Gladiators in the Steel Palace

The trip to Spencer was a qualified success. I got third. Unfortunately, since there were only 5 cars and 1 didn’t start, that’s not saying much. The fact that I was a lap down is even worse. I’m not sure why the car count is so bad there. It’s a nice place and the track is pretty decent to drive on. The management and officials were awesome and the competitors were helpful. In order to pull some more cars, they’ve pretty much said bring whatever you have within reason. They even let us run 800/890s. The Super Stock class at Spencer has been hit pretty hard by the fates. They had a good field earlier in the season but for various reasons, many of the cars have been kept home. They’re exploring their options for opening the rules to make more cars eligible for next season in hopes that some of the cars sitting will be able to come out.

I had really hoped for a better run. I spent the week changing the car over from Evans Mills, putting in a closer gear and getting the weights and ride heights to where they should be and I figured I’d have something at least race-able. Jason decided he wanted to come down and try the place out so we headed down together. After about 20 minutes of filling out NASCAR forms, we got in and unloaded. I managed to loop it in the first hot lap session and put some wedge in it for the second session. Then I figured out that my corner entry was making me loose so I took the wedge back out… Jason went out and immediately turned competitive laps. Unfortunately, the motor let got at the end of the second session so he was OFN. I spent the heat trying again to find a decent line and got through with no incident other than turning 7200rpm, which seems like a lot with 5.13 gears. The car did get hot again so we filled it back up and put a new cap on it hoping that would help. The feature was also pretty uneventful. I ran what I hoped was a decent line but couldn’t keep up with the leaders and lost about a second and a half a lap for pretty much the entire race. Changing the cap seems to have taken care of the overheating problem but I’m still turning over 7000 rpm. I think I better look at the clutch again…

I think if Jason had run the feature, he and the top two guys would have put on a great race. As it was, the top two were glued together all night. I’m hoping that Jason comes back and I get a better handle on the car so we can be part of of that. Jason was on the phone that night already campaigning to get more Evans Mills cars down for the next two shows. I hope we can convince some people to show up. It’s not a bad haul and if I can get third a lap down, someone with a car that works should do pretty well.

Well after a mediocre but reasonably cost-effective night at Evans Mills, I’m going to take another shot at Spencer Friday night. And since the management there has seen fit to relax some of their rules and requirements, Jason will be tagging along. I’ve got the car pretty much ready to pass tech on the weight and measurements front. And I think the motor is OK and will keep cool this time. I can’t say whether I’ll be any faster this time but it should be fun.

Evans Mills was fun and I think I’m getting the hang of the track (and the car). But if I wanted to run there seriously, I’d have to pretty much rebuild the car. And I’m not ready to do that so if Spencer’s proposed rule changes get a little closer to something reasonable I’ll probably head there for next season.

Also, if you’re reading this and you’re bored, come down Friday night. They’ve pretty much said you can run any 800 series Hoosier on almost any car as long as the height and weight rules are close.

Since I now have gears and had some time off to hang out with the boy, I figured we’d take the car up to Evans Mills for some practice. So I got the car up on stands to fix the clutch (again) and put in the gears. Several hours later, I put it back on the ground. It turns out no amount of adjusting will account for a clutch disk spring stuck in the pressure plate. But it does explain why the throwout bearing o-rings gave up. Fortunately, the flywheel and pressure plate were OK so I threw in an old disk I had laying around and hoped it would hold together. Things to do regarding the gears in a 9″: Get a slide hammer, put in a drain plug, buy a reusable gasket, lift more weights. After that ordeal I was ready to go back to my old 8.5″. Dave Fetterly gave me some pointers to help out next time so I expect I’ll have an easier time of it.

Anyway, after getting the drivetrain back together, I decided to do what I could to get the weights close to legal for Evans Mills. 58% left side. Are they nuts? Who wrote these rules anyway? So I bolted 180# to the left frame rail and got to just over 57% at 3310#. You need a Late Model to get these percentages. No wonder half the field runs them.

By the time I got the weight on, it was getting close to time to leave so we hooked up the trailer and discovered one of the drums had locked up. And that the ramps were too short. It’s a good thing this was only practice. Eventually we got everything straightened out and Griffin and I headed north. Practice was pretty light so we got plenty of time on the track. Dave Fetterly showed up with the Hot Rod Lincoln as I was heading out for my first session to shake it down. I didn’t actually get to see him on the track but Jason says he looked fast. I, on the other hand, did not. I’m a good second away from fast. I’m sure I’ll make up some of that with tires and a little more track time but the car has some issues I need to work on. I think the rear is out of square and there’s a bind somewhere. I’ll be taking a long look at it in the next couple of days and heading back up on Saturday for the race. On the plus side I’m starting get an idea what the preferred line looks like.

Unfortunately, there’s enough to do that I’ll be staying home from Spencer. I was hoping to get down there to get some time on the track in preparation for the 9/7 NYSS show. I’ll take another shot at it next week. It sounds like there will be a decent turnout for that show from the guys up north as well as the southern tier and WNY guys. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have a better car count than RoC.

This weekend we had some family business to attend to in Binghamton. So we took the opportunity to go to Shangri-La II. What an awesome venue. The track looks like a blast to drive on, the food was good, it was BYOB, and the ticket price was reasonable. And if you show up early enough, you can watch the drags at Skyview on the same ticket. I’ll be going back and bringing the boy.

The racing was…decent… The car counts weren’t great. 13 Mods, 7 Late Models, and 5 Ministocks. And 17 Street Stocks(I’ll get back to them). My son would have loved the show. I was amazed at how many wrecks you could have with so few cars. On the plus side, I got to see an upset in almost every class.

I keep hearing about how great the Street Stock car count at SL2 is compared to the other local asphalt tracks. And with 17 cars the count certainly isn’t bad. I hear a lot of theories as to why the count is so good. The most popular one is the high purse. However, I think I can sum it up in three words: Sharpsteen, Snell, and Zacharias. These three families accounted for half of the field. I give them kudos for supporting the class and SL2 is lucky to have them but their presence is artificially pads the relative counts. Many of the other tracks in the area have had this kind of thing happen over the years and it happens in other classes all the time. Heck, the Miller boys had something like 6 cars between them at Oswego at one time. So at the moment, SL2 has three dedicated families putting everything they have into their favorite class/track. Kudos to them.

So anyway, despite the draw of running on what looks like an awesome track, I don’t think I’ll be hauling down there. There’s just too much about my car I doubt they’ll let fly. I wandered through the pit after the show and looked at all the (wrecked) cars. They look like glorified pure stocks. From conversations with some of the drivers at RoC I’m sure they’re not but mine doesn’t even pretend to be one. Maybe the Fall Brawl will have looser rules or at least looser tech.

This will be a busy week. I got gears for Evans Mills so I’m going to take it up to practice on Wednesday. If everything goes well, I’ll swap the gears back and go to Spencer on Friday. If that goes well, I’ll swap them again and go to the Mills Saturday. Then I’ll take a nap and decide where I want to go next week.