Last weekend (April 13-14th) was the second race of the season for the SF region of the SCCA.

The weekend started out pretty hectic for me, as I had some things at work that I couldn’t skip and I ended up missing Friday morning practice. I barely made it in time for qualifying, but thankfully Phil had the car all ready to go for me. I felt like such an arrive-and-drive prima donna!

Following a setup that Phil suggested Rylan try at the last race weekend, we put in 700lb springs in the rear (down from the original 900). With no practice to try things out, we went right into qualifying with the new setup. Right away, the car felt off. Gone was its natural balance that I noticed when I first drove the car, and in its place was tons of understeer. I understeered right off the exit of a few corners in qualifying. On top of that, we were still having brake fade issues. After about 7 laps the brakes were pretty mushy and I was losing time in the braking zones. The best time I set was 1:33.9, good enough for 3rd on the grid behind the Porsche Cup of Mike Hedlund with a 1:30.1 and the Mustang of Darrell Anderson with a 1:32.5.

Before the race in the morning, we changed the rear springs to 800lb in an effort to reduce the understeer. We also went full soft on the front swaybar. In the race, I had a pretty timid start because of my limited running and lack of confidence in the setup. I short-shifted into 4th, and the Camaro of Rob Davis as well as one of the many stock cars entered in that weekend shot by me. My problems were really just beginning, however. On the second lap I got by the stock car at turn 2, only to have a slide and lose a few positions at turn 3.

That slide put me back into Connie Bogan’s clutches, and we had some fun racing each other. She was better on the brakes, so she kept catching me in turn 2 and turn 11. We went side-by-side into 11 at one point, but because she was on the inside her exit was pinched and I was able to out-drag her down the straight.

Just a few laps later, I had another even bigger slide at turn 3. The car was understeering pretty badly on the exit of the turn, so I was trail braking pretty late to get the car to rotate. Also, the brakes were pretty faded going into turn 3 after the big stop at turn 2, so I was getting less stop than I expected into turn 3. This resulted in a big oversteer moment while trail braking into turn 3, which I over-corrected and shot across the dirt. The car kept going pretty quickly through the gravel, and for a second I thought I was going into the wall. Luckily there is some dirt on the other side of the gravel near the wall, and the brakes started working better on the dirt as compared to the gravel and the car slowed down.

After this bigger off, I dropped even more positions to 4th in class behind Darrell, Connie, and VInce Ingram. I tried to catch back up with the field, but the brakes were starting to fade. I had a nice little race with Vince, he was driving really well but I managed to get in front of him. I could just start to see Connie way up the road, so I started pushing in an effort to catch up with her. I set a 1:33.4, which would end up being my fastest lap of the weekend.

On the last lap, I caught up to Randy Mackintosh who was doing battle with a stock car. The stock car went around Randy on the outside of the short straight between turn 5 and turn 6, and I went on the inside. I had to drop a wheel in the dirt on the inside, which made for an interesting moment, but everything turned out OK in the end. At the end of the lap I finished 6th overall, and 3rd in the SS class.

Phil did  a lot of the work on the brakes in the evening, including ducting all four corners and putting in some special Brembo brake fluid with a crazy high boiling point. We also found that the back-left brake caliper was sticking a little bit, so it might have been dragging the brakes on that corner and boiling the fluid. Without a way to rebuild the caliper, we crossed our fingers and hoped it would survive the weekend.

With the new 3 race format for the weekend, the grid for the second race on Sunday morning was set by the fastest lap times in the race. That had me starting in P4 behind Hedlund, Darrell,   and Ron Davis. I was much more confident in the car for the start, although Michele Nagai in a stock car had the inside line into turn 2 and got the position. I followed Darrell through the outside line in turn 2 which has lots of rolled-up rubber, and to my surprise Darrell understeered off the exit of the corner into the dirt. I seized the opportunity and was P4, and first in class.

Unfortunately that didn’t last long. About halfway around the first lap, I noticed a bunch of smoke in the passenger compartment. Unbeknownst to me, the transmission seal around where the driveshaft connects had come loose, spilling transmission fluid all over the hot exhaust. This was causing a lot of smoke, and Fred Lind came on the radio and said I was leaking something as well. So we decided to pull in from the lead of the race in order to protect what we thought was a leaking engine.

While it was disappointing to pull out of the lead, Connie Bogan behind me had an even tougher race. She tangled with a stock car in the corkscrew, and ended up in the wall. I really felt for Connie as she’s a smart racer with lots of experience, but I know she and her Viper will be back on the track soon.

Phil thrashed on the car to get it ready for the third race just two hours later. He had to take off the exhaust system to get at the transmission, and was able to replace the seal. Apparently the design of the seal for the Tremec T-56 Magnum is not correct, and Tremec has since updated the seal to fit better. A comparison of the two seals is below, with the new seal design on the right.

We didn’t have the new seal at the track, so we put the old seal back in and tried to secure it. Phil got the exhaust system back in the car in time for the next race.

After the drama of the first two races, the third race was relatively tame. My short second race meant that I didn’t have a fast lap time, so I started in P7 overall. In the third lap, the transmission seal started leaking again, but the car wasn’t smoking as badly as before so we decided to keep going. I had some nice battles with the stock cars of Fred Lind and Michelle Nagai, and finished P5 overall and 2nd in class. SCCA had some really nice trophies for this race, so I was glad that we stayed out despite the transmission issues.

You can watch the video highlights from the weekend here: