What's the old saying? If I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck.
Here's a report from the NASA race at Autobahn, in Joliet, Illinois.

DAY MINUS 1
Friday. Mike the Mechanic (Mike Willis, my crew chief) shows up Friday morning for some last minute prep, in hopes of getting an early start. If we leave by 2pm, we can get to the track by 6, stake out a spot, unload the car, have an early dinner, and get a good night's rest.

Uh, oh. Mike puts in the Scanmaster, fires up the Eclipse, and notices that the O2 sensor is not putting out a signal. Problem #1. Wiggling the wires at the sensor gets signal spurts. So, out with the new O2 sensor, and in with the old. This, of course, requires pulling the radiator, etc., and putting us about two hours behind schedule. We get to the track at dark, unload, and set up.

Autobahn Country Club is one of those places springing up around the country where a bunch of ROWGs (rich old white guys) shell out $100,000 each and pay $30,000 a year in membership fees to have their own race track and country club. No golf or tennis there, just racing. Member facilities are superb--big paved paddock areas, private garages, etc -- but guests (us unwashed NASA types who rent the track) have to pit in the grass and share a one-holer toilet. Still, a very nice facility.

(I can visualize a Chicago billionaire sitting out on the deck of the club, sipping a cup of cappucino and nibbling on canapes, and calling out, "I say, Jeeves, old boy! Kindly get the Porsche, air the tires and bring it around. I think I'll run a few laps, what?" But I digress. Back to racing.)

DAY 1
I have no NASA TT license, so NASA sticks me into the HPDE3 group (passing on straights only), so I can do a few laps with an instructor and get signed off to run TT. All goes well. The chief instructor rides along whilst I learn the new track, observes me in a few careful passing maneuvers, and signs me off. By the time we get all the paperwork done, I miss the TT run group, so I go out in HPDE3 again.

Meanwhile, Mike is checking over the car. The bolts holding the turbo to the manifold had loosened, the turbo gasket was leaking, and the hot gases were starting to melt my timing belt cover again. Problem #2. Mike tightened up the bolts, cut up a Coke can and rigged up a heat shield between the turbo and the cover. Off I go again.

Running again in HPDE3 worked well, because I am still learning the track, and there are some very fast cars in the group. I followed a very fast, very experienced Corvette driver for a few laps, and picked up the line.

Back to the paddock. We've been running 10 psi boost, and Mike and I want to kick it to 15 psi for the next session. Alas, the top adjuster portion of the manual boost controller broke off somewhere on track. Problem #3. Mike replumbs it to run waste gate pressure directly, which still gives me 10 psi. Oh, well.

Out I go for my first real NASA TT session in TTB. Hoo boy! It is everything that Greg Collier and the other folks have been claiming all these months! It is REAL racing -- fender to fender and pass anywhere you like. No need to let anybody by. If they can't pass, tough! You are under no obligation to move over and give them a point. In fact, NASA tells you to maintain your line -- make the passer go off line to get by.

I did, however, let the AMS Evo by without making a fuss. When you see a 650 hp Evo TTU car coming up from behind, you get out of the way. That car should be fitted with lights and sirens, because it is a rocket ship.

AMS is AutoMotoSport in Chicago. More about them anon.

We were three wide down the straights, passing in corners, outbraking folks, and having a wonderful time! I wound up about 2 seconds down on the fastest TTB cars, including a blue Mustang that had decals that said "2004/2005 NASA National Champion." Not too shabby.

Next session, I cut two more seconds off my lap time, and came in third overall in TTB, behind two modded M3s, and ahead of the blue Mustang. Alas, I also came in on the hook.

Coming out of 5, making the 3-4 upshift, I couldn't find a gear. The tranny had been doing that all session, but this time I couldn't find any gear. The engine died while I was rowing the shifter around, so I coasted off to the corner station at 6, and parked it next to the guardrail, well out of the way of traffic. It wouldn't start. Just click-click-click on the starter.

