Getting ready to go to Road America (RA) was much different than Virginia International Raceway last year. Not only getting the car ready to go, but thinking of the amount of food to take for the week as this year there would not be the gatherings during the week as usual due to the Covid-19 epidemic. We decided to be as self-contained as we could make ourselves and took a good supply of face masks and hand sanitizer. This would always be the backdrop during the week, though everyone we talked to were trying to be as normal as possible while social distancing and taking precautions. We were helped by great weather through the week for the event as the rain stayed away and the temps were in the upper 60’s to low 70’s.
The drive up to RA was marked by some cold and rain on Saturday but was turning nicer when we arrived and setup our paddock on Sunday. Monday morning was cool and the 8 AM first test session came very early. I was out on track and was taking the first couple of laps easy to get the car warmed up and become familiar with the track. Though I had been to the June Sprints the year before, I only got to drive from pit out to pit in due to an overheating issue which caused me to retire from the weekend. I was looking forward to the 4 sessions Monday and the 3 qualifying days to cut my chops at RA. On the third lap of my first session, I picked up the pace and had a great run down the main straight. Then, there was a loud noise followed by knocking going into turn 1. I came to a rest along the tire wall drivers right after the turn, and the test session was over in dramatic fashion.
Roll back to my paddock and the discovery that the output shaft of the transmission broke taking out the tail shaft housing with it. Checking around the only other car using the Schwetters transmission belonged to Peter Shadowen. Peter checked his spares for me but had not brought a spare shaft. Roy Lopshire was helping check around the paddock and Peter Zekert was assisting from long distance in my search as he was still in St. Louis. Peter suggested I talk to Steve Schwetters of Advanced Racing Systems, the transmission manufacturer. A quick call to Steve who indicated he did have the parts I needed. So Tuesday was to be spent driving to Rockford, Illinois to visit Steve in his shop.
Race car parts are never right off the shelf and so some time was spent talking to Steve as he made the machining differences for my transmission. After only a couple of hours prepping the shaft, tail shaft housing, and new drive shaft yoke, I was back on my way to RA with my new parts in hand. Thank you, Steve, for dropping what you were doing and helping me out.
Wednesday back at Road America and cleaning up the pieces for reassembly. I was in luck that none of the internals of the transmission were harmed other than the output shaft and work could be completed in the rough conditions. It did take me all day Wednesday to get the car back in one piece and ready for the last day of qualifying Thursday. A quick hard ship lap before the last session Wednesday proved that the car was ready to go.
Going to grid during qualifying on a beautiful warm fall afternoon, the sun was shining and the temperature was in the low 70’s. I was able to get in 7 laps—there was a yellow flag in Canada corner the last 4 laps—but it was a much needed time for me in the cockpit. The transmission was fixed and the car was back on song. For the next couple of days, I had little to do but go over the car and prepare for the race Sunday afternoon at 3 PM.
The down time was used not only for getting the car ready but walking the paddock talking to fellow competitors and of course a race enthusiast’s second favorite pastime of watching racing.
In F500, congratulations go out to David Vincent and Tim Friest for their finishes in 9th and 11th respectively.
In EP, Jessie Prather went wire to wire to win a National Championship making up for his error at VIR last year.
In HP, I saw two of my old friends IT friends who have moved up finishing their race—congrats to Ralf Lindow and Angus Chrome. Ralf finished a more than respectable 4th.
Roy Lopshire in the GTL group with me was third a lot of the race and second for a couple of laps before a loose bolt in the shift linkage caused him to leave the race on lap 11, a great drive spoiled.
SpecMiata was as always very entertaining leaving “The Kink” in a cloud of dust on most laps.
If you have never been to the Runoffs, the racing is great and there are 26 races over 3 days to keep you interested.
After two-and-a-half days of watching, my turn was coming up soon. This year, I was determined to see checker as the year before a separated exhaust, which was filling the cockpit with exhaust fumes, caused me to quit after 5 laps. Finishing was a good goal for this given my lack of experience at this track and at this level of competition. The race start was fair, and I settled on seeing if I could hang on for as long as possible but a couple of driving errors and a missed shift saw me losing contact. I set my goals on lowering lap times and was accomplishing that after lap 3 at about one second to one-and-a-half seconds for the next several laps. Coming into “Canada Corner” during my 7th lap, the car shut off and I had no power forcing me to pull off next to the tire wall on the inside of corner exit. A tow back to the paddock, and I had to load up for the tow back to KC.
Upon unloading the car at the shop on Tuesday morning, we made an inspection to see how bad the car was broken. During the review, the distributor was found to be loose and turning in the block. Seems the 6mm bolt which sets the distributor in place had sheared off and was the cause of my retirement. Another small issue had cost me a finish at the runoffs again!
Well, as they say, there is always next time. I am now turning my attention to working on 2021 and Indianapolis. I hope for a better racing season for all of us.