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A very special thanks to Kelvin @
www.pscmotorsports.com for the awesome new steering pump and Aeromotive's
technical support for the many phone calls to help us sort out our fuel issues.
Neither of these companies is a sponsor for us, so I assume they simply take
care of all their customers needs promptly and very well, the way it's supposed
to be...
Prerace drama
Frustrated by the race 3 performance, the team went to work and found 2 plugged
injectors and a fuel pressure regulator that was fluctuating by over 20psi. We
had the plugged injectors cleaned, put a couple of filters to keep them cleaned
and installed an in cab fuel pressure gauge to keep an eye on the pressure under
load conditions. We went to test at PC and the truck ran great for one lap at a
time, we were plugging the filters with all kinds of fuel cell foam and a whole
host of other things that we still can’t figure out from where. After cleaning
the filters about 10 times she started running a bit better and for a bit longer
but we had a condition where it would pull the pressure down to about 10 psi on
hard acceleration which is about 50 lbs of drop. We tried to keep running it
easier to just run some fuel through the system when Patty jumped in and it went
to a full miss so we had clogged the injectors again. This was not going to work
so it was time for more research. Sent the injectors back to RC Engineering
again, 2 were just about completely plugged and 2 more were flowing about half
so the filters weren’t working out. Also they found “red stuff” in them, the
only reason the tech remembered it was he’d never seen that before. We've
determined it must have been a cross threaded earls fitting that shed aluminum
and we didn’t clean the hoses enough prior to assembly, we also got the info to
put in 10 micron filters to protect the injectors on the downstream side of the
pump. We called the pump manufacturer and came to the conclusion the fuel
filters we had just put on had nowhere near enough flow and we were starving the
fuel pump which caused cavitation on the inlet side of the pump, it wasn’t
getting hardly any fuel. So with cleaned injectors and new much larger and finer
filters it was back to Sacramento to see if the problem had resolved itself.
Test day 2 was more successful I got 15 good laps in then turned the truck over
to Patty who then got 15 good laps in. Checked the filters and although they had
a little bit of junk in them they were easily cleaned and we decided to finally
let the girls have some laps. Now as a dad, letting the girls run was both a
proud and nerve racking experience. One has only been driving on the street for
6 months in a gutless automatic 4 cyl truck and the other had only driven the
race truck for 3 laps in practice last year and was very tentative. Now we were
basically giving them a fire breathing monster that's a handful for an
experienced driver...I told them to keep it in second and just play around, we
needed the truck in one piece in a week and if anything significant happened
we'd be done for the season. The girls made a couple of exploratory laps to see
what they would be running on, the track was pretty tore up from that last race,
and then they dropped the hammer. The first couple of laps they were revving it
up for all it was worth in the straights, slowing down a bunch for the corners.
Somewhere about lap 5 they decided 2nd gear wasn’t enough and really, dad
wouldn’t mind if they tried 3rd a bit. So now I’ve got 2 girls, running about 60
in the dirt, with no experience, in a truck I needed in a week, starting to
slide the corners and get air. Apparently they were flying around the track just
chatting like it was a cruise, no stony faced determined runs like race drivers,
they were just talking…They also figured out if they stopped on the track, away
from where we were all watching and did driver changes they didn’t have to get
an earful from mom or dad. Each of them ran about 15 laps and our day was a
success. With the fuel system finally fixed, I was thinking about other issues.
The steering and brakes on our truck have been junk for just about always. The
brake pedal was about only good to turn the lights on at the back of the truck
and if you stood up in the seat, you could kind of slow it down for an
emergency. I had improved it significantly during the summer so that left the
steering. Due to the angles the front end has to provide for wheel travel and
the resistance of the uniballs and the steering quickener, it took a gorilla to
turn the thing. You had to start turning in early and anticipate for oversteer
or you would get a slight hydro-lock from the pump. For Patty to run as fast as
she was, she had to drive “safe” in the corners, a small mistake was very hard
to recover from and a bigger one would usually spin you around…I knew her
shoulder was hurting again and we would have to try and fix the steering, she
wouldn’t last 5 laps competitively let alone 10 and we wanted to win badly since
we’ve been off the top spot on the box all year. I called PSC motorsports Monday
morning after testing and ordered a high flow, high pressure pump that didn’t
arrive until Friday due to my bad judgment of UPS shipping times. We worked hard
Friday getting the pump installed and didn’t get loaded until after 10pm, not
the way I like to start a race weekend…I really hate testing new parts during a
race but we were up against it and had no choice. The new pump which Patty
hadn’t even tried until practice provided about a 30% reduction in steering
input and no hydro-lock.