When we got it back to the paddock, Mike immediately pulled the timing belt cover, fearing the worst. Whew! The timing belt was intact. But the motor still wouldn't turn over. Mike pulled the starter, and it was OK.

Mike started to put jumper cables on the battery when he found problem #4: The battery box had cracked, allowing the battery to move around, and it broke the cable terminals. So Mike fixed that. Meanwhile, I am in my usual helpful position -- sitting on the trailer, chewing my fingernails, and hoping that Mike figures it out and it won't be expensive.

Even with the battery terminals fixed and a jumper, it still won't turn over. Mike tried to turn the motor over at the crank pulley with a 1/2 in. bar, and found resistance...which suddenly let go, and the motor turned. Bummer. What did we do? Break a crank? Mike--one of the most careful mechanics in the DSM world -- decided to drain the oil and filter and take a look. So we did that. Looks OK. Put in a new oil and filter. Nothing left to do now but try again, now that the resistance is gone. We crank it a few times with the plugs out, and it sounds OK. Put the plugs in, and it starts! Hooray!

However, when I push the clutch in, we hear very loud grindy noises. Now what? Did I fry the clutch? Break the throwout bearing? Bend a clutch fork? Something is terribly wrong.

Erik and the boys from AMS stop by to consult. "Pull the tranny," he says. "I'll go back to the AMS shop in Chicago tonight, and bring you whatever you need--clutch, pressure plate, throwout bearing, flywheel, clutch forks, just name it -- call me in an hour and a half, and tell me what you need." How about THAT for DSM support?

So, Mike and I start to pull the transmission. It's 6:30 at night, we're 106 miles from Chicago, it's dark, we're wearing sunglasses, and we're on a mission from God. (Oops, that was the Blues Brothers). Well, except for the sunglasses, that's all true. So we start in on it, preparing to get the tranny out of there in 1.5 hours. Then the monsoon came.

It is pouring down rain. Although the car is under a canopy, we are still getting soaked, rivers of water are running down the tarp, its is darker than the inside of a dead cat, and the flashlights are starting to give out. Mike calls Eric, and tells him the situation. Eric says, "I'll bring EVERYTHING you might need." Once again: How about THAT for DSM support?

DAY TWO

We come back in the morning at 7 am, dry everything out, and start in again. With enough light to work by, Mike finds the problem: We broke off one of the mounting ears on the block, where the tranny bolts up, and the tranny had shifted. Problem #5. We are dead now. Nothing we can do but put it back together, put it on the trailer, and go home.

I was so impressed with the AMS guys, we'll be hauling the car back to AMS to get it fixed. They claim they can weld the ear back on with the engine in the car, so we don't have to pull the motor. I am also going to have them install the DSM Link, put in a two-stage boost controller, and dyno-tune the car.

Do these AMS guys know what they are doing? Let's see...the Evo, running in TTU, won its class on Saturday (dunno about Sunday); Martin, the dynotuner specialist, runs his Evo in HPDE3, so he understands how to tune a car for road racing; and the welder/fabricator guy who will fix my car was there at the track. Yes, I'd say AMS knows a ton about road racing DSMs and Evos. I dunno what the rest of you DSMers have for support across the country, but us flyover people have AMS!

In a nutshell, I am ecstatic at how well the car runs, I enjoyed myself immensely, and we found a tremendous support mechanism at AMS.

The downside, of course, is I broke it AGAIN.

Rich

Congrats, Rich, on your first NASA TT event! Glad you finally found what you were looking for.

Martin from AMS was the co-pilot and the engine tuner of that AMS EVO that came in 3rd overall in this year's One Lap of America behind an AWD Porsche and a Z06, passing a bunch of other seemingly more capable cars - Vettes, Vipers, Nobles and other exotics and just plain fast cars. He does know how to keep the engine alive not only to run 8's in the 1/4 mile but also to lap the road racing circuits.

Supercar1 said:

Congrats, Rich, on your first NASA TT event! Glad you finally found what you were looking for.

