Well it appears that Andy's apetite for a juicy T-Bone was far greater than my lap times.

Andy caught me on the 14th or 15th lap. Word from some of the fans in turn 1 was that Andy stuck his hand out of the car when he passed me HOLDING A FORK !!!!!!!!!

There was also a rumor that he was wearing a bib in the car!!!

I can't comment on the validity of this since he passed me so damn fast I thought I'd have to put new decals on the left side of the car. It's the first time this season I have been lapped by an H1 car.

No excuses, my car ran fine and I didn't go off, so Andy won it fair and square.

My plan to confuse him by having the other two sister cars show up failed !!!!

Hats off to Andy

Andy was also a very gracious winner and because my car was badly damaged early in Sunday's race and I needed to get back to DC because of a sick family member we agreed that I would take a raincheck on the dinner (I paid him $35 before I left).


Also hats off to all the WCHC guys who made the trek out here. Folks....that's a long haul and a lot of gas $$$$

I enjoyed meeting Andy, Ryan, John L. and the other WCHC's. Great group of people.


Thanks to Jon M. for organizing all this and NASA for putting on a good show.

Regards,

Jon P. Kofod (who ate at a Taco Bell Rest Stop on the way home )
3rd Place H4 Saturday
Broken suspension and steering rack Sunday

 

good to see such gentlemen in the sport
hats off to both coasts!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by FLATOUTRACING &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Word from some of the fans in turn 1 was that Andy stuck his hand out of the car when he passed me HOLDING A FORK !!!!!!!!!</TD></TR></TABLE>

ROFL! Good stuff...

 

to you both, and all HC racers for some good racing. From my view point it looked like Andy Hope started on pole, was in the front all day, and no one ever got close enough to even try a pass. The fun part to watch was the battle for 3rd.

 

Great sportsmanship Mr. Kofod

Thank god I pitted for fuel on lap 4 or you'd of never passed me...LOL
Great race Jon, wished I could've stayed on track for the whole race instead of pitting for fuel, my dumb mistake, we could have had a great battle.

I might come to an east coast race sometime this fall so we can have it out.

 

Thanks to NASA, the organizers and the Honda Challenge competitors. Also thanks to the guys from HART / Team Honda Research – I’ll probably see you at the 25 hour race.

My car died an early death in the first session on Friday. Not the best thing to happen after spending a lot of time and money to travel 2300 miles to a new racetrack. It was the standard K series thing – piston or wrist pin breaks, rod tweaks, rod bearing spins, engine disassembles itself fairly quickly. The funny thing is that at the time I thought I had a flat tire. The first indication I had was half way though turn 3, where the steering became very heavy in the first part of the left hand corner over the hill (turn 4?). I believe this was the engine braking effect from the rod bearing spinning transferring weight to the front of the car. The same thing happened on the next right-hander (steering heavy, felt like a lot of grip from the front) so I started to pull over after the left-hander just after the bridge as I thought I had a flat front tire. As I pulled onto the grass the engine seized and the car parked, which surprised me since I thought I just had a flat tire. Have not disassembled the engine but it looks like the whole thing is junk apart from the oil pan and cams. I had not over revved that engine ever and was shifting at about 8600 – 8800 rpm that session, which should be OK considering factory redline is 8600 rpm. Lesson learnt: when traveling away from home, take a spare engine.

We then spent most of Friday and Saturday trying to get #65 going for Tom Lepper. It had seized the cams early Friday so I swapping in my valve train, finally getting it running Saturday afternoon. On the dyno it made no power and dropped 5-10 hp per run, so I quickly called that off at it was starved for oil and would have sized the engine fairly quickly. There must have been an internal restriction in the oil pathways in that engine as the oil pressure gauge read 75 lbs the whole time.

Mid-Ohio is an interesting track. It is neither fast nor slow and fairly even to the different power/weight combinations. Most corners have a slight elevation change and there are a lot of concrete patches in the racing line. The track is smooth and there are not really any really tricky parts which will catch you out, but often you don’t have a whole lot of runoff. Facilities are very good and there is accommodation and the usual junk food places fairly close by. The only thing that mystified me was that fuzzy green stuff along side the track covering up the dirt and rocks. Perhaps Willow Springs might consider importing some to cover the boulder fields.

