{"id":4687,"date":"2019-02-13T19:21:01","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T00:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/?p=4687"},"modified":"2019-02-13T19:22:54","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T00:22:54","slug":"road-atlanta-champcar-14-hour-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/road-atlanta-champcar-14-hour-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Road Atlanta ChampCar 14 hour race"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good finish for a race we almost did not make.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

After our last race of 2018, there was not much work to do\nto the car.  Just change the oil and make\nsure the safety equipment was up to date for 2019 tech inspection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

We did find some bolts loose on the clutch slave cylinder\nbut that was an easy repair.  Just glad\nwe caught it in the inspection rather than at failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had to get our Fire Suppression system certified for\nSFI.  I found that our ESS system was\nmanufactured in Oak Ridge, so I made a trip to the factory and had an\ninteresting talk with the inventor of the system.  He made sure our system was properly filled\nup and had the right stickers in place. Kudos to Sam for excellent customer\nservice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we were loading the car in the trailer on Sunday before the race, we noticed a puddle of water that had not been there before.    After a lot of diagnosis, we determined that the water pump<\/a> was leaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Changing the water pump on a 944 is kind of a big deal as it\nis located under two timing belts and their covers. Also, you can\u2019t just run to\nAutoZone and get a water pump for a 1986 Porsche 944.  We were pretty discouraged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a few fruitless phone calls to local parts stores, I elected to have Amazon<\/a> ship me one though their prime delivery service.  Then we set about removing the old pump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pump arrived as scheduled and I installed it.  There was some damage to the box, but I did\nnot think much of it.  Only after\neverything was installed and the belts retimed and tensioned did I try to add\ncoolant.  And then found it promptly\nleaked right back out of the new water pump. \nMy hopes fell again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was late Wednesday night and we had to load and leave\non Thursday.  We were very discouraged\nbut determined to make the race.  We tore\ndown the front of the engine again and Gary noticed a slight bulge on one\ncorner of the pump that I had missed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I clamped the pump in the vise and cleaned up the burr.  We put it back on with a new gasket and this\ntime added some water and pressure tested. \nAt first it seemed to hold but after adding 10% antifreeze, it started\nleaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So off it came again. \nGary did some more cleaning to the mounting surface on the block and I\nfiled a little more on the pump body.  As\nfinal desperation move, we coated both sides of the gasket with Indian Head\nShellac knowing that if this did not work, cleanup was going to be a bear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We were all very excited when I pumped up the system to 15\nPSI and there were no drips.  We added\nthe proper antifreeze protection and called it a night as it was too late for\nme to be doing the delicate timing belt adjustments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early the next morning, I timed the engine and installed\nboth timing belts. I carefully set the tension and reinstalled the covers. By\nnoon I had the car loaded and ready for the trip to Atlanta.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I never wanted to be one of those teams that is working on the\ncar the night before the race but here we were this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year we were in the Pro Pits on the infield side of the\ntrack.  I was worried about space, but it\nturned out to be much nicer than the club side that we normally use.  We could park the trailer much closer to out\npit stall and there was no hill! The paddock area is nice and flat on the\ninfield side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We noticed the tech line was not very long, so I jumped in\nthe car and put it in line and sent Tom after the last few stickers that we\nstill need to install.  Bill Strong\nhelped us with which old stickers needed to be removed and what new ones were\nrequired.  We ended up just using the\nsponsor panel as provided and not cutting it apart like before.  This helped cover more of the damage on the\npassenger door from the VIR incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At tech, our only issue was the window net.  We had known it was expired but the one Tom\nbought was an FIA certified unit with no expiration date.  I also did not like the way it fit on our\nsupports.  We explained our concerns to\nthe tech inspector who eventually let us pass with the FIA net.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next morning, we visited Ron at Discovery Parts and got\na G force net like the one we had before but with a current date.  This net fit fine but somehow the webbing\nblocks the side mirror more than the previous one.  I will look into how to adjust it before the\nnext race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We got in a few test laps during the test session with no\nissues.  We all took a few laps to get\nfamiliar with track again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was not as cold as we had expected on race day morning\nwhich was a welcome relief. Past races at Road Atlanta had seen temperatures\nbelow freezing at the start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I ran the first hour and a half stint uneventfully turning a\npersonal best of 1:56. I handed over to Tom with no refuel saving a couple of\nminutes on the pit stop.  He turned a\npersonal; best of 1:55. These best times were two seconds faster than our bests\nfrom last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gary took aver with a refuel stop that took 18 gallons into\nour 20 gallon tank. Some full course cautions and a red flag had helped extend\nthe fuel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gary made a few cautious laps as he got used to the car and\ntraffic.  This was only his second race\nwith us and he was wise to be cautious as the track at Road Atlanta can be\nunforgiving in places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He soon picked up the pace. I took back over for a mid-day\nstint.  The only issue I had that stint\nwas seeing one of our good friend\u2019s car hard into the wall and seeing the\nambulance go by during a red flag.  Turns\nout he was ok, but the car was not able to continue the race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to constant traffic I was not able to improve my best\nlap time, but I ran consistent and was able to pass people coming out of tun 5\nand under braking in a couple of spots. \nThe Iracing practice really helped me in this regard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom took back over and ran uneventfully.  Our next fuel stop again took 18\ngallons.  Gary was more comfortable, but\nwe had some trouble with the radio.  He\ncould not hear as well as before and we had a miscommunication that caused him\nto come in for an unscheduled pit stop. We probably lost one lap due to this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next fuel stop took all 20 gallons we had ready to put\nin.  I took over as daylight was starting\nto go away.  We decided to go out with\nthe lights on to make sure they worked before they were required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team noticed a tail light was out as I left the\npits.  They called me in and made a quick\nreseat of the bulb to get it working.  We\nprobably lost another lap due to this mishap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"night<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The new LED lights in the stock headlight buckets worked\nvery well for me. In the past I have hated driving at night, but this time I\ndid just fine.  In fact, I rather enjoyed\nthe stint. Tom took over and continued to run consistent laps in the dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gary took aver for the final stint and we only partially\nfueled the car knowing it only had one and half hour left to go.   Gary took well to the dark and turned his\nfasted lap of the day a 1:57. He managed to spin on the final lap but that did\nnot change our finishing position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We finished 19th<\/sup> out of over 80 entrants.  We were just one lap short of 18th<\/sup>\nplace. We were very excited with a top 20 finish considering in the past we had\nbeen mid pack or lower. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laps time analysis showed our average was six seconds a lap\nfaster and our best times were about two seconds faster.  The only change to the car since last year\nwas stiffer springs so I think the big difference is in driving experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall it was a great day at the races. No new dents to repair and the car seems to have held up fine.  I will still be looking for more power and possibly more grip if I can find it.  But I don\u2019t think we will do the 944S swap like the faster 944s have done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good finish for a race we almost did not make. After our last race of 2018, there was not much work to do to the car.  Just change the oil and make sure the safety equipment was up to date for 2019 tech inspection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4697,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4687"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4687"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4698,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4687\/revisions\/4698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}