Okemo 2 hillclimb Aug 9-10

        To start out I'd like to say that Okemo Mountain is AWESOME.  It's probably my favorite course.  It's wicked fast on the bottom end and very windy and highly technical in the top half.  I enjoyed being able to really put the boot to my car down the "straight".  I put that in quotations as its not really a straight.  A guy with a Miata will tell you its a long boring straight, but to those of us with copious amounts of HP it turns into a high speed corner.  To give you an idea of the speeds that are being traveled, The checkpoint worker using a radar gun to record speeds down the straight clocked me at 107mph.  The fastest of the day was Kevin Gale I believe at 123mph.  It was quite an experience to say the least.

         I started out this blog with positive remarks so that no one will forget how amazing of an experience this was, despite the problems I had.  Problems, mainly crashing my car on the second run on Saturday, and having issues with the engine the rest of the weekend. The first problem, my crash, was linked mainly to three things. 1. Wanting to go faster (kinda a given, its racing) 2. Forgetting where the big bump was 3. Wacked out suspension geometry.  Below is the map of the course, The "straight" I will be talking about is between corners 8 and 11.  Here's what happened.  After my first run of the day, posting a max speed of 106, like a bone head, I decided that that wasn't enough.  So after rounding turn 8 I was going for it, I knew there were a series of pretty bad culvert repairs in the road that had a tendency to upset my car.  On my way down the straight I was taking it easy (about 75% throttle) until I hit what I thought was the worst bump.  Thinking I was free and clear, I pushed to full throttle.  About half way between turn 9 and 10 I hit the really big bump.  Looking at the bump later, it was similar to a speed table.  The combination of full throttle, high speed, wacky suspension and a locked rear end (spool), instantly kicked the car sideways before I could say boo about it.  There was a brief second where I thought I may have been able to save it, but I'm glad I didn't try, as over-correcting would have resulted in my being hurtled down a ski slope at the 85-90mph I was already traveling.  I slid pretty much perfectly sideways for quite a ways until the front of my car nosed into the ditch on the uphill side. The front left tire caught the bank and spun the car around. I ended up stopped facing back up the hill in my original direction of travel.  I immediately honked my horn twice to let everyone know that I was OK, my wife later thanked me for that, she was working checkpoint 2 just down the hill, and she had heard the whole thing.

At first look I thought I was done for the weekend, front right tire popped, tie rod broken, A arm bent, plus I had bent the right rear rim when it swung around and hit the bank.  I was sure I had screwed up my whole weekend and possibly the rest of the season. 

Much to my surprise and joy, the ever kind and helpful Hillclimb community came by my side and started looking for ways to get me going again. I barely had time to think about what to do next before Roy Spaulding, an other Modified driver, offered me a new tie rod.  We went into his trailer measured what he had, found one the right length and off I went. The bent upper a arm war deemed safe by tech inspector Don Taylor, and Sherman Baumann gave advice on straightening rims and setting the alignment again.


Photos courtesy of Steve Jones.

              Thanks to everyone's help and generosity I was back up and running by early afternoon.  Turns out that due to the delay I created and a lunch break I never missed a run with my group.  I was told that since I didn't miss a run it didn't count as a crash, but it sure felt like one.
            The silver lining of this situation is that it highlighted a problem with the car that I suspected but had no idea how to pin point.  Upon talking to a few people, and getting help from some of the more experienced racers, we realized that Howie has some geometry problems.  The main problem being, that my wheel base is 1 inch longer on the left side than the right (noticed my Sherman).  This problem is akin to how a plastic cup rolls in a circle because one side is bigger than the other.  It all makes sense too because the car always seemed to turn left better than right.  The car would also tail out earlier in a right hand corner and stick longer in a left.  It was that misalignment that caused the car to jump sideways so badly whenever I would hit a large bump.  So that will be my next project, to replace the A arm and get the suspension square.
            The other problem that arose after my incident was with the engine.  My first run wasn't too bad but throughout the rest of the weekend I began to have trouble at full throttle for long periods of time.  With that being the case all of my Saturday afternoon runs were slow.  I suspected the cap and rotor, so I removed them and shined up the terminals and rotor.  That made a small improvement but nothing conclusive.  I ran the car the rest of the weekend the way it was but had no real idea what was going on.  After sitting over night I got one good run Sunday morning with my fastest time of 2:37, which was only 2 seconds faster than the first run of the weekend.  All my other runs were plagued with engine trouble. My moultroupracing YouTube Channel will have a video of my last run Sunday.  You can hear the engine running rough.
         My suspicion is that it is a fuel issue. I have a new filter to put in, and I will be disassembling the pump to see if the inlet screen is plugged or it has a stuck vane. Other than that I ordered new park plugs and I may just order a new fuel pump to eliminate that as the cause. I also need to get a fuel pressure guage to tee in after the regulator to figure out what is going on.  Ascutney is only a couple weeks away so I need to get to work to have her ready.  I will try my best to update anyone who reads this with more info as I go.