Martin from AMS was the co-pilot and the engine tuner of that AMS EVO that came in 3rd overall in this year's One Lap of America behind an AWD Porsche and a Z06, passing a bunch of other seemingly more capable cars - Vettes, Vipers, Nobles and other exotics and just plain fast cars. He does know how to keep the engine alive not only to run 8's in the 1/4 mile but also to lap the road racing circuits.

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Philip? Is that you?
What are you doing over here on a DSM forum?

Philip runs Supercar Engineering (www.supercar-engineering.com), which mostly sells parts for 3000GTs; I buy my Stoptech rotors and Carbotech pads for my DSM from Philip, but he isn't known as a DSM parts supplier.

I wish he would, because Philip is an automotive engineer at one of the Big Three, an excellent HPDE road racer, works as a race engineer for a pro team, and develops many of the parts he sells on his site. We could use his road race expertise around here in developing cool parts for our cars: Things like rear brake upgrades, front splitters, big brake kits beyond Stoptechs, front shocks, and suspension parts of all sorts.

Maybe his appearance here is an indication of his interest. We can always hope.

Rich

Which ear did you break? I broke the front ear once and had it stick welded back in place. Strong as ever when we were done with it.

mavisky said:

Which ear did you break? I broke the front ear once and had it stick welded back in place. Strong as ever when we were done with it.

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Don't know. I was pulling the right front control arm off when Mike said "I found the problem!" He was under the motor, looking straight up, if that helps. We'll have to wait until Mike signs on here later in the day for an answer.

It is very comforting to hear that you welded one back on, and it held. We've gotten lots of different advice. Even the AMS guys say it's a tossup. The alternative -- pulling the engine, finding a replacement 6-bolt block, and moving all the stroker parts over -- would do me in for the rest of the season.

Rich

Correct, it's the front ear by the slave cylinder. I've seen a broken one on another car, but I believe that car was missing the alignment dowels. This one is confusing considering the rest of the tranny mount bolts were tight and the alignement dowels are in place. WTF

The heat shield idea came from the guy next to us in the paddock. He runs a honda crx, but it's broken so he was there supporting a friend. His friend has Mercedes 190 4 door sedan. It stuck really well, so he'd crank up that 130hp and barely let off the gas through the apex. Since it weighed less than 2000lbs, it'd just stick and go around the bends. But as soon as the road straightened out, he'd get eaten up by even the Miatas. Anyway, the guys were helpful all weekend and the crx guy thought of cutting up a pop can to work as a radiant shield. I slipped it in between the power steering pump, exhaust manifold, and the external wastegate. I then cut some heat shield material off of Rich's already mangled hood insulator, wadded it up and wedged it in the hole I made. It seemed to have worked. The timing belt cover was no longer soft and pliable. But the carbontrix hood vent came in Friday afternoon, so we'll be installing that sometime this week. So the heat issues should be signifcantly decreased at least in that area.

For the turbo mounting bolts, AMS recommended we safety wire them. So we plan to buy new bolts, drill a hole, and safety wire them in place. We had talked about doing it last winter, but figured welding a downpipe bracket to hold it up would be sufficient. But it wasn't. I think the stroker motor and road racing cause enough vibration, that safety wire is necessary on Rich's car. We always find a few loose bolts and nuts after a few sessions. I think we should replace all the lock washers with fresh ones and safety wire the important things.

Well, I'm out the door for a meeting. I'll stop back and add some more maybe this afternoon.

Thanks for all your support. The information we've found with this forum has been extremely helpful and the moral support has helped us stay the course. There was nothing like seeing that look on Rich's face when he uttered the words, "Now this is what roadracing is supposed to be! Did you see me pass 3 wide down the front straight?"

p.s. +1 for Phillip and Supercar Engineering. He's helped advance the roadracing efforts of the 3S crowd immensely.

Sounds like you had a great time Rich, I wish I could have been there.

Slow old poop said:

In a nutshell, I am ecstatic at how well the car runs, I enjoyed myself immensely, and we found a tremendous support mechanism at AMS.

The downside, of course, is I broke it AGAIN.

Rich

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Sounds like a fun time Rich, besides the broken stuff. Good luck getting it fixed and getting back out there! I hope I can start doing stuff like this in a couple years when I get out of school. I get excited just reading about it...

What a great accounting of your of your track time, it sounds like your hooked line and sinker. I’m glad that even with your car woes that you were able to experience the absolute thrills that NASA is able to offer the average Joe. Good job on your TT license, I’m sure you’ll have your car dialed in and you’ll be standing on top of the podium in know time. We have RRE out here in So Cal for our DSM support so it’s great to hear the AMS is doing their job in your neck of the woods.

I can’t wait to read more of your inspiring commentaries; your excitement is infectious and should draw a lot of DSM’ers out onto a road course.

Greg Collier said:

What a great accounting of your of your track time, it sounds like your hooked line and sinker. I’m glad that even with your car woes that you were able to experience the absolute thrills that NASA is able to offer the average Joe. Good job on your TT license, I’m sure you’ll have your car dialed in and you’ll be standing on top of the podium in know time. We have RRE out here in So Cal for our DSM support so it’s great to hear the AMS is doing their job in your neck of the woods. I can’t wait to read more of your inspiring commentaries; your excitement is infectious and should draw a lot of DSM’ers out onto a road course.

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"Hooked" is a good description. And it didn't take long. The first time we went three wide through a pack of 6-10 cars, emerged in front, and ran away from them did it! Gawd, what a RUSH!! It was more fun than drowning puppies!

And NASA has such a great program to being people along. You KNOW that the folks running alongside you have been qualified, trained and moved up gradually, so you can have confidence that they won't do something stupid--you know, like they do in other open track events, where you run what you brung, run in whatever class you want, and nobody questions you or the car. I felt much safer out there in a pack of cars with open passing than I do at Speedseekers at Road America, even with passing only on the straights. Some of those guys are lunatics!

"Dream On," in the previous post, says he wants to wait until he graduates to start. I say, take that DSM, stick some brake pads on it, and run NASA HPDE1 right now! They will teach you everything you need to know, nice and gradually.

And don't worry too much about the car. Sheesh, a couple or years ago, I ran a bone stock 92 Talon with 135,000 on it and didn't have any problems (well, I corded a right front, but that was a dirt cheap street tire). James, the Great Fabricator, has that car now, and it is still running strong. DSMs rule. They break a lot, but they rule.

Rich

Slow old poop said:

"Dream On," in the previous post, says he wants to wait until he graduates to start. I say, take that DSM, stick some brake pads on it, and run NASA HPDE1 right now! They will teach you everything you need to know, nice and gradually.

And don't worry too much about the car. Sheesh, a couple or years ago, I ran a bone stock 92 Talon with 135,000 on it and didn't have any problems (well, I corded a right front, but that was a dirt cheap street tire). James, the Great Fabricator, has that car now, and it is still running strong. DSMs rule. They break a lot, but they rule.
Rich

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I couldn't agree with you more Rich... everyone thinks they need a fully or partially built racecar to run on a track! NOT SO, just for the experience everyone should drive one HPDE 1 event to understand what it's all about. Like I've said a million times before, "If you drop all of your excuses, all you can do, is DO!!"

^^^We were out yesterday with Chris and fred at PMI for the NASA event, and My wife simply fell in love. We are hoping to get the leaks fixed and have her out there for HPDE 1
when they come back to town. It was an awsome experience, and definately makes you want more.
Mike

wolf20043 said:

^^^We were out yesterday with Chris and fred at PMI for the NASA event, and My wife simply fell in love. We are hoping to get the leaks fixed and have her out there for HPDE 1
when they come back to town. It was an awsome experience, and definately makes you want more.
Mike

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And Mike and Julia were just spectating - they didn't even get on the track. Once you get on the track it's all over for you. You're sucked into it for good. There's no going back. Drag racing is now pretty boring and autocross is just too slow I like getting up over 100 mph a couple times in one lap

