July 05
July 1-3 Seattle SOVREN Pacific Northwest Historics
Oh my goodness, the day has come.
A beautiful weekend in July, at Pacific Raceways in Kent, Washington, USA. The "Blue Meanie" and her sister make their debut!
A beautiful shot of #98, by Dave Quick. This gives a good idea of the barn condition.
Crowds gathered around #98 all weekend - everybody loves a barn find. No one seems to believe they are two examples of the same marque, built at the same time. Kenny and I tell the same stories over and over, but really enjoy every moment (quite literally) in the sun. Folks spend all sorts of time poking and prodding and photographing the Stanton car, and eventually wander over to the Myette car, now with my number #26.
Don't worry - the stickers on the tires don't last too long.
We fueled up, fired the beast up, and gently eased her into gear. Oops, that master cylinder I substituted is a bit small (0.75 versus the 0.875 original) and it's an exercise in rev matching. We moved the pedal and slave rod to get as much throw as we can for the weekend, making repair of the original clutch master a high priority event.
I waited in pre-grid for the signal, and got ready to roar off for my first very nervous lap.
As luck would have it, the foam filters we used (we ran out of time to get a proper air box done) are way too restrictive and I stall and chug my way around one lap and back into the paddock. Dang! The plugs were pretty much carboned up and we had to figure out what to do. The only track-side solution was fine "hardware cloth", also known as wire mesh. J&L across the paddock sold me a piece and we cut up little circles to wire tie to the individual carb trumpets. I don't like the fact that little rocks could get in there, but throwing common sense to the wind I OK'd the choice.
The second session was MUCH better. Still with some clutch issues, I got it down to the pre-grid and the whistle blew. I somehow hit the fuel pump switch and we stalled right there after a few seconds. After frantic thrashing in the cockpit I realized my error and turned it back on and it roared back to life. Most folks are pretty used to newly restored cars doing this sort of thing, so my embarrassment was shared by all. As I rushed down to Turn 1, I realized that these hard DS-11 Ferodos were the wrong brake pad choice! Unfortunately, Girling AR pads are not common, so I had to lie in the bed I made, at least for the weekend.
I qualified some way back in the grid as I came to grips with the car. Actually it appears very stable, predictable and as long as you don't stand on the throttle too quickly, it points forward. I spend my first race dicing with a pair of Sports 2000s that I eventually split in finish order. The brakes eventually warmed up, maybe 5 laps into the race. I stood on them as hard as I could.
The next day I felt much better at the practice session, I kept my hands off the fuel pump cutoff switch and tried diving deeper into the turns. Very satisfying! In the afternoon we had the second race and I ended up 6th, behind CanAms and so forth, but clear ahead of the Sports 2000s. With good brake pads and a reasonable clutch master, this will be fun to drive! I could have been faster, but the gearset I have led me to be tach'd out at 7000 rpm halfway down the main straight! That calculated out to be about 160 mph.... I had to just hold steady until the end of the straight.
I really enjoyed meeting dozens of folks and answering questions - this event is a charity race event for Children's Hospital and folks come out in droves. Not just gearheads, but classic car fans and folks just seeing what all the racing fuss is about.
I was congratulated by the event organizers on a successful debut of an interesting car. That was extremely gratifying after all we've been through.
Dan Davis from Victory Lane magazine came by and we had a nice chat. Another highlight was a visit from Jimmy Vasser, CART driver, who stopped by to check out the display. We tried to convince him to take a couple laps in #26, but he is under contract and declined. :)
July 8-10 HMSA Portland Historic Races
Things went so swimmingly in Seattle that we decided to take the circus down to Portland International Raceway for the HMSA Baxter Portland Historics.
Three things we fixed after Seattle were: the clutch master (back to the original), the air filter, and the brake pads. Porterfield had some R4-1 pads that are supposed to bite sooner and hold the heat better than DS-11s. Kenny made a temporary airbox to do a better job of protecting the carbs until we have time to do it right.
We had noticed that two cylinders were running leaner than the other six at Seattle, so we looked at the valve lash... no issues.
Kenny richened the two idle circuits after deciding that changing jets was a bit ambitious. That sorted things; unlike DGVs the idle circuit stays busy over more of the rev range.
The weather was looking very gray, but we went out anyway as it was not raining. About halfway through the first practice lap the clutch pedal refused to return. So, I brought it back in to the paddock to scratch my head about it. After a few minutes I decided to pull the master as Kenny though the piston might be "hanging up" in the bore. I drove over to the parts store and bought a hone (and then made another trip there 30 minutes later for 600 grit sandpaper when the hone was discovered to be too rough). After a few minutes of honing with a drill and sandpaper, the piston moved much more freely and I reassembled the system and we bled the clutch again.
Even with the funky clutch, it was obvious the brakes were MUCH better with the new pads. Excellent! We went out for the second practice/qualifying session and put the car on outside pole. The clutch worked flawlessly and the brakes were great.
I learned that this car requires some time for the tires to "come in". At first the car has a great deal of understeer - until the tires heat up - and then oversteer arrives. Fortunately it's a gentle oversteer that you can use to point the car. We put in some wing and took out some rear bar and that helped. We think that a larger rear "banana" wing (period correct, Monoposto legal) would help with the low-speed oversteer. Something to try for the next event.
In the race, I didn't set fast lap, but I took the win! Wow. What fun. I was quite exhausted at the end, it's a car that is physical to drive compared to Formula Fords or Formula Bs or even Atlantics.
The next day was very wet. We went out for practice, but were 2 seconds a lap slower. I had a fairly hairy step-out of the rear end on the wet part of the track and throttled back somewhat to avoid doing something stupid. When race time came, it was raining pretty steadily so I took the coward's way out and stayed under cover. As luck would have it, the rain stopped just as the cars rolled off and everything dried out and I agonized on the sidelines. On the plus side, about 10 of the 18 car field made the same decision I did. Still, it would have been nice to start from pole (starting order is based on the results of the first race).
Ken Dye from DND, about to take those restrictive foam filters off...
