GingerMan Raceway-VSCDA Spring Brake 2014

I think the clothing pretty much tells the story of far-western Michigan in early spring. Think west winds off a big pond that was ice-covered just a couple weeks ago. The good news: no rain!

The Hoodie Guys -- Ray Freiwald and Jim Blett warming their hands?

This was our first journey to GingerMan Raceway. Ray Freiwald talked us into it at our annual Volvo Racers and Friends get-together back in February. So after returning to cold Wisconsin after 3 glorious weeks in Florida I “killed snakes” (my father-in-laws term for working non-stop at a frenzy) to get the car ready.

New wiring under the dash, nice fresh paint in the cockpit and the underbody … it all sounds so simple and easy in the mind’s eye. Add to it changing the rear axle to one suited for the shorter track, starting a fresh engine for the first time, and killing snakes was an appropriate metaphor.

David Farrington came up with data acquisition revision and it actually worked. He's still working on getting the video right. :-) 

A little over two-miles in length, GingerMan is technical and tight. In the first practice I followed master-mentor Freiwald around the track. Eleven turns with two nice straights.

GingerMan has added a new section extending the course, but it was all new to me.

The Volvo field was well represented. Ray Freiwald's and Alex Christopher's 1800s joined us, as did Jeff Babcock in his 122.  

Three 1800s in an idelic scene. (Must admit I like that the red one is out front!)

Jeff is having a multi-year streak of bad luck. He threw a rod on Saturday, and with flames from burning oil coming out from beneath his car the black flag all came out again.

Here's Jeff chasing the Barb Nevoral Alfa, prior to the 122 having a major issue, And that engine was fast!

Todd Jongen was there with his 142, although he was in a different race group

Dawn Fisher in her beautiful Lotus 7 and I are evenly matched and usually are right around one another. on the track. Had she not picked up a cone under her car in the feature, things might have finished differently.

This was VSCDA’s “Spring Brake” Driver’s School and Race weekend, so there were a fair number of cars with X’s on them. And as is expected at the first event there were a fair number of rather minor issues. Our 2^nd  Friday practice session lasted about ¼ lap before the Black Flag All came out as two Group 2 cars got into it right off the bat in Turn 1.

In Saturday's qualifying we got the car tuned a bit better and placed 9th on the Sprint Race grid. We finished 4th in the Sprint Race, but Dawn Fisher in her Lotus 7 had a slightly better lap time (1:55.199 vs. 1:56.168) so we were placed 5th on the grid for the Sunday Feature. The weekend was capped by a decent 3rd place finish with a recalcitrant car. Our best lap was 1:54.369. I was being challenged in the end as I was having some sputtering issue, but managed to hold on.  Even with all the stress I had to laugh a little when I happened to see Joy standing at the end of the hot grid whirling her arm in circles, meaning "put your foot in it buddy!" 

And as usual, the big problem on the track turned out to be a little problem under the hood -- a broken wire.

Here's a little trackside video shot by Dave Farrington. 

If I can get the car all sorted out we should be very competitive this year.

A weekend highlight-family members Theresa and Rob Sisson (the Mayor of Sturgis, MI) came over to see us on Sunday. 

We have a long season ahead of us. One of the reasons we can make it long, and travel extensively, is because of people and organizations that help make this doable for us. So allow me to recognize our 2014 Sponsors:

• Automotive Supply/Federated Auto Parts www.automotivesupplyco.com (New for 2014)
• Competition Specialists Racing Engines, http://competitionspecialistsinc.com
• Googins and Anton, Investment Advisors www.googins.com (New for 2014)
• iRoll Motors, www.irollmotors.com
• Mueller Motorwerks, www.muellermotorwerks.com
• PDXVolvos (a bunch of Portland, Oregon Volvo gearheads)
• R Sport Engineering, www.teamrsport.com
• Turbo Blue Race Fuels, www.turboblue.com (New for 2014)
• US Ceramic Coatings (New for 2014)
• VClassics Motorsport www.vclassics.com (New for 2014)

Thank you!

