Chasing the Dragon

Chasing the Dragon

The logo for the Celica is a Dragon. So we thought an appropriate place to test our Chump Car Celica was the chasing the Dragon Hill climb.  I got a special invitation from Ted Theodore of Southern Driver and organizer of the hill climb in Robbinsville, NC.

 

The hill climb is named after the famous Tail of the Dragon Road with is US 129. Chasing the Dragon Hill climb uses a dead-end road nearby with similar topography.  Although I have been to Robbinsville many times and explored many of the back roads, I don’t remember having actually driven up this road before our scouting trip.

 

After accepting the invitation and making plans to race, I loaded the dog in the Jeep and took a trip to see the hill. The total road length is less than 5 miles. Most of the road is taken up in parking for racers and spectators leaving 2.2 miles to race on.  The pavement is mostly smooth with a few interesting dips and ripples. There are also some new patches.

 

Tom and I arrived early to get an SCCA log book for our car. We already had a Chump Car log book but an SCCA log book is required for the Time Trial.  We also had to apply for our Novice time trial license.  That meant we also had to attend a class that evening.  Tech went smooth on main street of the sleepy little mountain town. We did not even have to unload the car from the trailer.

 

After tech and registration, we took the car to the camp ground and began setting up camp.  I had made arrangements with camp host on my scouting trip and he had saved a nice place to park the truck and trailer. We unloaded the car and snuck it the ¼ mile of public road to get to the hill. We set up a paddock space on the narrow shoulder of the road.

 

Once camp was set up, we headed to town for our class.  Ted lead the class telling us some of how hill climbs work – multiple runs, drivers split into run groups, only the best one counts etc.  He mentioned that it would not be possible to memorize the track in one weekend. I had already realized I could not and was a bit relieved to know that I was not expected to.  I treated it like a short rally stage I had run before.

 

I went to bed a little nervous. I was not sure what it would be like to drive our old car flat out up the mountain.  I took the first run up the hill with Tom being in the later run group. I was a but disappointed that the car had so little power that I was at full throttle all the way up. I hardly lifted at all and never braked until after the finish line.  I was very happy with the grip our Azena tires gave however.

 

Toms first run up the hill was a second or so slower than mine. We compared notes on how to go faster.  I dropped a few second on my next attempt. Tom went even faster edging me out slightly.  We checked the cooling system and added a little water as the car was beginning to get hot on the climbs and not cool quickly in the turnaround area.

 

I had to sit in the stage line a long time as one of the Miatas had a bad off. The driver was carted away in an ambulance but I was told it was just a precaution and he was not hurt.  I tried to not think about it and just focused on the drive up the hill.  As Tom had suggested I shifted into fourth and got more speed out of the car. I was going quite a bit faster than before and took one scary slide as the pavement changed grip in a transition from old to new paving.  I took six seconds off my previous time.

 

Tom made another run pushing hard to drop below my time. He was just a bit slower but noticed that the engine did not cool off on the return trip down the hill like it had been doing all morning.

 

We checked for leaks but did not see any.  I made the decision to press on anyway when my run group was up.  I was having a good run until about the last .3 miles.  I saw a red light flash on the dash but did not see what it was. As the car began to lose power, I noticed the oil pressure was low and the temperature was very high.

 

As I let off the throttle at the finish, I head a tapping coming from the engine.  I left it running in the turnaround area hoping it would cool off from the fan running.  It never did. The tapping got worse as I coasted down the hill. I pulled into the paddock and told Tom the bad news. I had killed the car.  He seemed relieved that it was me this time as he got credit for killing it last time.

 

I was very disappointed as I had really hoped to drop my times with more runs up the hill. I was really starting to enjoy the experience.  I drove back to our camp and loaded the car. I was ready to head home but our support crew had been invited to the worker appreciation dinner so we decided to stay the night.

 

The next morning we got our license signed off and said good-bye to Ted.  He made sure we got trophies for second and third in our class although I did not feel like we really earned them.  It is still a nice trophy and I now have it displayed in my office.

 

We are now having a new engine built and hopefully we can put the overheating problems behind us. I hope to get to do another hill climb and look forward to racing in Charlotte in November.

 

Results and pictures can be found at dragon-hill-climb.