And to those who say they're waiting for "something" to happen before they get out to a track event. Stop waiting and putting up road blocks. The car can be stock and you'll still have a blast and learn a TON. You don't need mods to have fun at the road course. One of the instructors at Pueblo can run about 5-7 seconds faster in a stock SRT-4 than I can in my 400 AWHP DSM with suspension work done to it. It's all in developing your driver skills. People tend to get confused with road racing and drag racing. In drag racing it's not very fun if you have a slow car. Driver skill is only going to help you so much and there's only so much you can improve your skills in a straight line. In road racing it's all about learning to be a fast driver, not necessarily having a fast car. Driver skill is key and you will never stop improving your skills on a road course, never. There's always something new to learn. It simply doesn't matter how modified your car is.

Great write-up Rich. Glad to see it was a semi-minor problem. Though it was a headache for you I'm sure. Keep at it! I'm hoping to do Time Trials next season, as this was our last local NASA event out here. There is one more but I won't be driving the car 6 hours to get there. I'm still playing around in HPDE3 and need to work on passing and getting passed a little bit more before I'm comfortable moving up to do TT. With the small number of fast cars in our group I haven't had a chance to use my mirrors too much, so I need to turn down the boost a bit just to get some practice being passed

I NASA would get over their "gotta have a rollcage and 5 points with a fixed back seat or stock seats and stock belts" rule I could come play, but the car's not legal. I understand its for my safety, but it's still frustrating.

That's great to hear you made to the track Chris

Sounds like EVERYONE had a phenomenal weekend!!!

mavisky said:

I NASA would get over their "gotta have a rollcage and 5 points with a fixed back seat or stock seats and stock belts" rule I could come play, but the car's not legal. I understand its for my safety, but it's still frustrating.

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NOT FOR HPDE OR TIME TRIAL!!!

Just the wheel to wheel racing group

mavisky said:

I NASA would get over their "gotta have a rollcage and 5 points with a fixed back seat or stock seats and stock belts" rule I could come play, but the car's not legal. I understand its for my safety, but it's still frustrating.

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As Greg points out, that's only for the fender-rubbin' race groups.

All this NASA safety business is a huge misconception. I stayed away from NASA for a long time because I thought the same as you--that I needed door bars, an on-off switch, tow hooks, window nets, and so on before I could run door-to-door. Not so.

The truth is, you can run HPDE and TT in a bone stock car, with no mods, no special safety equipment, no nothing. In fact, you can run a furshlugginer RENTAL car from Avis if you want!

The big differences among classes are:

o In HPDE, you are not competing with anybody; you are just out there running hot laps. You are not even timed. The HPDE groups prepare you for TT.

o In TT, you are competing only for lap times -- not for track position -- so you don't have to pass people in corners if you don't want to. In fact, what you want is an open track with no traffic so you can get a hot lap in. Open passing in TT prepares you for the race group.

o In the race groups, you are racing for position, so it's much more dangerous, and the extreme safety rules apply. Also, you have to pass a competition driving course to get in.

HPDE 1, 2 and 3 passing is on straights only.
HPDE4 and TT is passing anywhere, but no contact
Race groups pass anywhere and bump and grind.

IMHO, they ought to have more stringent safety rules for HPDE4 and TT classes because of the open passing. I suggest roll bars and 5-pt safety harnesses at a minimum for HPDE4 and TT, but I don't make the rules.

NASA could boost participation by a huge amount if they explained their stuff a little better. They are a fantastic group of people, they run a great event, are helpful as can be, but they do not communicate well. Ask a question by email, and you get referred to a billion-page competition manual.

NASA documentation is like an IBM instruction manual: they assume you already know everything, and all you need is a place to look up piddly operational details, like the number of points assessed for a splitter. Unfortunately, they forgot Chapter 1, the "getting started" chapter, so people like you and me stay away.

