First of all, I accomplished most of what I wanted to before leaving (late) on Friday. The trailer bearings were attended to. A couple of them weren't what I would describe as in amazing shape but they cleaned up fine and roll smooth. Sven got a nut and bolt and a vacuum but no bath.
I rolled into PittRace around 2-ish on Friday, put the ramps down, hopped in Sven and it wouldn't start. After some tracing we decided it had to be the starter so we push started it to get through tech.
More-or-less tech was no problem. They didn't like that the rain light came on whenever the lights are on and also did not like that it comes on with the brake lights. AER wants to see it come on with the brake lights. ChampCar does not allow a rain light at night. I suppose it's just one of those things that one runs into when competing with multiple organizations. Since there was no rain expected, I just unplugged the ground. They also said that this year they started suggesting the Flagtronics unit to be mounted up high but I had mine mounted down by the shifter - more on that later.
After tech I went about setting up the paddock and my tent. My co-driver, Jake, was bringing a new (used) starter so I pulled off the old one. Yeah, it wasn't gunna work well.
That ground strap wasn't totally missing when I pulled it off but when I looked at it, it crumbled away. Once Jake showed up, we had the new starter in pretty quickly and after chasing a loose connection, it fired up great.
PittRace never disappoints with sunsets and sunrises.
I was in Sven for the start on Saturday morning and had a great stint. Last time Sven was at Pitt two seasons ago, our best time was my 2:14 which was also my fastest time around the track in any of the various Miata I have run there. Saturday morning I ran a 2:12 which I was very pleased with. I was out there for 1:45 and almost ran out of gas. I had fuel starvation coming out of 6, in the esses and up and over 14.
During Jakes stint, he came back after an hour or so and said he thought the clutch slave was failing and wanted me to get in to check it out. Sure enough, after feeling fine for a couple laps, downshifts became nearly impossible. He had a lot of Code 35s in that stint so we thought maybe the fluid had just gotten really hot from heat soak and created a bubble so we took it to the paddock and bled it. The pedal still didn't feel great but we sent him out to try it. He didn't even make it to pit lane. He and our other teammate started pulling it while I roamed the paddock looking for a replacement - which I found very quickly. We had it swapped over and bled in another 20 min or so and he was back out on track. All told, I think we lost 1-1.5 hours dealing with it but it ran the rest of the day with no issues.
Our teammate wasn't really up for driving on Saturday so Jake and I shared all of the seat time. For my second full stint, I went out and oil pressure said 0. Everything sounded OK so I limped it back to pit, they wiggled the wire and it came back. It then went out again half way around so I went back in. They wiggled it again and, nothing. So I made the decision to just run it without the gauge. Other than that, the rest of the day was mostly uneventful aside from a Fox Body having a huge wreck.
Unbeknownst to me, ChampCar created a new "F" class recently. If I would have removed the heim joint end links for the sway bars, Sven would fall into that class and we would have ended Saturday in second place in F. As it turns out we were well down the list in "A". Oh well.
Last year I didn't really have an issue seeing the Flagtronics down by the shifter but I really wasn't catching it well on Saturday so I moved it to where it probably should have been since the beginning.
I found a break in the oil pressure sender wire trimmed it back and put a new end on it. After swapping front left with right rear, Sven was ready for Sunday.
I, again, was the starter. It was a relatively clean stint other than an E30 oiling all across part of the track in the esses. Our third teammate actually went home Sunday morning so it was just me and Jake all day Sunday. Jake's first stint was also uneventful although he did have a few Code 35s again.
My second stint yesterday was... interesting. I had zero slow downs whatsoever. That may be a first for me in 7 (8?) seasons endurance racing. This meant two things. One, Sven was absolutely CHEWING through gas. Second, a day and a half of running two drivers started to catch up to me. About 50 minutes into my stint I started to get a bit of what I'll call target fixation. Twice coming into turn 3, I caught myself just staring straight ahead into the grass and trees and not letting up on the brakes and once through the esses I felt the car starting to push and literally made zero correction whatsoever which sent me coasting directly into the grass for a little ride. I was actually considering pulling in early until one of my friends pulled up next to me coming out of turn 6, gave me a cutesy little wave and totally snapped me out of it.
Because of the fuel usage, Jake went back into the car with 2 hours left. He got very "lucky" with two Code 35s and a few yellows and somehow stretched fuel, running 3 minute laps at the end, all the way to the finish. We again would have been second on the podium in "F" class.
Sven is really such a joy to drive. Totally predictable, very catchable when it breaks free, does exactly what you ask of it and is just a whole lot of fun.
This will likely be it's only use this year, unfortunately since AER at Mid-O is canceled. I'm doing mental gymnastics as to the plan for next year. Do I do all that I can to be extremely competitive in "F" or do I follow the plan all along and start into aero, etc.
Time will tell!
