I'll try to keep this as short as possible!

Arrive Friday night after a 9.5 hour drive. The Speedway is HUGE. Took 10 minutes of driving around with the rig to find the correct gate to get in. The lights were bright; the banking was AWESOME. Looked very very steep. My ***** started their retraction a little earlier than usual; even before I got out on the track

Saturday morning. Unload and wait around. And wait some more. I was more than a little nervous, looking out at that track.... It looked big and FAST.

Practice time. All of 11 minutes or so. I was SLOW. Turning laps of about 1:34 or such. Came back in mostly dejected. Was owned by a fairly beat up blue/yellow H4 hatchie (the hatchie could have come in for a driver change and Super Big Gulp, gone back out, and still lapped me ). I did feel slightly better after finding out Fowler was driving it, though.

Qualifying went a little better. I qualified 5th. At least I felt more comfortable out on the track. Jack, as usual, was running on the pole. I think he had about an even 2 secs on me or so. I still was not having the intestinal fortitude to keep my foot all the way in it around the big NASCAR turn. *****!! I seem to recall my qualifying time was around 1:29.5.

Saturday's Race: The wait for the race was agonizing. we waited and waited. It became totally dark. The lights were on. I was super nervous, never having raced at night. We lined up for the standing start and I got off to a fair start. I ran hard, but I could see the front runners (Jack, Corey, etc. running away from me). I was having lots of difficulty in the infield. The outfield was extremely well lit (like as good as daytime) but when I dove into the infield there were lots of shadows. I couldn't pick out the visual markers I had used during the daytime. I made lots of boneheaded maneuvers, like turning in and early apexing tons of the infield turns, especially turns 4 and 5. I lost lots of time there! The race really got interesting when a pack of the H3, H4 cars came up. I made a mistake in the infield and a train of about 4 cars zoomed past. I can't remember everyone who was there (Brinson, Giles, Rosen, Kent, and some of the CRXs), but it was some CLOSE racing. You must realize, in the infield, it was so dark that sometimes you could only hear the cars next to you, and could not see them somtimes (especially Giles' black car with no lights). It made it really exciting. We dogfought back and forth, passing and repassing. Around about this time, I was behind Kent when he went "Joey Chitwood" on us. His car was airborne and sideways off track in the dirt preparing to enter the outfield. I don't know how he caught it, but somehow it was back on track and smoking/sparking/dragging *** like crazy. I went really high to avoid possible oil spills and passed. The last I saw of him he was limping down on the apron. Very shortly after this, a full course yellow came out. Lots of flashing lights on the outfield and yellow flags on the infield. I soon saw the reason was due to Warren and Fowlers shunt. I think also around this time, the Grand Am H1 TypeR caught fire, too. Suddenly, a Yellow Type R passed a bunch of us. He hadn't seen the FCY. I hoped he would and would relinquish the positions immediately. I remember thinking "Grumpy's gonna chew some ***". I was glad it wasn't me! It was very difficult to see the flagging stations on the infield, and luckily the FCY had come out when I was in the outfield and I saw the yellow lights flashing.

My experience with yellow flags (lots and lots of them in EMRA/NASA races) taught me to focus intently on the yellow lights and be in a low gear ready to jump the instant the FCY was pulled. I figured some of my competitors might be "sleeping" at the switch a little.... I got a great jump when the FCY was pulled and zoomed ahead of 3 or 4 cars. At this point, I believe it was me, Brinson, and Giles. As Giles is fond of saying, we were "wolf packing". I mean, we were nose to tail and humping as hard as we could. At least, I was!!!! Around this point, I began to run flat out through the big NASCAR turn; I believe Brinson and Giles were probably also running flat out, too. For me, it was some of the best racing action I have ever had. Hopefully, that was also the case for Brinson/Giles too!

We continued to dogfight; when the white flag came out the order was Giles, me, Brinson. I really really wanted Giles. I mean, I was gonna give it my best shot getting around. We came into the 1st turn with me on the inside, late braking and diving in. Giles held firm on the outside. I got in front for about .5 seconds, sliding to the outside. Giles got inside, followed by Brinson who was about 3 inches off Giles' rear bumper. Fu#$! I had not only been unsuccessful at the pass; I had thrown away a position! I followed closely the rest of the lap, but with Brinson and Giles fighting together there was no room (safely, at least) for me to attempt a pass before the checker. It was a great race for me, and Giles and Brinson deserved to finish in front of me. I was a little dissapointed at my driving errors, but there would always be tomorrow....

Sunday we got up and everyone decided to forego practice and instead have qualifying. This would ensure that we could race in daylight. Yahoo! I was fairly pumped about this, as I believe alot of my problems Saturday were due to the darkness and not knowing the track. I set out to qualify. I did three fast laps that felt really good and was starting the fourth when I saw my coolant gauge zoom up to H. Yikes!!! into the pits immediately. Water was coming out of my catch tank. Uh Oh. I had about 2 hours to get it working for the race. The only thing I could think of to change was the thermostat. We went out to get a new one and after the car had cooled I installed it and rebled the system. Topped off the water and went to check out the qualifying sheets. OH SH@#!!!!! I qualified on the front row! First time I had ever been up front for the start! Jack, of course, was on the pole. The ICEMAN. Well deserved name.