Sheesh, if I knew then what I know now, I would have been running NASA three years ago. It doesn't cost any more than the Porsche, BMW and Speedseekers driving events, and you and your car are on an upgrade path the whole time.

As they say in "The Producers" musical,

Don't be stupid, be a smarty
Come and join the NASA party!

Rich

Slow old poop Ask a question by email, and you get referred to a billion-page competition manual.

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Unless you have a someone to watch over you, and you end up getting contacted by both the director of TT and the entire region ...

Greg Collier said:

Unless you have a someone to watch over you, and you end up getting contacted by both the director of TT and the entire region ...

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Remember a few weeks ago, when I was trying to find out what was expected for me to run TT? Crikies, they could have answered the question in a few sentences, not refer me to three different documents. The answer to my questions should have been:

1. You don't have to do anything to your car
2. You have to put numbers on your doors. Bring white tape.
3. You have to have sufficient experience and be certified by an instructor to get into TT, so we'll give you a check ride.

I eventually found all that out (except the white tape part), but it was an unnecessary ordeal that could have been covered by a "Getting Started" document.

Rich

Oh, does that mean that my 4 point sparco's are good enough for now? I was under the impression that if you had harnesses they had to be 5 point or higher, and that if your seat didn't recline you had to have at least a roll bar.

Maybe I'll make it to one next year after all. Thanks to the economy effectively killing car sales I'm not going to be able to make it this year.

mavisky said:

Oh, does that mean that my 4 point sparco's are good enough for now? I was under the impression that if you had harnesses they had to be 5 point or higher, and that if your seat didn't recline you had to have at least a roll bar. .

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As far as I know, you are perfectly legal for HPDE and TT. I ain't no tech inspector, but based on the tech inspection I got for TT, they mostly wanted to see that I had the correct helmet.

Why don't you nip over to Mid-Ohio in September for the NASA nationals and see how it works? From Ft Wayne, it ain't that far. Besides, you'll get to see the Yellow Banana in person. In fact, all DSMers in Ohio, Indiana, and surrounding areas ought to trek over to cheer on our hero.

If you like what you see, you can run the NASA event at Road America in October.

Rich

Hey Rich, I was saying I would do it when I graduate b/c I'm poor as hell right now and can't afford to buy new pads/tires all the time. Right now I've got some new Hawk HPS pads and some new all season tires. I mean I'm still interested in starting now, I've gotta find when events are held in Ohio, and see if I can make any track events.

Sounds like good times Rich. A big part of racing is breaking stuff, I just broke a motor mount over the weekend myself. Reading about all these accounts makes me excited for September when I'll be on the road course for the first time.
I WILL be at the NASA Nationals to hopefully see Greg. Hopefully there will be some other dsm's out there too.

Slow old poop said:

As far as I know, you are perfectly legal for HPDE and TT. I ain't no tech inspector, but based on the tech inspection I got for TT, they mostly wanted to see that I had the correct helmet.

Why don't you nip over to Mid-Ohio in September for the NASA nationals and see how it works? From Ft Wayne, it ain't that far. Besides, you'll get to see the Yellow Banana in person. In fact, all DSMers in Ohio, Indiana, and surrounding areas ought to trek over to cheer on our hero.

If you like what you see, you can run the NASA event at Road America in October.

Rich

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That's definitely been in the plans this year. We'll see how well that pans out money wise following an autox and the shootout in early august. This economy is killing car sales and my income along with them, looking to get back into a more steady position with another company and get back on track with my college education.

Zero Bar said:

Sounds like good times Rich. A big part of racing is breaking stuff, I just broke a motor mount over the weekend myself. Reading about all these accounts makes me excited for September when I'll be on the road course for the first time.
I WILL be at the NASA Nationals to hopefully see Greg. Hopefully there will be some other dsm's out there too.

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None from the Midwest that I know of. Just Evos. I can't get in five events between now and then, so I am out. We may or may not come over to spectate. It's a long haul from here (500+ miles).
Rich