Runoff

Pit Tips From the Runoffs (By Andy Stark)

The blue/white #65 is Frank Axelrod’s racing Spitfire. The guy in the helmet in the driver seat (or standing up) is Frank. Click on the images for a larger view.

Ok here is the Runoffs story. I could put it into few words and just say it was a royal pain in the butt. But I will fill you all in on the juicy stuff.

Lets start with the prerace prep. After the August race we pretty much cleaned up and checked Franks car from front to rear. As I expected we had already found most of the gremlins as the year progressed. We were lucky in the fact that all we had to do was replace a gauge and replace the differential to match Mid Ohio Race Course. Other than that it was just clean and tighten anything that could possibly cause us problems at the track. I have to admit that as much as I complain about Franks car being ill prepared we (Frank, Jack, and I) have made huge improvements on the car over the last year just in prep alone. We have all learned an incredible amount about how to make a car reliable.

At the last minute we had the bad news that Jack would not be able to join us up at the Runoffs do to conflicting schedule. This is a problem with Club racing. Volunteers have real life.

Frank had to do the first half of the week alone. This made us all nervous. The first call I received from Frank was fairly late at night. He asked me to guess were he was. Being groggy from being woke up I did not have clue and did not want to play so I said, "Do tell."

He replied, "I am sleeping in the back of my truck."

I asked, "What happened to the trailer you rented with Ron?"

Frank replies, "Ron’s whole family and friends showed up and the trailer is not as big as it was advertised. The family is also fighting."

My reply, "Lovely. ;o( Good night Frank."

The next phone call I received from Frank kind of went like this.

"Hi Andrew."

"Hi Frank."

"My car is slow"

"Bummer. Does Ron have a new engine for you?"

"No."

"Bummer. What are you going to do?"

"I need you to get the 4:55 rear end out of my garage and bring it to me."

My reply, "Lovely.” ;o( My thoughts, "Another GD rear end change!" My verbal reply, being the nice guy that I am, "Ok you better have that rear end out when I get there. I will leave work early and be up at Mid Ohio by 11:00pm.”

Off I went. By the way did I mention it was my 5th wedding anniversary this weekend. My wife is a saint to let me go racing!

After fighting with traffic all the way up I arrived almost dead nuts on 11:00pm. The only way I made this was running way over the speed limit when I was not in construction traffic and to make up getting lost in Amish country.

When I found Frank he had the rear end out of the car and was ready for the new one. We did not really believe that this rear end was going to make much of a difference but at this point we did not know what to do. In my opinion the engine in Frank’s car was done. It did not sound healthy and it never did run with any real horsepower all year. Frank agreed but had no choice but to try this rear end because Ron did not get a new engine built for him.

From my point of view, the frustration had just begun.

Thursday was a dead day at the track. It gave us time to go over the car and make sure everything we had was as good as it could be. We checked everything. We could find nothing outwardly wrong with the car other than some minor carb and valve adjustments.

Friday came along with the final rounds of qualifying. This was pretty neat to watch. There was some serious iron being pushed around that track. Everything from Sprites to big bore Corvettes.

Unfortunately Frank was slower than the previous qualifiers. His engine was done. I actually was sounding really sick every time he went by the pits.

To say the least Frank was really disappointed in the way the car was performing. So much so that he was doubting his own driving. Now frank is a rookie but he is not that bad of a driver. He just needed a good engine.

Lets take a moment to look at who we were in the paddock with. Ron Kranz (the engine builder) was with us. He had two cars and one driver; his son.

When I arrived Wednesday night both of his cars were broken. One was terminal and the other was having some pretty extensive welding being done to the rear end. There was a wall of stress on that side of the tent. It was like that all weekend. Ron was trying very hard to get his remaining car going and not getting much help from his group/family. Frank and I helped him out just so Ron could devote some time to Frank's engine issue, an issue that hit its peak after Friday's qualifier.

The whole tent was under major stress.

By the way I had slept in the back of my truck for two nights. It was a rule at Mid Ohio that you had to sleep in the campgrounds in a camper or a tent. Since I had neither it was the truck. Being in the truck was against the rules and they had security walking around all night checking on the rules. So about every hour someone was walking by the truck with a flashlight. I had to hide under a heavy blanket completely so I would not be seen. Not good sleeping conditions. Frank was in the same boat. Every day we were more and more tired and our triggers were getting shorter and shorter.

Ok enough whining and back to the mechanics.

After Friday’s qualifier it was totally obvious that the engine was done. The oil pressure was down and the temps were all up. It was time to get a new engine or pack it in.

This decision was done away from the paddock. I told Frank it was time to have Ron put together an engine or go home. It was not worth our time to even attempt running his current engine. At this point the engine was just tired. If we pushed it any more we would have worthless lump of broken iron.

