Road Atlanta- Third in the Tri-fecta

The story around the story (in Chris' words)...

We Kentuckianian racers have the best worst luck, but we stick together help each other out and somehow get by! This is a long status update, but worth clicking on the dots, I promise. Thursday Carrie, Miles and I departed in our beater E250 van towing the Little Lamb-orghini for Trudy Edenfield's place to lay our heads en route for a Chumpcar race at Road Atlanta. I paid $1500 for this van, it's 

quite rough and has never been further than across town since in my possession, but it hauled the 4200+lb load plus probably another 1000 pounds worth of tools through Nashville rush hour stop-go traffic, through the mountains, all the way to the track with no complaint, until we were literally at the gate to enter the track, and the radiator exploded. What great bad luck, at least we made it! Bob Jennine Frankfuter was awesome enough to solder the radiator back together, a fix that I hoped would be good enough to get us home, at least. The events of the race are another story all together, but after it was over, Carrie and I went to a near by bar to enjoy a toast to a race at least finished. In a bizarre stroke of best worst luck Carrie forgot her purse at the bar, and did not realize it until the next morning. She called our friends Paul and Lora Blaylock on our race team who were staying in a hotel near the bar. They were kind enough to delay their departure for Evansville to go pick up the purse which was (luckily) still there and (luckily) still containing our traveling cash. We too separately departed from Trudy's house later in the day with the same, now repaired beater van and race car in tow. On the Blaylock's journey back they encountered a trailer traveling down the highway which appeared to have a tire with the tread separating. They pulled along side the van hauling the trailer to signal to the driver, and who was it? Our friends Gene and Julie of the Kentucky Spirits racing team! They got the trailer pulled over, limped it to the next exit and Paul and Lora were kind enough to lend Gene a hand getting the tire changed. At a slightly different time and slightly different place but on the same highway, a lone Barrry Schonberger was hauling the Larry Tech 944 back to Evansville from the race when he too had a flat tire. Unfortunately, the spare tire was at the front of the trailer, requiring him to partially back the race car out of the trailer to access it. By himself and unable to restart the car, he could not push the car over the threshold of the trailer, and was in a bit of a pickle, when Jane Bridges happens to be driving by to lend him a hand. With the car back in the trailer, he was on his way for Evansville, and just made it to the first traffic light in town, when the truck he was driving died and refused to restart. And it was POURING rain and lightening. And his wife Angie was out of town and unable to come pick him up, even if he did get the truck and trailer towed to a repair shop. Just at that moment, who approached on the highway by pure coincidence to save the day for Barry? Paul and Lora Blaylock. The Blaylock's gave Barry a ride home in the rain and were back home by about the time we (remember us?) were arriving in the area in our beater van and car in tow. Our trackside radiator repair had been working great. Made it back through the mountains, several major metropoli, and were soldiering on through blinding rain at a speed of 30-40 mph as we crossed the Ohio River bridge, at which point the bridge was struck by an enormous bolt of lightening. I have never seen anything like it in my life. Actually, I didn't really see anything, just everything went blinding white light for about a half second, after which my hair was standing straight up and I had the distinct sensation of having just had an out-of-body experience. FREAKY! But the van was still working, everything was OK, we just kept moving like nothing had happened all the way to our home safely. I stopped the van with the trailer in front of our house, let Carrie and Miles out to run into the house in the pouring rain, then backed the van up a bit to get it a little closer to the curb as my parking job in the dark rain was a bit poor. No sooner had I moved the van in reverse 10 feet and... The radiator exploded again.

The race...

We arrived at the track, parked, and got in the growing line for tech.  Where Chris came in $15 over AIV and was given a lap.  He was also told he had to loose the facial hair or wear a balaclava.  He doesn't see as well with one, so shaving was the first order on race day morning.

  

It was eerie.  We arrived at the track with no necessary tweeks needed for the Little Lamborghini.  We simply had to change tires, and we were ready to roll. Chris was the first to take the wheel.  He went out for a single lap, came back in and said that all seemed to be OK and he was going to make a go of it.  On lap 5 Chris called into the pit... "I don't have any breaks."  "How could he not have breaks... We just started, and he just had them."  

Chris later told us that he was at the end of the back straight (about 110 mph) when the breaks went straight to the floor. 

The car was towed to the cold pits on the flatbed and the diagnosing began.  It wasn't long before it was discovered that the break line had rubbed through. 

   We also had a major gash in the V8's radiator hose, but we brought one of those with us.  

Glen hopped in his car and was off to the parts store to get the part for the break that was needed. When they took the wheel off to get to the breaks they saw that the tire had been nearly eaten through on the inside and needed to be replaced.  (We brought rain tires, so on one went.)  

The diagnosing continued.  The exhaust was ripped from the front engine, but Chris had brought a piece of roll bar that would suffice. 

 The battery had seemed a little weak of charge, so while we were stopped we thought we'd swap it out.  The only problem was that the battery bracket needed modification.  No problem! An angle grinder and some Super Huge Zip-Ties will fix that right up.  They had fixed the exhaust and were putting finishing touches on getting the battery tied down when Charlie walked up and said "Your engine mount is torn." 

 Sure enough, Chris' bought of agricultural racing had torn the engine mount on the 4 cylinder So off I ran to find a chunk of metal to make a temporary mount.  

When all of this was fixed Jenson jumped in the car and began his stint rather uneventfully. (Thank goodness!!) Glen too had no problems and made laps.  

Paul was the first to take the wheel and had just recently been released from his doctor because 8 weeks ago he broke the tip off his elbow.  Because of this, he was simply going to try to drive.  He took a lap tested it out and then decided that he's try a few more.  At about lap 6, he was rubbed off the track.  He and the car were flatbed towed off the track with a wheel that was perpendicular to the car.  (Luckily this was the same tire that had been replaced earlier in the day, so at least it wasn't new.) They ground away some obtrusive metal, and put a new tire on, checked the alignment and were back to making laps in under an hour.  

And all was good until the last hour and a half of the race.  The V8 started to overheat.  The brought it in, added more water and sent it back out.  20 minutes later, Chris was black flagged for smoking and going too slow since the V8 cut out.  We asked the race official if we could go "work on the car" (ie. just let the thing cool down) in the cold pits until the final 10 minutes of the race.  Chris went back out and finished under our own power.  Goal Achieved!!! We finished the race....

And we were able to share it with our family!!