93FD

Mid America Motorplex is basically my ‘home’ track, so I was expecting to do well here. The car had a few issues after the last event, and I ended up having to install a new transmission because my old one was basically munched. However 100k+ miles, and 20k+ miles as a track car will do that I suppose, especially at 175% of stock power. I was also able to have some time to throw in my new bushings all around, which definitely tightened up the suspension. All in all the car was feeling pretty good. I was able to test drive it a bit at the local hot-rod weekend and it passed quite well.

After our requisite thrashing about to make it down there, we were able to get a little sleep. Saturday dawned bright and warm. I brought alot of drinks this time, but I didn’t have any ice. (Mistake #1) Anyway, the warm up session was pretty uneventful, except that it was obvious that it was going to be hard to get good times. The power on the car was already down, the temps were in the mid-80’s even at 9am! I turned the water on, and didn’t turn it off again all weekend, even at 11.8 psi of boost.

The day went pretty well after that, although we were looking for air conditioning non-stop. My car ran pretty well, and my driving was ok, but the temps were definitely not helping. I saw the highest temp I’ve seen on the water during one run, 105C. Air temps even with the water on were getting close to 50C. Now in general, these are not high temps for a RX7, but for me they were pretty high. The car definitely had less power at those temps, the ECU is set to start retarding timing and dumping fuel so that seems to be doing its job. Of course it’s not as much fun.

Fortunately since I know the track pretty well I was able to go out and run hard in the first timed session of the day. Since the conditions just kept getting hotter and hotter all day there was no way for anyone to catch me later on. I ended up winning the class by only .047 seconds over Derek!

The bad news for the day came during the A race though. Damian was forced off the track and into the grass by someone who lost track of where he was in corner 12. He was able to save it and steer back on-course, but two laps later he had to put with excessively high water temps. When he rolled in the grass literally fell out of the nose of the car in clumps. Basically there was no air at all going in the nose for two whole laps. (Mistake #2) Next time anyone goes into the grass we’re coming in immediately to check for blockage. Anyway the motor ran fine, but after it cooled and he went back out for a TT session it was done. No compression in 2 faces of the front rotor. Unfortunately this was to be the first 2 hour enduro race of the year as well.

There was a NASA pizza party during the evening, but Damian, Ben and I missed out on most of the food so we took off for town to grab something. We got back and expected the video party to be going, but apparently everyone though we were in charge and had given up and left/gone to bed. (Mistake #3) We headed out for the obligatory track walk and got some sleep.

Sunday dawned early and hot once again. Since Damian was out, he worked on his car while Ben and I headed out for the first sessions. We tried to convince the director to count the first session, since the conditions would be the best but to no avail. Second session Ben and I played around a bit and I didn’t get a good time. By the third session it was once again really hot, so 1st was a lost cause (I thought)

I concentrated very hard on my driving for the last session since I knew it was going to be difficult to try to beat Derek even with the hot temps. I got 2 laps in before the car got warm and slowed down again but I didn’t know if it was enough. While we were packing up I saw Derek drive by pointing to me. He had seen the sheet and I got him by .7 seconds in the last session to take the win. Woohoo!

We were able to start packing up fast, but since we stopped at Outback on the way again it took a while to get home. All in all the weekend went fairly well for me, Ben also won both days, but for Damian it was a bit rough. He’s going to try to get the backup motor together for the next NASA event in 3 weeks.