Qualifying
Patty spent time readjusting her steering timing a bit during practice and
qualifying and grabbed a 2nd place starting spot behind Johnny who ripped off an
amazingly fast lap beating us by 2 seconds. Patty messed up the entry into the
new hairpin and blew the exit of the corner at the end of the back straight
which cost probably a second or so. Johnny went up on 2 wheels in the same
corner and while saving it, found a good line by accident almost in the
motorcycle park(just kidding) which allowed him to put the hammer down longer,
where his truck runs best, picking him up probably a second or so. I knew we
would be competitive if our problems didn’t come back to haunt us…
Moto 1
We lined up for moto 1 in about the center of the line. Patty grabbed the
hole-shot with Johnny on her tail and a knot of trucks on his tail. She pulled a
couple of truck lengths within the first half lap and she and Stephanie went to
work looking for fast lines. Johnny fell out with a blown rear end but was
replaced on our tail with, I think, the 743 of Ben Phillips who pressured us for
the next 4 or 5 laps. Apparently we came together somewhere with Ben and his
tire blew and he pulled off to change it, he went another couple of corners and
a shock mount let go and launched his shock through the hood(that wasn’t us, we
didn’t hit that hard). Ben was replaced behind us by the 724 of Jeff Sherrill
who was all over us like Velcro. Our truck was a little faster on corner exit,
his was a little faster down the straightaway’s so we'd gap him on corner exit
and he'd close it up on corner entry. We both ran about the same lines so it was
going to take a mistake by one or the other to decide the race. On the last lap,
Patty blew the exit on the corner at the end of the backstretch, got way crossed
up and shot across the track. At that spot VORRA created a good sized jump and a
place to go around see
http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/k...IMG_0165-2.jpg for pic. Going over
the jump was faster since it was straighter and around was slightly longer but
you could keep the gas. Patty ended pointed at the bypass, it was going to be
close as both trucks we coming to the same spot doing about 60 or 70. Patty told
me later she didn't even know he was there, she needed to use as much track as
possible since the line she needed for the next corner was all the way back
across the track and this was for the win. Ben says he lifted a little to keep
from being involved in a wreck that would take us both out and he may have, but
it looked from the outside they were both letting the bottom side drag and were
racing hard for the win, it was as good as watching Patty and Billy side by side
through the old s-turns on top a few years back. We won moto 1….
Inspection and prep for Moto 2
We did the regular inspection after the first moto, found a couple of slight
cracks in the suspension at a non critical part we added Friday night before the
race, had lunch and relaxed a bit between heats. We located a welder and in prep
for doing the welding noticed that the right side tie rod was bent at about a 20
or 30 degree angle, it wouldn’t last a lap. We haven’t ever bent one before and
all the spares were at home so we decided to grab some angle iron and weld it up
across the 2 bent pieces to try and hold it together. Since we won the first
race and had a shot at the overall for the day, we were taking a risk. I wasn’t
sure it was a good idea and normally would have parked the truck for safety
reasons as I couldn’t even guess if it was strong enough and you just don’t scab
steering together on a truck going this fast.
Moto 2
We lined up for moto 2 in first since Johnny was out again in the center of the
line. Patty and Jeff came to the 1st corner at about the same time with Jeff on
the inside. Patty managed to pull head on the exit and the race was on. VORRA
just watered the track again and it was fairly sloppy and everyone was slipping
and sliding thankfully we were out front and Jeff had problems in all the same
places we did so the gap stayed pretty consistent again with us pulling him on
corner exit, him closing hard on entry. Thankfully for us we caught lap traffic
right and Jeff got boxed in a couple of times to give us some extra gap to ease
back a little and wait for the track to dry out a little. Patty had a very hard
time with traffic last race but this time the class 8 guys were as considerate
as they could be while racing there own race and were more aware of us this
time. We came together with Jeff on the bottom S-Turns our door got a new
contour and his fender went flying, the section had a huge hole on the entry to
the bottom straight and both trucks were basically a little out of control
bouncing all over the place... The tie rod held somehow and Patty went on to win
the moto taking the win for the day.
Conclusion
This race was about the best race we've had in years. The competition gave us
fits with some very fast drivers and trucks that pushed us beyond what even we
thought we could do. This is the first time in a number of years that Patty
could put out a full effort for a whole race, the steering made all the
difference in her stamina and she flat hauled a** for the complete race. We
appreciate that our fellow competitors raced us clean as we raced them clean. We
hope all our VORRA class 7 is safe for the off season and we look forward to '09
when we can all have fun again.
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