I was very impressed with the TL. With a little weight reduction and a better exhaust it should kick ***.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Roadracejunkie &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Great sportsmanship Mr. Kofod

Thank god I pitted for fuel on lap 4 or you'd of never passed me...LOL
Great race Jon, wished I could've stayed on track for the whole race instead of pitting for fuel, my dumb mistake, we could have had a great battle.

I might come to an east coast race sometime this fall so we can have it out.

</TD></TR></TABLE>

Damn.................I thought it was my relentless pace that made you give up and pit early I think it was about the second or third lap you got held up passing someone on the inside of the keyhole. I got a nice run on you down the straight but decided against attempting a pass. Then I was a bit too nice letting Scot Burner get by (he had to start dead last). At that point you had 4 or 5 car lenghts on my. I was hoping to get another chance to race you wheel to wheel.

Come on out to Summit Point next month. We can resume the battle there

Cheers,

Jon

 

Derek...sorry to hear about the engine, not good . If you need any help at the 25 hour I'd be more than willing to help out...just if I'm there to had someone a tool. I live 2 hours from the track.

Austin - Black Type-R that was at Buttonwillow when Andy killed his engine

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by FLATOUTRACING &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Andy caught me on the 14th or 15th lap. Word from some of the fans in turn 1 was that Andy stuck his hand out of the car when he passed me HOLDING A FORK !!!!!!!!!

There was also a rumor that he was wearing a bib in the car!!!
</TD></TR></TABLE>

RAD

 

I know how you feel. I hadn't been really pushing by H5 Civic HB in that same Friday morning session and was minding my p's & q's when the black flag all came out. The engine hadn't seen over 6800 RPM, no missed shifts, nothing. I was coming through thunder valley and at the entrance to the carousel the engine blew up with no warning whatsoever, throwing a rod out through a 3" round hole in the front of the block and taking the radiator with it. I guess it was just time for it to go and I wasn't supposed to race this weekend. This left Keith Edwards as the lone H5 competitor, Congrats Keith! Wish I could have been out there battling with you. I will have another engine ready for BeaveRun in 2 weeks. Too bad I hadn't done the smart thing and already had the other engine ready so i could have swapped out the rest of the day on Friday and still raced Saturday and Sunday. Oh well, I learned the hard way to be better prepared with spares and what not. Was still great to watch all of the great racing and meet all of the other fellow Honda Challenge racers.
Sam

 

It was not a good event from a mechanical and contact point of view. Next event I'm paying extra for my witch doctor to come out and exorcise the track demons.

 

wish i could of been there

 

I can't believe I have ever seen so many engines blow or seize or fizzle on a race weekend.
Sam started the domino effect in our garage. (kidding)
Sam blew up on friday, Gene Hancocks car broke a ring on saturday morning, I blew a head gasket in Saturdays race, Ben Bricker popped his head gasket in qualifying on sunday morning......

I wonder if the Clorox ferry didn't pay our gas tanks a visit? It just seems so odd how all 3 of my cars had motor issues all with heat, ben blew up, evans blew up, curpier had issues..ummmmm....not pointing any fingers, but it seems like mid ohio had a curse on us.

 

Mr. Kofod-

I look forward to racing wheel to wheel with you.
I have some changes to make to the car first, like disc brakes in the rear, a new head gasket, 7" wide wheels, and a fresh valve job to keep the head in tact and rippin....

Also, I have to set the alignment, the car was all over the place, so I am going to upgrade the tokico shocks to new Koni's and fresh springs and lower the ride height to 4" not the 6" the car was at.....this might allow me to read all your decals on track. LOL

 

Yeah, big ups to all that went, especialy anyone of those that did those massive tows, west coast as well as those deep south boys. I wish I would have been there.....damnit
Chad for going from 14'th to 3'rd (or did I get confused after reading all those pages and pages of posts )