I missed the NASA Nationals.

We had just gotten back from a delightful trip to Cologne, and I just didn’t have the money or energy to get the truck together, sacrifice a week of work, and go. The nature of my job is contract right now, and it would have cost a mint to go. Also, my friends were not going, for the most part. Josh blew up his car, and John was having back trouble, so was not going. I was going to have to sleep in the truck, and be a one man show, and I just failed.

Phooey. On to the next!

The last event of the season was held at Eagles Canyon Raceway, near Decatur, Texas. It’s a 4.5 hour drive north for me, and well worth it. ECR is great.

Where MSR Cresson is draped across the top of a hill, ECR is strung across a valley between two ridges. So you come out of the hole and go back down twice per lap. It’s characterized by long, long straights (short is just over 1300 feet longest is over 2000) and tight, double apex corners.

I had the best of all possible weekends: I got to drive it in the dry on Saturday, and in the wet on Sunday! It was very, very rainy this weekend.

The Saturday session was full of cars. We had a representative from Vorschlag automotive come up in TTA, and win it. He was driving a Mitsu that I should have protested. The problem with Evos is that they are all wheel drive, and to dyno them you need an AW dyno, which most sites don’t have. Thus, you can cheat in TTA and get away with it. He was a full three seconds faster than the rest of the TTA field and none of us are novices. Ah, well, second place would have to do.

Then it rained. It’s a great equalizer. There was standing water all over the track, and a river across it in two places. The braking zone into the last corner was a lake.

I came prepared with street tires, while John and the other TTA guys were praying for dry track late in the day.

It was not to be, as there was a misting rain all day that kept everything wet and getting wetter. The blue car on street tires easily carried the field. Many folks did one lap and pitted, just to get a time recorded for the day.

I’ve said it before, but driving in the rain is amazing. You have to literally put the car out of complete control on purpose so it won’t do something unexpected. You slide into the corner, knowing the sideways motion will stop sometime, and you will be able to continue. You can go just as fast down the straights, you just have to brake more carefully. There are places where the pavement has more grip, and as yu find those, you use them. Some are small, no more than six inches wide, but you can feel them under your wheels. It was very, very fun. I ended up being just a few seconds slower in the rain than I was in the dry, and literally lost track of time while I was on track. The checkered flag was a surprise.

By the end of the day, John and I were the last two time trial drivers left. We had the track to ourselves. John was on fire. Even on slick tires, he drove very well. I don’t think he beat my best lap, but he was closer than he’s been in a long time. He is having back surgery this week, and I wish him all the best and a speedy recovery. We shook hands in the rain, and now await the scores for the season to be tallied. It’s going to come down to him or me for the TTA Texas region.

I will go to Nats in 2010 or die trying. Racing is not about being selfish, though it might seem that way sometimes. It’s about being focused and aware of the world and getting the right position in the field, on and off the track. I was out of position this year. Not again.

We own six cars. That’s an absurd number for a family of two, on the face of it. Let’s tote up:
The Van – 93 Astro. Biggest of the mini-vans, it has 160K miles, and is running pretty well. It is useful to carry dogs and us and cargo and stuff.

Yellow Convertible #1 – Sheri’s 16th birthday present, it’s not going anywhere as long as she’s alive. It’s a very nice 1971 Olds Cutlass Supreme. Not driven very much anymore, but a part of the family as much as I am.

Yellow Convertible #2 – 2001 Corvette, with chromed rollbar and some other minor mods. Sheri’s daily driver and track car.

El Jefe – 1991 Dodge Truck. No model number, just Truck. It’s actually a ¾ ton model, and runs very well. Tow vehicle for the racecar.

Bluecar – 2002 Corvette Z06. My racecar, many mods, streetable, though no longer legal.

Greencar – 1993 Dodge Stealth RT/TT. My daily driver.

And so I started looking into the cash for clunkers (CARS) program, thinking that we might trade the van in and get $4500 for it, and so forth.

I was horrified, and surprised at myself at the same time.

