Friday The 13th 7-13-12

Friday the 13th, one is always aprehensive on that day.  Although I am not superstitious, I don't believe in taking chances.  I had on my lucky T shirt, left home at the same time as usual, took the same route, filled up the truck at the same gas pump at the Shell station in Grand Bay, AL, and parked in my usual pit stall.  I had done my part so lets see if Lady Luck will smile on us tonight.
We got to the track on time, the track opened at 5 pm due to the Friday night program.  Got the car registered, went through tech, got on the track for a few practice laps, God, that track was slick.  Track temp was 124 degrees, couldn't tell much about the car but Connelly said other than being loose (hot track) it felt good. 


QUALIFYING:  The participants tonight were the #53 of Jeremy Lundy, the #7 of Hunter Lewis, the #44 of Joseph McArdle, the #10 of Chad Robinson, the #39 of Daniel Thompson, the #04 ofDawson Kenner, the #59 of Terry Myers, the #55r of Ronnie Osmer, the #94 driven by a new driver who just purchased the car, this being his first race. and of course the #32 of Connelly Dubuisson. 
Connelly qualified third, 2 one hundredths of a second behind second place #53 and 8 one hundredths of a second behind the pole sitter #7 of Hunter Lewis and only 1 onehundredth of a second ahead of the #44 of Joseph Mcardle.  A very close field the first four qualifiers were within one tenth of a second of each other.

HEAT RACE:  We started on the outside front row in the heat race and before we could  get to the inside we were third behind the #7 and #10.  It was an uneventful heat race with Connelly driving the #32 to a third place finish only one car length behind the #10, but almost a quarter of a lap anead of the 4th place car.  Connelly was never more than 2 car lengths behind the  #10 at any time in the heat.

FEATURE RACE:  In the feature, Connelly started in fifth position because of his heat race finish (there were two heats)  We raced in fifth place for the entire race always in touch with the #10 (who held down fourth place) but never quite able to pass.  Connelly got alongside of the #10 at one point but before he could complete the pass, a caution came out and the restart was determined by the last completed lap prior to the caution, back to fifth.  The #32 appeared to be a handful to drive, he wasn't able to keep it on the bottom in the turns and he was snappy loose coming out of the turns especially #4.  As a result he could not get back to the throttle as soon as he needed to coming out of the turns and on several occasions after he got back to the throttle he had to "burp" it to get the rear end back under him.  I didn't realize how bad the car was handling until I saw the in car video.  His hands never stopped moving.  He was definately sawing on the wheel.  A fifth place finish was not what we were looking for, but under the circumstances, we'll settle for it.  We gained pionts and are within 8 points of third place.  The finish of the feature was #53, #7, #44, #10, #32, #39, #04, #59, #55, #94.  In his first race the #94 did a great job, he didn't spin didn't get involved in any incidents, and overall handled himself and his car well.

I couldn't wait to get a look at the  car and try to figure out what was causing our "tight in the center" problem.  After going over the car with a fine tooth comb, we found that we set the fender bracket too low and the right front fender was draging on the tire in the turns so much that it cut a groove in the tire.  That rub was causing the right front to not turn as freely as the left, causing the tight in the middle problem.  The "snappy loose" off was caused by Connelly having too much "wheel" in the turn to try and hold the car down in the center that when he ran out of banking coming off the turns, the car was jumping out from under him.  We have gotten all of that corrected and am looking forward to the next race July 28th.

CONCLUSION:  I have learned that the secret to sucessfully running a Legend racing team is that there is no SECRET, just constant and deliberate attention to a thousand small details, all of which have to work in harmony to make one of these little boogers run.  It is a slow process, but we are learning.

Saturday June 30, 2012

Saturday night June 30th  competed three weeks of racing in a row.  While Connelly loves it, it puts a strain on your service program as you don't have that off weekend to thoroughly go over the car.  I can only imagine what someone like Joey Padgett goes through when they race 3 or 4 times a week.   Gotta be tough on people and equipment.
We got to the track right on time, got the car unloaded, got registered, went through tech and were ready to hit the track.   We still had to put one heat cycle on our last set of tires, so we got that done and put a couple of hard laps on them, however out lap times were not what we were looking for, high teens and low twentys, but the track temp was 121 degrees.  Connelly still comlplained that the car still wasn't rolling through the middle of the turn as well as he would like it to, but all in all the car was very close.  We discussed a chassis adjustment but didn't want to mess up what we had.  We opted for the adjustment thinking that we could always put it back.  After the adjustment he was all smiles, said it was the best car he had ever had under him and did not go back on the track again until it was time to qualify.
We had a very strong field of cars tonight.  The #53 of Jeremy Lundy, the #7 of Hunter Lewis, the #44 of Joseph McArdle, the #39 of Daniel Thompson, The #10 of Chad Robinson, the #66 of Andrew Johnson, the #59 of Terry Myers, and of course the #32 of Connelly Dubuisson.  Our good friends and long time competitors the Osmers with their #55r did not attend tonights race due to a prior planned vacation, we all missed them.

Quilifying:  Qualifying was devided into two heats, we were in the second heat and qualified in third place two one hundredths of a second out of second (#53) and almost one tenth of a second behind the pole (#7).

The Heat Race:  In the heat I told Connelly just to take it easy as the track was still quite hot (over 100 degrees and slick)  we were running third about 6 car lengths off of second knowing that they were going to invert some cars for the feature race.  With three laps to go there was a spin, bringing out a caution on the track.  This bunched the cars up and Connelly decided to give it a shot and see if he had anything for the #53, and #7.  During those last three laps you could have fit all three of those cars under a blanket.  Connelly was right on their rear bumpers.  The #53 won with #7 second and Connelly third by less than a car length.  We just put fuel in the car and waited for the feature race.  At intermission they had fan appreciation night.  All the cars in all classes were parked on the front straight a way and the fans came out on the track and got autographs signed and photos taken with the drivers and cars.  A lot of fun for all.
The Feature Race:  Jeremy Lundy #53 threw the big dice and rolled a 4 meaning that the first four finishers in the heat race would be inverted.  This put Connelly outside front row with the #53 behind him.  Something very strange happened next.  As soon as Connelly got on the track the upper ball joint came off the spindle block.  The right front was leaning out at about a 30 degree angle, and they were fixing to go green.  Jeremy #53 saw the problem and pulled up alongside Connelly waving his hand and pointing to that wheel.  The flagman called off the start and Connelly limped into the pits.  I got to the pits as fast as my worn out knees would allow, and Connelly's friend Thomas who helps us crew the car jumped the fence and we got to the car at about the same time.  It took a couple of moments to figure out what the problem was.  We carry a spare ball joint in the trailer, robbed the nut off of it got the greasy ball joint bolt back in place secured the nut and in our haste, replaced the right front wheel with the right front that we had just heat cycled instead of the one we had run in the heat race.  Now we have a mis matched set of tires, a hastily repaired ball joint with no cotter key in it and we get back on the track with two laps to go, but we got back out there and scored 8th place points.  Working in the dark on a greasy ball joint and getting it done in 18 laps aint too shabby.  Connelly had left the in-car camera on during the whole repair process.  It looked like a Chinese fire drill with Thomas and I fighting to get Con back out. The only damage done to the car was that we bent very slightly the lower right ball joint.  We replaced it in our maintnence work done this week.   After repairs, the car scaled right on the money.  We hope we are ready for Friday night's race.