the track sure does show dedication.