The program requires that the cars turned in be disabled, permanently, within seven days of turn in. They have their oil drained, are filled with sodium silicate and run until the chemical turns to glass.

The dead cars then go to a recycler who takes off what parts they can and crush/shred the rest for scrap. The component value of the cars is about a break even for the recyclers, since it costs around $700 to crush/chop/shred the cars, and they don’t get to sell any of the drivetrain components (since they are full of glass).

It’s basically lethal injection for cars, which struck me as very sad. Somehow, I thought the cars were recycled in toto, rather than having the engines destroyed. Of course, that makes no sense, considering the big, inefficient engines are the cause of the emissions problem. But it’s still fucking sad.

So we’re keeping all of ours. We will paint the blood over the threshold and Death will cruise on by, taking someone’s old Ford Explorer and leaving behind a nice new Prius.

I’m going to go out and fix the brakes on the van this weekend, because I think it’ll be carrying dogs and cargo and stuff for some time to come. There are about to me quite a few spare parts on the market too.

I did it to myself, really.

Some background is needed.

Before I got the sturdy and reliable and FAST corvette, I owned a 1992 Dodge Stealth ES. This was a six cylinder normally aspirated car, with great looks (for 1992) that could not get out of its own way. 180 horses, perhaps, in a 3400 pound platform. I traded it in for the Corvette, and honestly never locked back.

Until…

Our friend Linda had her summer car for sale. It was a 1993 Stealth Twin Turbo. She was the only owner, and it had all the proper maintenance done, by the local Mitsu dealer. It was cheap, and my Corvette was turning into a race car. So I bought it.

Oh, my God.

I’ve got a pretty good handle on the Corvette, C5 generation. I’m not a master mechanic by any means, but I’ve been places on that car that most folks will never go. I understand how hard it can run, and what are serious issues and what are simple ones. I know the quirks.

When I had the Stealth, I was not working on cars. I had work done on cars. Now, I decided to look into what it takes to work on the Stealth, as I had done with the Corvette.

When I recovered my sight, I went back to the website for another round. Then some drinks, of whiskey.

This is one of the most complex cars ever made. Let’s tote up:
Twin turbo: Two insane heat generating, bazillion-RPM spinning points of failure. And the plumbing associated with them would make a superb Habitrail for an entire family of gerbils.

All Wheel Drive: Yes, all four. The propeller shaft (Dodge’s word) is FOUR PIECES with three U-joints. How is that blaanced? IT’S NOT! *sigh*

Viscous Coupler: I almost didn’t want to know, but it’s the heart of the system, so I had to look. I almost turned to salt. It’s like a flux capacator, but worse.

Gauges: The boost gauge is a guess. It doesn’t actually measure boost, but reads out what the computer THINKS the boost is. The water temp reads habitualy low, but not in a linear fashion, forcing you to do logarithmic math in your head as you drive. The oil pressure too is a fable, reading dead low, until you actually get to 2000 RPM when it goes into the normal range (yes I checked the oil, and it has some).

All Wheel Steering: yep, the back wheels turn 1.5 degrees in phase when the car turns at 45 MPH and over. Neat eh? Yes, but something else to break, and what the HELL will that do to the alignment in a hard corner? I have no idea, and want to pass out.

Brakes: They are great from high speed to dead slow, once. Then they are shot. They are about half the surface area of the Corvette brakes, but stopping a vehicle that weighs 400 pounds more. I think that if you slowed down from 130 to 50 fast, you might generate a fusion reaction in the right wheel well.

Remember, I bought this car to be a daily driver, reliable, town sort of car. Yeah. May have missed the mark on this one.

So I look to the forums for inspiration. I find a VERY dedicated and insane bunch of car guys. They love these cars beyond most other worldly stuff. There’s a huge trading and classified section, so parts are not an issue, even for a 15 year old car. There are several mechanics that work on the cars right in Austin, and were willing to talk to me. There are speed junkies and waxers, just like the Corvette community, just a bit lower budget. In short, it’s the Amiga computer community, but transposed to cars. That was a dose of good news. The bad news is that a normal problem takes at least four hours to fix. Most things take a weekend, or longer. Many of the guys that drive these cars have to hitch rides to the local get together because their cars are down, and this is normal.