There was an engine long block and a head in Ron's trailer that was a slightly used spare. I had been eyeing it for two days. To me it looked pretty healthy as long as the bearings were ok.

It came down to Frank telling Ron he was owed and engine for the runoffs and he needed to deliver. If not we were packing it in. I had washed my hands of it until a decision was made.

It was a tense ten minutes but frank came back with the agreement that Ron would have the engine ready to put in when we had the old engine out.

Off to work I we went. A complete driveline change was at hand. We had to remove the engine, transmission, drive shaft, and the differential. And replace it all in less than 20 hours with better, faster parts, that had not been assembled yet. Just lovely. (Any time I write lovely it is a replacement for the actual words or thoughts I was thinking or saying.) I invented bad words before it was all done. ;o) Streams of them!

Taking this engine out was when old nasty greasy stuff really bites you in the butt. Ninety percent of it came out without a problem. The 10% that didn't was not only costly but painful as well. Old hardware kills good intentions!

First was the gauge that we replaced at home. It was replaced because the sender broke off in the water pump housing. It had corroded in there. The second one broke because I was in hurry and the bloody pump housing was still corroded. We should have replaced the threaded insert in the housing so the sender would seat properly with out jamming up. This resulted in lots of profanity, dirty looks and seventy dollars on Frank’s part.

Then bolts started to strip. Old bolts suck. I mean they suck rocks! I make it a personal mission to replace old bolts on my car with new bolts every chance I get. I also put them in with anti-seize compound. I hate stripping bolts. Unfortunately we had nothing but old hardware on hand. Bolts were stripping left and right on the newer replacement engine that had been put together with old hardware. At one point I was not sure I would ever get the intake and exhaust manifold on. Three out of four holes were partially stripped. My fun-meter had long since blown its mercury. Lots of shouting and many hours later during a heavy heavy thunderstorm the car roared to life. I was completely exhausted as I am sure everyone else was. It was late and time for another night of hiding in the truck from security. ;o(

Morning came way too soon. I have memories of staggering out of the truck in the middle of the night to relieve myself and waving at the track security as they drove their rounds on the back half of the track. They got good view of the full Monty. At this point I did not care. I just wanted to get through the next 20 hours and get home.

We had a morning warm up for 10 minutes on the track. The clutch was not working properly but we were out of time. Frank went out and ran the car well. It was performing pretty good and his times started to come done quickly. He finally had some horsepower!

We still had a problem. The clutch was not working well at all. He was grinding gears. The pedal was releasing to close to the floor. It had absolutely no free play. Not a good way to go around a technical track.

Ron said there was nothing we could do because of the geometry of the clutch. I disagreed. I new the slave cylinder could be moved some to make up for free play issues. I did not argue and waited until every one was somewhere else a then adjusted it myself and walked away.

Just as I was starting to relax, Frank asked if I was having fun. I honestly said "No!"

This was not the way to do a Runoff. We were not prepared and we should have had an engine from the start.

Boy did this set off an argument. I won't bring out the dirt but it was a good one. What do you get when you take two opinionated type A personalities and stick them together around a broken racecar? You get two good friends lucky that we can't carry side arms!

It all ended in a hug and a kiss later in the day. (…quite literally we kissed and hugged.) Yuck!

Ok it was finally race time!! I was packed and ready to go. As soon as Ron’s engine exploded into pieces I was hopping in the truck and heading home. ;o) Just kidding. I was pretty confident that the car would make it. In fact it did! Frank ran a strong race using just enough aggressive driving to move him from second to last ahead of the one-legged guy and well up into the middle of the pack. He went from 27th to 14 before it was all said and done. He even had a little metal to metal contact and succeeded in bumping a couple of guys out of the groove in order to make a line for himself. I was proud. If he would have had that engine the whole week I am confident he would have been in the top ten! It was very satisfying to have done so well after so much work.

When the race was done Frank actually had a smile on his face. Finally!

Ten minutes later I was on the road home. It was my anniversary and I was determined to at least get home before midnight to wish my wife a happy one on the actual day.

Frank called on the way home and asked me if I had fun again. The answer was still the same but not quite so firm "NO." It was too much darn work to be fun. Next time we will have a much better engine and plan to begin with. This was like a cramming for finals on the last day without opening the book all semester and still getting a passing grade. Just barely!

We got away with it this time. If we go back next year we are going to be prepared a hundred times better. Then it will be fun. ;o) And I won't be sleeping in my Truck!

See you all out at the races Oct. 26th at Gateway. Bring a chair and some food. We will be cooking Brats and serving some Beer when the races are done.

Until then, I of course have work to do on the cars. Mine is almost done and Frank has a transmission to go in by race day.

Happy racing

Andy