|
Day Six -
Willow Springs International Raceway - (Rosamond, CA)
"The Weakest
Link"
Another day, another
6:00am start. It's up and off on the short drive to the track.
Willow Springs is one place we know quite well. Dave has
plenty of track time here and I've run two days myself. We get
in, get unloaded, and get ready to run. I go out first and try
to get a feel for the track with the new car. We still have
the vibration but the car feels well planted. There are a lot
of fast movers in our group and I find myself unable to hold anybody
up this late in the event. I have a good time on the track and
seem have some great segments but all the pointing by takes it's
toll. I turn a 1:55 which is way off the pace. It's not
all bad though, another driver in the run group came up to me after
the session and thanked me for being so courteous and giving the
guys who were competing for their class room to make good laps.
Dave takes the second
session and he seems to be running quite good. He's very
comfortable on this track and is coming to terms with the car quite
nicely. He posts a 1:37.1 which is not to shabby. We
place about two thirds back in the overall field at lunch which
isn't disappointing when you consider what a horsepower track Willow
Springs is.
After lunch, Dave and
I are wondering just what the car can really do. We speak to
Jason Rhoades and he is up for taking a session in the car and
giving us some feedback. We give Jason a quick tutorial on the
car and he's off and running. It doesn't take him long to get
up to speed and he ends up running at 1:36:462. That tells us
a lot... Jason is fast and we're pretty sure he's got the car
close to it's top speed at this track. It also means Dave is
quite quick and I'm quite slow! Jason tells us that he likes
the way the car feels and he was pretty much on the floor over most
of the track.
The afternoon was
pretty rough on some of the other teams. The killer 240Z lost
an oil pump and the team is working hard to get it replaced.
The GT1 Fiero had a blowout on the main straight and tore up the
bodywork and some of the lines. They decide to pack it in for
the event and head back to Canada. Doug is having some
problems with the NSX. Another car (and BMW) also blew a tire
but was able to bring it back in safely.
Speaking of tires, we
notice that one of fronts is flat spotted. We rush to get one
of our extra sets aired up and mounted in time for the last session.
We just make it in time and Dave heads out to finish the day.
He runs a few warm-up laps and then comes in so I can re-torque the
lug nuts. When he heads back out, I go to buy more race gas
for the remainder of the event.
I drop off the jugs
and watch the track for a minute before heading over to the office
to pay. I see Dave head down the straight, then slow near turn
one and drive off the track. I didn't see anything obviously
wrong but had a bad feeling when he stayed there and waited for the
tow truck. Being an optimist, I paid for the fuel and went
back to get the filled jugs. I bummed a ride from Doug back to
our trailer and found a very dejected looking Dave peering into the
engine compartment of the car.
It seems that the
driveline has snapped where the engine output adapter is bolted to
the driveshaft. This is very bad news. The aluminum
output adapter is torn up, the bolts are all pulled out and to top
it all off, the clutch linkage is busted along with a bunch of
wires. Upon closer examination, we see that the driveshaft was
connected to the adapter by four steel bolts. These bolts only
went a quarter of an inch in the adapter and were only anchored in
the aluminum threads. In hindsight, it's no surprise that this
part failed.
Unfortunately, we
have no parts to repair this latest problem and our event is well
and done. Since we're a lot closer to San Diego than any other
point of the event, we decide to skip the last day and the banquet
in Las Vegas and head home. This turns out to be a good move,
as we make it back in about three and a half hours and it takes most
of the teams five hours to reach Vegas in Friday traffic.
It's very
disappointing, but we gave the event our best shot and overcame a
lot of adversity to get as far as we did. Considering we
started with a brand new and untested race car, it's not as bad as
it could of been. We didn't crash the car or the trailer and
for a while, it looked like we might even finish in the middle of
the pack.
Despite my pre-event
predictions, I had more incidents than Dave, even counting the
driveline failing on his shift. Oh well!
One thing is for
sure, the OTC was a lot of fun and a great adventure. If all
goes well, we'll be back next year for another shot.
Video: It
was running great while it lasted
|