So I’m moving cautiously. The car is running great, even in the heat of summer. It’s easy to drive, and despite the complexity, if you don’t ask it to do insane things, it’s comfy and well-mannered. It does have around 300 HP to work with too, so it’ll move.

And all in all, I still really like these cars. They are big inside, with loads of cargo room. The air conditioner blows cold. They have no blind spots. I did it to myself, but perhaps it’s not too bad.

This is the hottest June Austin has seen in a while. We’ve already had several days over 100 F. Race events are sparsely attended in this sort of weather. On a day when it’s 100 ambient, it’s easily 120 F in the cockpit. You consume water at furious rate. The rule is if you are not pissing every 45 minutes, you’re not drinking enough.

I had to install a transmission cooler to cope with the heat. The car was just overheating too fast on short tracks. I was short shifting a bit to allow for full sessions, but that’s a fool’s way to do.

I got the cooler plumbed in behind the driver’s side rear brake duct, along with the pump that drives it and the switch in the cockpit that I use to turn it on and off. As with the oil cooler install, I covered the braided steel hoses with heater hose and zip ties to keep it from rubbing anything. It makes it a bit harder to fill the car up with transmission fluid, but overall it’s a good sacrifice.

It’s noisy. With the pump on, there’s a constant drone coming from behind the driver. I don’t care.

I took the car out to Harris Hill Road to test. Bo and Kevin were gracious enough to let me come out and test on their track. I ran for 25 minutes, and the trans didn’t overheat. The car was overheating the coolant, but the trans and oil stayed within normal parameters. I used my coolshirt and it was still a struggle to run for 25 minutes in that heat.

I need to get more heat tolerant. Exercise is the answer, but I need to find time to do that, and find something that does not injure my knee further. It puffed up again on Monday, proving that it’s not right just yet.

So, the most counter-intuitive thing to do for a hot summer would be to get a forced induction car. So I did. I’m now the proud owner of a 1993 Dodge Stealth RT/TT. Yep, twin turbo baby! It was inexpensive and now I can make the Z into a full race vehicle. The Stealth will be my daily driver and also a platform for Sheri to learn a manual trans again. I really like this car, and it gave me another thing to tinker with. Very fun.

Apologies to Yogi.

I’m going to seek professional help with my driving. It seems that I’ve hit a plateau, in that I can’t seem to reduce my lap times much more.

I’ve had bad experiences with coaches in general. The best one I know is my uncle, who is a strength trainer with experience reaching back to the 60s. The worst ones I’ve seen were the guys that coached at my high school. It’s a wonder more kids did not end up injured.

Coaching is tough. I’ve been a weightlifting coach, which is pretty easy. You generally work one-on-one, and so you can tailor your motivational style and communication to one person.

Racing coaches and teachers are a special lot. They don’t have to teach a team; their problem is more one of deception.

The racing line around a track is always the same. It may vary a little by car, but the shortest line is the same. It might be sufficient to say “drive this line” and be done. If you were teaching Michael Schumacher. The deception is in the simplicity. We’re all turning the same corners, so it should be easy!

For the rest of us, it’s a matter of communicating in a way that the driver can understand. Also, it does no good to talk about the turn you just went through. The coach has to know the track well enough, and account for the time delay of voice communication well enough to communicate about the turn coming up.

As with all motorsport, some hardware also helps. I was looking for a coach that was comfortable with data acquisition. I need to see my braking, acceleration and line in a way that I can improve.

To that end, I’ve chosen Jason Hart as a coach this season. He’s an outstanding racer with a great set of qualifications and a broad set of communication skills. Everyone that has taken instruction from this man has come away faster. I’m looking forward to it.
============================================
Back from the coaching session. The short version was: I had a great time and knocked two seconds off my previous best time. I’m within a second of some of the really fast guys now.