Next up, Spring Vintage Weekend at Road America, May 16-18.

Road Atlanta 2014 Mitty Report and Pics

The Mitty: No. 1 did not go but our Race Engineer did.

Race Engineer David Farrington pulled into Michigan's GingerMan Raceway on May 1, stepped out of his climate controlled Jetta, and immediately muttered, "What the heck is this???"

Our 1800 buddy Ray Freiwald was there as an instructor for Spring Brake, saw the Farrington shudder and said "Get dressed!"  Our RE, who is a 'sutherner' now living in Tennessee, had left 80+ degree weather, quite comfortable in a tee shirt, but was greeted with northern temperatures in  the mid 50s; the nice stiff breeze off Lake Michigan put the wind chill in the low 40s. Fortunately he had brought along sweats, jackets and even a parka he hadn't used in two years. Oh, and a delightful little ceramic heater for the trailer.

But the weekend prior, Dave had taken his 1800ES and spouse Sue (P and B's Dog Wrangler) on a nice little warm and sunny day drive. Destination: Road Atlanta & The Mitty. They walked all over and finally found our paddock friends from last fall, Bonne and Jonathan Foulds.

And he got to try out his new Canon camera and its 75-300 mm lens that he is trying to convince Sue was really purchased in case grandchildren are in the future. (I hear she's having none of it and trying to blame me.)

Bonne's 1960 Austin-Healey Sprite

He also greeted Jim Mathews, who had shared our podium with his second place in the rain-soaked race in Atlanta last fall. I'll never forget the first words out of his mouth: "My car has often been called a "bath tub" and today I know why." We're hoping to see Jim at the HSA event at Mid-Ohio this fall. His Porsche roadster is one of the few that looks precisely as a gentleman racer would have been driving his car to the races & racing in the '60s.

Jim's 1960 Porsche S90 Roadster: The Bath Tub

In Farrington's words:

"Finally, it was a joy to see a quite special and fast Morgan racing. And I would be remiss to not mention that there were at *lot* of Morgans there, as the Morgan club had put in quite an appearance. But Stacey Schepens' Mog was specifically mentioned by the track announcer as something pretty breaking up the 'parade of Porsches'  in the lead cars of the Group 2 race."

Note Stacey's special helmet in that 1964 Morgan 4/4 twin cam

Maybe next year we will hope to start the season at the Mitty again. Might be time to start working on the Race Coordinator ...

2014 Preview and Season Schedule

We took a little break from winter in Wisconsin -- escape the persistent Polar Vortex. So this was drafted while we were in Florida in shorts and no shirt conjuring up what the 2014 season will bring.

So you slackers who don't want to read much more, here is our tentative 2014 schedule:

• Gingerman - South Haven, MI - May 1-3 [VSCDA]
• Road America - Elkhart Lake, WI - May 16-18 [SVRA]
• Blackkawk Farms - South Beloit, IL - June 13-15 [MC]
• Pacific Raceway - Kent, WA - July 4-6 [SOVERN]
• Portland International Raceway - July 11-13 - Portland, OR [HMSA]
• iRoll Motors (show) - San Martin, CA - July 19
• Road America - Elkhart Lake, WI - August 16-17 [MC]
• Volvo Sports America (show) - Milwaukee, WI - August 22-24
• Road America - Elkhart Lake, WI - September 12-14 [VSCDA]
• Mid-Ohio - Lexington, OH - September 19-21 [SVRA]

Pending some outstanding decisions about support, there may be a few more shows in there too.

We're about a week away from our first trip. Think we're gonna make it?

April 23, 2014. GULP!

As usual, the winter was filled with tearing apart and redoing.

I finally got tired of looking at the rat's nest of wires under the dash, so I took everything out, bought a Painless 7-circui fuse block and went back at it. While it does noting for making me or the car go faster, it sure looks nice, all labeled with wires of different colors for each circuit.

The Race Technology data acquisition system was on the fritz at the end of 2013 so it got sent to Virginia to be checked out. Seems we might have had a bad GPS antenna, so that's being replaced.

David Farrington got the 10V power supply back and, after making a couple attempts to create a new box to accommodate EGT voltages, threw in the towel and bought a dandy little signal amplifier.

New data stuff

Last year while racing in one of the many deluges I realized how great it was to see other vehicles in the mirrors, so thinking that safety might be improved I installed a couple high-intensity halogen bulbs behind the grill.

Ready for the 24 Hours?

It's a hell of a lot easier working under the dash with the seat out. That led to a major clean up and repaint of the cockpit. Took the fire bottle into make sure it was still fully charged too.

At the front end we have two fresh engines for 2014. We're starting the year with what we call Engine A. This is the block that we got with the car. I did all the assembly on this one last summer, setting it aside as a spare. Because both heads have been repaired, we're a little uncomfortable depending on it. So our Left Coast Volvo guru friend Phil Singher of VClassics Motorsports is creating a new one for us. Phil has built Volvo motors, both street and competition, for decades. The Apple Farmer Racing Amazon (122S) that won its class of the LaCarerra Panamericana a couple years was a Phil Singher creation.

The new head requires different headers, so Beans at Performance Stainless is creating a set of those while I am away. And while he was at it, Beans made me a new exhaust pipe (after I got grief for how bad the original one looks from one of the crew members).

New Performance Stainless exhaust pipe below original

Meanwhile, Engine B, with 2 seasons on it went into Competition Specialists for a tear down. This led to an important lesson -- when the car is overheating find out why, right now! If you follow these posts you will recall that we discovered our timing was off. Seems we may have had a bit of detonation as a result and we had four cracked JE pistons. I had to use a magnifier to see them, but I could not make them disappear, so we ended up with 4 new pistons. There was sufficient wear on my flat-tappet cam that we decided to replace that right away too.

Engine B will accompany us on the trips as I am not really confident that welded up heads are going to last.

Enough for now -- time to get back into the car. Hope to see you at one of our locations this summer!

Atlanta Historics - Road Atlanta, 20-22 September 2103

Southern hospitality abounded this past weekend as we made our second 2013 trip to Road Atlanta, and we came away with our first overall win in Saturday's Feature Race!

Jim Matthews ('59 Porsche 356, 2nd place), me, and Richard Taylor ('64 Triumph TR-4,3rd place) . Our first podium! (John Hendrick, Hendrick Sports Photo photo)

 

[Video at end of blog if that's what you are looking for.]

 

Returning to Road Atlanta was not on the original radar screen, but when we thought about some of the trappings associated with the Savannah Speed Classic (i.e. unable to stay at the track and the cost of Savannah apart from the race) we decided that going back to one of the nation's premier tracks was a better decision. The Mitty had been a great learning experience and I wanted to see if I could do better a second time out. Right off the bat I was able to better my best time of the Mitty.

HSR once again put on a class event. Despite the fact that there had been over 400 cars there, the folks from HSR remembered us, and were extremely welcoming. I cannot say enough about how they treat folks who race with them.

Late September is beautiful in the south for a northern boy. Friday was hot, good for a couple practice runs and 'seeing' those blind corners and the off-camber downhill run to the start-finish line that Road Atlanta is known for.

 

Race Coordinator showing Race Engineer her next car at Friday night's BBQ ...

... hosted by Lucky Dog Motorsports, directly across from the track, a real man cave.

 

Saturday ...

...looked Ominous ...

 

 ... and it turned out to be a bit damp on Saturday (David Farrington photos)

 

 

Sunday ...

Stacey Schepens'  '64 4/4 twin cam Morgan was fast. I couldn't keep up. (David Farrington photo)

 

Jonathon and Bonne Foulds  with Bonne's Bugeye Sprite paddocked right next to us. We shared some wine, some beer, some food and made some great friends. (David Farrington photo, left)

 



Moments of Relaxation - Joy Perry, Sue and David Farrington

 

Here's what the P and B Motorsports Crew Chief, who's playing Interim College President, missed. A couple of BMWs, one almost like one at home in the shed.