Here is a link top a video compilation with some footage of my car on corners 2 and 3, my car comes in at 1:18, Enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Ty2TzM47tmg#t=78

Burke 1 Hillclimb (June 7-9)

            Im WAY late in posting about this years Burke Hillclimb.  I've been busy, what can I say?  In the past 3 weeks since we got back I haven't even touched the car. 

           Anyways, Burke was full of bittersweet.  For example, I had some great opportunities to learn some of Howie's habits at the limit.  The down side was that the limits were really low due to the wet road.  But I am very thankful for getting some wet racing experience.  On Saturday the day started with the road being soaked.  It was wet enough that I used my "rain" tires.  Which are really just my trailer tires, and I now know they are completely useless.  On the front I had BFG Radial TA's, and the rear were some dirt track tires.  The dirt tires stuck pretty well, thankfully they were quite soft.  I actually think that they launched from start better than the slicks.  That was probably due to the fact that start was mostly mud.  My two runs on this tire configuration were 2:54.28 and 2:50.60.

            Last run before lunch I decided to switch to slicks on the back and moved the dirt tires to the front.  The road was drying out and it seamed like a good idea.  Turns out I was right, I made two more runs with the new tire setup, a 2:44.75 and a  2:42.16.  After my first post lunch run I switched to slicks all the way around and my time improved again with a 2:33.34 on the fifth run.  The road was about 50% dry by this time as well so that helped a lot. I took it a little easier on my final run of the day, I was getting tired (all that tire changing) and didn't want to ball it up before Sunday.  Its bad form to crash on practice day.

           The tire changes and the times don't tell the whole story though.  I had multiple moments where I thought I might be needing a tow, first was the crest of the hill at turn 6.  My speed was probably around 75-80, and when I would crest the hill the back of the car would try to catch the front every time.  It wasn't too hard to control but it sure made me pucker up every time.  Besides that the only other trouble I had was almost taking out the #30 turn marker sign because I ran too wide on the exit of turn 29.  All in all I was very thankful that I kept her between the trees all day on that wet road. 

           Sunday...... Sunday was definitely more on the bitter side of bittersweet.  But before I get ahead of myself lets back up.  Saturday night there was a wedding at the clearing by checkpoint 5.  So naturally early the next morning the friendly maintenance crew were picking up.  Turns out the truck they were using decided to spill diesel fuel on the road all the way from check 3 to check 5.  One of the tank straps broke and I'm sure you can imagine the rest.  If you have ever mixed diesel and water and then put it on asphalt which also happens to be a 20% grade, you'll know why we didn't end up racing on Sunday.  It was so slippery that one racer, who went to check it out, reported that his E brake wasn't enough to hold the car in place.  The owners of the mountain were very kind and did their best to try and make it right.  They assured us that they could have it cleaned up by the next day if we wanted to stay.  Too bad we all have day jobs.  

            The good new is there is going to be a Burke 2!!!  The management of Burke Mountain were kind enough to work with the sponsoring club to make right what their truck ruined.  I am not sure as to whether or not Burke 2 will be in the Moultroup Racing budget this year but we will try.  It was a much easier course to learn than Ascutney.  Mostly due to its 2.1 mile length versus Ascutneys 3.6 miles.  It also helped that my fillings weren't being rattled out this time, much smoother.  I'd love to be able to return and race it in the dry when I can really let it all hang out. 

            There is always more to write but its currently 2:30 AM so Ill have to save that for another day.  Okemo 2 in August will be the next race so look for my next update then.

Ascutney 1 2013, The first Hillclimb of the year!!!!!!!!!!!!!

         Moultroup Racing just got back from its first Hillclimb Race of the year. I am happy to report that I couldn't have been better. The car ran great, the weather was fantastic, and most of all the nut behind the wheel (me) didn't put it into the bushes.
         We arrived on Friday at about 3 pm at the Mt. Ascutney State park. The evening was busy with tire changes, brake pad changes, tech inspection, registration, and general setup of the car for the next day. There was also rookie orientation, in which one of the more experienced drivers took us up the hill and explained some of the trickier aspects of the course.  Since the hill is around 3.6 miles, it took us almost 2 hours to go from bottom to top and back again by the time everyone's questions were answered.  Many thanks to Sherman Baumann for the great information.