The slightly longer version: I had a great time, overheated my transmission twice, and knocked two seconds off my lap time at the track we practiced at. Most importantly, I learned how to pounce on a turn.

Normally, when you go through a turn, you lift from the gas, transition to hard braking, ease off brake, turn in and get back on power at once. Jason taught me that a little extra pause between brake and power can get the car turned in much better and lined up better, so when you apply power you can hit it harder. When you time it right, the feeling is of “pouncing” on the turn. It’s really cool.

His comment to me was: “Normally, I say that if you want to spend $1000 on your car, you should spend $1000 on yourself and take more training. In your case, you ought to spend $1000 on your car and get the transmission cooler. One less thing to think about and you can go faster.” This was after I short-shifted most of the day to keep the tranny together.

So I did it. Bought a cooler, fabricated some brackets, and hooked it all up. I got John to help me wire it in, since I had no experience with that part of it, but I now have something that sounds like an overdriven aquarium pump behind my left quarter panel. The plumbing held on a road test yesterday, so we’ll jack it up and check for leaks more throughly, then take it to Hallet in two weeks. I can’t wait!

It’s a NASA event weekend, and it’s raining. It will be raining when we take to the track Saturday. It’s supposed to dry up on Sunday, and we’ll be able to get some decent times.

This event is odd, in that it’s only six driving sessions, as opposed to eight. The reason is that we have an enduro race Saturday afternoon. I’m not in it, but it’s going to rob me of two run sessions.

By way of compensation, we score double points for driving in this event. So really, only one lap from one session will count, all weekend. That means there is literally no points-based reason to drive in the rain, when it’s going to dry up on Sunday. Worst case, it doesn’t dry up, and we have to run wet sessions to make SOME time so we can make points.

I am trying like hell to get to the track, in order to drive in the rain. I’ll drive overnight if I have to, in order to do this. Why?

Driving a racecar in the rain is like nothing else, and we get precious little practice doing it. I take every opportunity to do it.

You drive with your fingertips, in the rain. The slightest movements of the wheel or the pedals makes a large impact on the car. You can go just as fast as in the dry, on the straights. It takes longer to get there of course, and takes longer to slow down. It feels even more like dancing than driving in the dry, because the car moves so much more from incidental water and puddles.

Rain makes you smoother, or rather punishes you if you are not. It requires even more concentration and focus to race in the wet, and you emerge from the car more tired than normal, even though you were going much slower. Every input is smooth. Braking is slow and easy. Acceleration out of corners is measured and careful. Steering input is firm, but ramps up and down slowly. Even corrections have to be made carefully, or you will make the situation worse.

You drive a different line in the rain, in general. You make the straights longer, both to maximize speed there and to buy you more time to brake. All that yellow paint on the curbing is slick too, like ice. In the heat of Texas, that paint is generally sticky. Using such a line also gets you out of the standard line, which on most tracks is coated in rubber. In the dry, the race line is sticky and good, but in the wet, it’s slick and treacherous. You want to cross it going straight and not under braking, lest you slide.

When you lose the car in the rain, it slides for days. There’s no stopping it, and even less steering then normal in a slide. Grass, in particular, is very slick when wet, and the car digs muddy furrows under each wheel in a big off. However, since the speeds are generally low, real damage is rare. It just gets REALLY dirty.

You have plenty of time to think about what went wrong, as you slide. It takes more time for the tow trucks to get to you too, and you can’t get out of the car, so you sit and replay what happened while it’s still fresh, so you can learn.

I drove Road Atlanta in the rain. The back straight gets puddles in it that you hit at over 100. The car skips across them, hydroplaning momentarily, like a rock hurled across a pond. It feels like it’s skipping, too.

Oddly enough, even many hardcore drivers don’t like to race in the rain. They do it, but have to be so careful that they compromise too much and are slow. There are a few, those raised in icy climates mostly, who do it well. Dirt track guys also run in the rain well, since they are used to going sideways. I understand the open wheel guys the best. Those poor souls have to run without a windshield, down in the spray from everyone else. Their visibility is so bad that it’s like driving in fog.