 

 

 

I sometimes wonder if this is amateur racing ...

 

Jon Briggs from our Yahoo 1800 forum came by to do a little work on his '65. 

Here's a short video compilation of the weekend.

 

 

So, is this it for the 2013 season? Seems like Joy wants to us to do the Midwestern Council Looooong Race in late October. I expect the B20 has one more race in it before we do a transplant and have Motor B freshened by our Competition Specialists friends ...

 



Elkhart Lake Vintage Festival 2013

VSCDA’s Elkhart Lake Vintage Festival featured Triumph this year. They were all over the place, on the track, off the track, on the highways.

This Triumph 250K made an impression both on and off the track



Colin's (Comer) Classic Automobiles once again the event sponsor.  Colin is running and winning with  a hot ground pounder.

  

 

While Cana is back in her beautiful Sprite, a car that has always been a race car (Phil Koller photo)

Triumphs were  buzzin’ like bees, but they did not triumph over us this time! It was a great weekend at Road America.

(Phil Koller photo)

Let’s get right to the good stuff by starting at the end. In Sunday’s Feature we placed 1^st in class and 5^th overall. And on the last lap set another personal best time of 2:51.226. I had hoped to break 2:50 this year, but at this point the lap times are coming down in tenths.  We’ll take it.

 It was a truly beautiful weekend at America’s national speed park. We had a minor issue during practice on Friday -- a popped freeze plug again. And just a little rain resulted in some tricky driving for Saturday’s qualifying that put Cana Comer and her ’59 Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite on the pole and Tony Drews’ Triumph TR-4 on the outside row. I was right behind Cana. 

 

Here’s the video of the Group 2 Vintage Production Feature Race taken from our car.

But you might find it even more interesting to watch us from the cockpit of Tony Drews’ TR-4:

 

I must admit I did not heed this request

Lots of cars did not make it through qualifying – there were a fair number of cars off in the grass during the session. Some, including a few fast ones, made it back for Sunday’s racing; some did not.

Ray Freiwald’s transmission started giving him problems so he and Doug Senk changed it in a bit over 2 hours…

… while the Babcock crew celebrated a 50^th Anniversary with a surprise party for friends. (Doug Senk photo)

 

 Welding 101

 

The Swedish Pavilion is not only for Volvos. L to R: Dennis Birkholz, Mark School and Volvo Joe Brabender

 

As always, the cars visiting the paddocks are as interesting, or maybe even more so, than the race cars themselves. Our friend Rick Bunkfeldt showed up with his new own creation, a 1964 Ferrari 500 Superfast. Read that again – Rick designed this car! I am speechless to describe it, but just imagine! Rick showed his car at Pebble Beach, and now here it is in our paddock.

 Rick's the guy on the right. Amazing! (Doug Senk photo)

(Doug Senk photo)

(David Farrington photo)

Each member of the coach building team signed the truck fascia. (Doug Senk photo) 

And then on Saturday night the annual Gathering on the Green at the Osthoff Resort in Elkhart Lake took place. Thanks to organizer Bob Prince there were many more fine examples of exotic cars on the Green this year. What a beautiful evening.

Gathering on the Green. How idyllic is this?

Here was this year’s ELVF team in our new work shirts. Sue Farringon (or is it Fannington? Farmington? :-)  made the trip too. (Derek Brabender photo)

It must be street legal if it has a license plate, right? Travis Phrang's  '69 'Vette.

There was a downside to the weekend. We lost our 14 1/2 year old family member, Shooting Starr's Teasel on Friday. We ran home on Friday to deal with the great sad responsibility of taking care of him. He went to Portland last year with us. Gone, but never forgotten.

In Memoriam, Teasel. February 24, 1999-September 6, 2013

 So now we're off to Road Atlanta for the HSR Historic Races, Sept. 21-23. More after that.