Tech inspection

         As you would probably expect neither I nor my wife slept much Friday night. Even though the workers and drivers meetings weren't until 7:15-7:30 we were up and around by probably about 5:30 am.  I should have been tired but the excitement of the day outweighed my lack of sleep for most of the day.  The drivers meeting was at 7:30 sharp, in which they covered all the usual safety topics and regulations.  After that it was a mad dash to the cars for the first Fam (familiarization) run.  I ended up about 8th in line out of about 45-50 cars.  The Fam run was fairly uneventful.  The only problem I had was being stuck behind a slow car and not being able to go fast enough to keep the engine from loading up.
         A few drivers ended up stopping at different points on the way down the hill which put me 4th in line for the first run of the weekend.  Before I knew it, it was my turn.  I lined up at start, they chocked my tire and I was ready to go.  One green light and a little big of tire spinning later I was off. I took it easy for the first run of the day.  The last thing I wanted was to stuff it on cold tires on a cold road on the first run of the weekend.  Four minutes and Fourteen seconds later I had covered the 3.6 miles and was at the top, for and average speed of 51 mph.  Not bad considering the posted limit on the road is 15 mph.  Two more runs that day resulted in a best time of 4:02.  My third run was spoiled by the fact that I didn't shift straight and got the transmission stuck in 2nd gear for the fastest section of the course.
         I couldn't have been happier with the results of day 1 and day 2 (Sunday) got even better.  After some initial frustration with missing the Fam run, God was good and actually provided me with an extra run for the day.  Timing missed my first time of the day which bought me a re-run.  So instead of following a slow car up the hill on a fam run. I got a "Fam" run by myself at speed. I couldn't have been happier.  The first official timed run of the day was a 3:51 which shattered my goal of breaking the 4 minute barrier.  At the beginning of run 2 I noticed that in hard right corners I was getting an oil pressure drop. Not left hand corners only right.  Despite monitoring this all the way up the hill and taking it a little slower in some of the tight right handers we still managed to drop off another 3 seconds for a 3:48.  Run 2 ended up being the best time of the day. After lunch, and being delayed by a couple incidents on the hill the weather started to turn.  Rain was gently sprinkling down for my last run of the day.  Run three resulted in a time of 3:59 due to taking it easy to keep from putting it in the bushes on the last run of the weekend.
         Overall I was very happy with the event, the car, and myself over the weekend.  It was an amazing expirience for all who attended.  I highly recommend that anyone who is interested in racing in the New England area attend one of these events.  Its a great group of people, and a good time is had by all.
Here are a short video my wife took of me driving by while working a checkpoint on the hill. You can really hear the car in full song. Enjoy.

     
       

This past (May 4-5) weekend I finally got to try out Howie the race car at St Lawrence Motorsports Park (SLMP). It was a  blast, the car was as good as I could have expected. I only ran into one little snag on the first day. My left front inside brake pad decided to leave the car just before the first hair pin. Luckily the friendly auto parts store was open until 9pm. The flip side was that I ended up running all new front brake pads for the weekend. I'm having trouble getting videos to post on the blog, so head on over to the Moultroup Racing YouTube channel to catch a few videos of the action.

Finally we have had some nice weather, so here are some pictures of Sam and I doing a little suspension setup on Howie, we couldn't resist the opportunity for some good photos.

 

This is a YouTube video of Smokey (previous owner) demonstrating the power that Howe has.  Howe shows up at 3:30.  Make sure to turn up your speakers :-)

A lot has happened with Howe since I last posted.  I don't have a large amount of time so I'll give you the quick rundown. First I have finished the installation of the wire harness and the helper springs in my pickup truck. I am only waiting for new rear shocks to arrive in the mail for the truck to be ready for towing duty.  The trailer is registered and ready for the road pending a small fender fix.  The car is almost ready to go, thanks to the generosity of my brother I now have some stylish numbers (#70) and some Moultroup Racing stickers to go along with it.  Howe's seat is almost complete and just needs to have the old unused harness hole welded up to keep it strong.  I will try to post pictures of the car soon if I get at nice day to take it out of the barn. The first event I will be attending will be an autox style track event at the St. Lawrence Motorsports Park in Morristown NY.  This event will be good practice so I can figure the car out before I am dodging trees May 17. Will give you more details when I have more time soon.