I love it. It’s hard as hell, and I’m not great at it, but the smoothness it brings is welcome. I used to be tense when I ran in the rain. Now, I just take it slow and try to get smoother and take my time with the dance.

I’ve been driving the repaired blue car to work for the last couple of weeks. It’s well behaved on the street, but loud. I am spending more time in 6th gear than usual because I don’t want to spook the folks around me. It accelerates very fast, and is a joy to drive, except in one case.

Speedbumps suck. The headers are the lowest thing on the car. The car is lowered and properly corner weighted, so it’s about an inch lower than stock. The upshot is that I can’t drive over anything. I didn’t realize how annoying that would be, but it’s pretty annoying. I have to plot my course through parking lots and up and down driveways VERY carefully. High centering with all the weight on my new exhaust system is a no-no.

It smells different. No cats means it smells like cars did when I was a kid. It’s almost sweet.

I managed to damage my right knee. I must have done it while working on the car, and spending time on the hard surface in my shop, but I can’t remember when. It puffed up like a cantaloupe. I iced it, and took ibuprofin and even took a day off work to let it bear weight again, and it was working well again.

Then, I took a fall at work. Tripped, caught myself with my right leg… And set a bomb off in my knee. It puffed up again, so, well, fuck. It also hurt, quite a lot.

Going in for MRI on Tuesday. Have to get to the bottom of this before next track event, which is the 18th of this month. I will run in that event, if I have to drag myself by my lips. Going too well now to stop!

Until then, as little moving about as I can manage, and I’ll try to get Sheri to bring me beers. That will present a challenge.

You can’t underestimate the power of subliminal messages.

When I was a sophomore attending William B. Travis HS, I took a senior-level science class, Anatomy and Human Physiology. I was pretty focused, but many of my classmates were not.

Bradley Bohls and Brad Newcombe sat at the lab table behind me. We distinguished Mr. Bohls with his full name, in order to refer to them more easily.

Brad and Bradley talked cars all year. All the time. During lectures, quietly, and during breaks loudly. As I was taking a ham sandwich with lettuce and mayo through the digestive system (our mid-term was just one question: Take this food through the digestive tract, describing in detail what happens to all the components of it…), they were debating the lift of the newest cam to come out if Isky, or how whether sleeved blocks were OK to use, or should it be iron or nothing.

It was a constant, low buzz behind me. They were positively giddy. Only Brad actually had a car, of course. He was a devoted Mustang guy. Bradley, on the other hand, liked Chevys. He was of course, willing to help Brad out as he could, while he waited for his ride to show up.

About midway through the year, I started helping the guys through their labs so we could talk cars.

One thing got them both more excited than anything else: Forced induction. We’d be talking about crank balancing and how it related to engine horsepower, and Bradley would grip the sides of his seat and start rocking back and forth, gripped by automotive autism, and he would say
“Yeah, man, but what about the buh-lower Brad? Huh? What about the blower!”
And then we’d talk about Maggies, and roots-type blowers, and the centrifugal ones and struggle to understand why God inflicted turbo lag on the faithful.

Weekends, I worked at a pizza place where most of the school turned up after football games. Brad would bring the mustang down, when it was running. He never did get a supercharger in the car, but he did have an awful lot of engine. He used to put a bag of cement in the trunk to keep the rear end down (we didn’t know anything about suspension).

I learned a great deal in Anatomy and Human Physiology. In addition to getting my first glimpse at how the human body worked, I got an education on cams, pistons, transmission ratios, and of course, buh-lowers.

Thanks Brad and Bradley for the constant background drone of car talk. When I got the vette, it all came back to me. It was as if all those car magazine articles on “how to” were right there in front of me again.

Every once in a while, when it’s quiet under the carport, and there’s only me and the car and the work on it, I can almost hear “But what about the blower, man? When you getting the BLOWER?”

Time trial event #2 was last weekend, at Motorsports Ranch in Cresson, Texas.

I almost didn’t make the event due to the transmission not being in the car.