Started the car and went to grid. seemed OK. We headed out onto the track. I put the heat on full power, as a backup. Damn, it was going to be hot in here! I concentrated on lining up in the right place and on getting a good start. Revved up to 2300 rpm and held it there. The starter's arm began to twitch and I let the clutch out and feathered the gas. I got a GREAT start. Jack took off like a Scud missle. I had expected this, though, and it worked out great. He barely got enough distance to cleanly take the inside, while I had the perfect outside fast line. I glanced in my mirrors and saw that we had a comfortable distance already on the rest of the field. It would be him and me now. I concentrated on not F'ing up and pushed the LS for all it was worth. Miracle of miracles, Jack was not pulling too far away from me. In fact, after 3 laps, I was still on his bumper. He would definitely make some distance in certain places, but I would make it up in others. He appeared to be pushing it a bit harder than is usually seen (he was dropping wheels in places, smoking the rears in the brakezones, and generally looked to be "on it" everywhere). I was killing my car. every shift was above 8200. The inside front was lighting up big time in the infield (gotta think about getting a LSD this winter). And I was pushing so hard on the throttle on the outfield that a dent was developing in the floorboard The rest of the field was quite a ways back at this point, too. Unfortunately, my race was about to change. I think at the end of the 5th lap, I saw my coolant gauge shoot up to H. Man, what a time for this to happen! What to do? What to do? I thought about going in.... but Jack was right in front of me! I decided to "relax" the motor and began short shifting it everywhere. I left it in 4th for the infield. I shifted up to 5th at 6500-7000 instead of 8200. It was still overheating, but the gauge would come down at times and at others it would be up over the H. I could smell hot water (I run straight water in the rad) but no smoke, steam or apparent power loss. I figured if I was lucky I could hold out until the end of the race. Maybe the gods would smile and Jack would have a problem, tires, something to slow him???? Oh Please.... Nope, instead the gods decided to send the Tank up to have some fun. Yup, here came Corey up on my back door. After 2 laps or so of that, I signalled for him to pass on the outfield. I thought I'd try drafting his Tank to see if he could drag me back up closer to Jack without straining my motor too much.... We ran like that the rest of the race with me right on Corey's back door. The white flag came out and I thought I'd try to pass him on the big NASCAR turn. I dropped down super low, with the inside wheels over the white line. When we came up I stayed inside and prayed the LS would have enough to pull the Tank down the last straight to the finish. It was SUPER close. I got up to Corey's front wheel, but the finish line flashed past and he was 2nd. I was third. And the car was still running! I was elated. My best finish by FAR. Afterwards, I found that I had turned the fastest lap of the race by 1/10 sec! Yahoo!

Sheesh. turned out longer than I thought. Comments are welcome; errors/omittings are possible....

Todd Reid
#11 H1 Honda Civic DX-LS

 

Nice Write-up! And a great job on track! I didn't see you guys very long... you were flying!

 

Todd,
Good Drving on Sunday.. you were defintaly moving. Just Curious what was your Top Speed on the Nascar Part of the Track?

 

Thanx for the compliments!

Speedo was pointing down; numbers end at 130mph; I was pretty much keeping with ICEMAN; he reported like 230km/hr, I believe.

It felt FAST. My suspension was fully compressed on the high bank. I couldn't lift if I wanted to stay up with Jack and later Corey....

can't wait for VIR. Hopefully it will be cooler down there and the LS won't overheat....

Todd
#11 H1 Honda Civic DX-LS

 

:applause:

Nice job, and nice driving. I remember some time last year the first time I saw you. We were at VIR (Speedtrial maybe?), and as I came out of Oak Tree I was thinking...who the hell is this guy smoking me at my home track?

God help us all when you get that thing sorted out.

 

Pardon me while I go sit down and have a cold one.....your story really got me into it!

 

It was me in the yellow ITR that passed you on the infield. Rookie mistake, and new track. Got it together Sunday. Don't worry, it won't happen at VIR I can assure you.

Good write up.

BTW, Grumpy seems to be quite understanding if you admit your fault. At least he was this weekend. I was still disqualified, but didn't "have my *** chewed" as you put it.

Jason-
who was pissed that others did not come forward as well


[Modified by Jason Franza, 2:22 PM 9/11/2002]

 

i'm with him!

 

Todd - what radiator are you running ? that may be your problem....

 

I'm running a Del Sol VTEC radiator. Its only 3 months old....

I think that it is not the rad's fault. I am thinking that either:

1. I have a slightly slightly blown head gasket which shows no other signs.
2. The LS water pump is spinning to fast and is cavitating at super high sustained rpms....

I will try to fool around and figure out whats up with it!

Todd
#11 H1 Honda Civic DX-LS

 

blocking the opening where the a/c was dropped the water temp ~30F on a B18C5 powered hatch at VIR a few weeks ago.

your oil cooler will still need fresh air... maybe a block off plate with the cooler opening cut out of it?

 

I really think you should bump up to a 94-up teg rad. I hear alot of problems with Bseries motors running on a half wide rad

my needle never rises above the halfway mark even at CMP with 110 outside temps and 8k for twenty minutes I dont have ANY cooling issues.

thats just my opinion , like Big Willie said on Phillips car at VIR he was having cooling issues and a simple piece of cardboard where the condenser was helped out alot

30 degrees is ALOT.

the teg rad is a nice upgrade that requires minimal bracket fabrication , let me know if you need pics or any questions -

Jamie

 

Todd, it was great racing with you!! Although my heart jumped out of my chest when i crossed it up in nascar 4 at 135! Foot to the floor and very very carful corections got me straight. Very glad to see your car run awesome, at VIR, I will find that NOS bottle!

 

Now why would you want little ol' me and my slow-*** H3 car so bad?

Seriously Todd. Great race Saturday.
As I told Brinson after the race, it takes alot of trust to do some of the stuff me, you, Brinson, Evans, Lyonel, Meredith, etc. were doing out there.
Some folks said our little group was putting on some of the best racing they'd ever seen. Pretty cool.