My test drive was off the dyno and onto my trailer, or about 12 feet. I then took the car from New Branufels to Cresson (just south of Ft. Worth), off loaded it, and went to sleep. Luckily, since I had friends at the event, I didn’t have to sleep in the truck. John D’Andrea, Josh Konkle and Jim Bernstein were there to represent the Austin Spin Doctors. John has an RV, and invited me to stay there for the weekend. Woohoo!

It was a rainy drive up, mostly at night. I got the car off the dyno with all the new parts installed at 1700. New Braunfels is five hours away from Dallas. I made it into Cresson at around 2300. In the rain. The track was soaking, and deep mud was present in all the runoff areas.

Morning looked a bit better, with only a light mist falling, and 38 degree temps. It would be slick, but not awful.

I elected to miss the first session, as I had no rain tires, and it was still actually raining. I let the other guys go dry the track, while I installed my race seat and got ready. I noted that one of my new headers was not tightened down sufficiently, so I jacked up the car, crawled under and tightened things up. I got my chance to get on track, and drive the car for the first time since getting a new transmission, a tune, a lighter flywheel and headers. In the rain.

30 more horsepower doesn’t sound like a great deal, but in the rain on dry weather tires, it’s enough to spin the car with just a breath of throttle. Rain is a wonderful teaching tool. You have to be smooth with everything. Acceleration, braking, coming off the brake, steering, everything. In NASA time trial rules, if you rotate the car more than 90 degrees, or put four wheels off the track, your times do not count for that session. More than a third of the field of folks went off in that session or the next. It was a spin monkey party.

The first thing I noted about the car was the noise. Headers are loud. I can hear everything I do with the throttle now, and it revs FAST because of the lighter rotating assembly (the Fidanza flywheel). The clutch is also new, and locks up instantly when engaged. The gears shift like silk. I had not realized how bad the other transmission had gotten. I paid special attention to my shifts over the weekend, as I want this one to last.

I didn’t turn very good times on Saturday, but Sunday was supposed to be sunny, so I contented myself with what I got. 1:42 was my best, around a 1.7 mile track.

Let me describe Cresson a little: It’s run either as a 1.7 mile track, or a 3.1 mile track. In rainy weather, they don’t open up the big section, and the 1.7 is used. The track is well designed, and folds back on itself twice. A track map is here:
http://www.motorsportranch.com/1.7-road-course.cfm
we ran counter clockwise.

Cresson is often described as a technical track. That’s a racing term that means if you fuck up one turn, you mess up your speed on the following straight. It’s also a patience track. In general, all the turns are late apex, and the more you learn to wait and don’t cheat the turn, the better you will do there. It’s a superb track for learning, and it’s short. Llighter, more maneuverable cars have an advantage. It’s also hard on brakes. Much harder than TWS, for example. I broke a rotor on Saturday, even in the wet conditions.

Sunday dawned dry and low humidity. The wind helped dry the track fast, and the temps were 10 degrees warmer. A perfect day for a drive.

Josh was on fire. The BF Goodrich R1 Cobalt Friction SS TC was in perfect shape. Josh went from a Corvette to the Cobalt because of tire expenses, and he is happy as can be, chasing down cars he has no business catching. He’s in the Time Trial C division, and is faster than many TTB and TTA drivers. Being run down by a Cobalt is worse, somehow, than anything else. A miata looks like a purpose built race car. A Cobalt…. Looks like it ought to be parked on campus with Mardi Gras beads on the mirror. But Jesus, the thing is fast. He was running 1:28 in the early going, and getting faster every lap.

The fast crew came out in force too. Time Trial U (TTU) is where the big boys play. ACR Vipers, cammed and modded Corvettes, boosted Evos, and so forth. They were hitting 1:22 or so. Very, very fast. John and I were hanging back, relearning the track. I think I turned a 1:34, and was disatisfied.

The problem was, the car felt very slippery. It was like it was still in the rain. Then I figured out how to use it. The extra horsepower allowed me to do some tricks that I was not able to manage before, like kicking the back end out and then catching the car with throttle.

Session three of four saw me lined up in front of Josh. He passed me immediately, and then I had a great rabbit to chase. I stuck my foot to the floor, and ended up 0.015 behind him. Striking distance. It also put me as the fastest TTA driver at the event. 1:27. Not bad, but not great.

Session four started, and I lined up in front of Josh, thinking I would let him go by like before, and chase him again. However, I took off. I don’t know what the difference was, but I was flying. I chased down Theresa Halford in her C6Z06. I could catch her in the turns, but she had 500+ HP at the wheels to my 380, so I lost her on the straights. This was good, since all I wanted was a rabbit to chase, and clean track.

The twistiest section of the course is called Rattlesnake. It’s a switchback built on one of two hills in the course. A 90 degree right hander leads into it, followed by a sharp left at the top of the hill. Since the right hand turn is at the end of a long straight, the practice is to trail brake into it, then accelerate up the hill, brake and downshift at the top, and turn left. I came in to the right hand turn WAY too fast. I braked down, but it was not enough. Somehow, the car held on, but as I was coming in too fast, the top of the hill came up before I was ready for it. I turned the car left, forcing the slide UP the hill, straightened the wheel, waited until the nose was pointed where I needed it to go, and hammered the gas. I looked over at the corner worker station, into wide eyes. They were reaching for the debris flag, certain that I was gone, hoping I was not going to hit their sandbaged position. The tires grabbed and I made it around. I later found out that John had been doing that all weekend! On purpose. Wow.

I don’t think I could do that again if I tried for a week. I ended up shaving two seconds off, ending the weekend with a time of 1:25. The fastest cars (in any division) were turning 1:19s. I feel pretty good about that, and think that I’m well positioned to continue on to the rest of the year in this car in this trim. The horsepower is right, the tires are right, and my head is right enough.

I stayed one second ahead of John, all weekend. This is like a running joke between John and me. I don’t know why, but for some reason, no matter how fast I go, he’s right there. One second back. I’m honored to have the running mates I do in this game.

Next event is April, and back to TWS. Looking forward to it.

Car currently down for repair. During the first run session at the last NASA event I went to, the transmission stuck in 4th gear. I limped back to the paddock, and collected a DNF for the session. Too bad, as the weekend had gone well up to that point.

Now, I get to learn about transmissions, and my wife gets to learn about the lovely phrase almost unique to the car hobby “While we’re in there.”

See, the transmission is the middle part of the drivetrain, between the engine and the differential. Thus, you have both ends of the drivetrain exposed, and the exhaust off, and so forth. Thus, you tend to think about what you could do “while we’re in there.”

It’s a bit like legislation, I expect. While we’re doing this bill for project x, why not throw something in for project y, to garner some votes for the package? But I digress.

So a new transmission from GM will cost FAR too much money. I found a superb shop that would sell me an RPM trans for much less. If you need a good racing transmission, look no further than IPS Racing. They rock, and customer service is great.

So the main part is ordered. Now, they also want to sell me a differential. It fits the “while we’re in there” rule, but the old one is working, so I won’t replace it just yet. The clutch is 70000 miles old now, so I could get a new one of those in, and “while we’re in there” it’d be downright foolish not to put a lightweight flywheel in.

But the final blow was from the shop itself. The owner says “well, I have a set of headers up in the loft, never used. Since we have the exhaust off anyway, while we’re in there, we could get those on for you…”

It was too good to pass up. The car needs around 40 more HP, which is about what the headers make.

Now, there is some validity to all this. From the labor point of view, with half the car disassembled, it costs no more to put it back together with new parts. It just costs to buy the parts. There are sound financial reasons to work this way.

But it doesn’t make it any less amusing when I tell Sheri about it.

So at the end of the day, the car will be far from stock. Lightweight Fidanza (Italian name, makes it faster) flywheel, LG headers (longtube, of course, because the RPM/torque range is favorable), LS7 clutch, RPM transmission with stock ratios.

I can’t wait to drive it. Should be ready in a week or so.