ChumpCar – Octoberbrew N Bats – Portland – Day 2

Are those rain clouds?

Sunday morning began with a cold misty fog that hung over the circuit, giving the track a slippery shine.

ChumpCar Portland
Rain

The rain returned and caused a fifteen minute delay to the start of the race.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Taken from Honda Tech
http://honda-tech.com/showthread.php?t=1849585

This turned out to be a good thing, as we finally found the oil leak. The oil pressure sensor housing was cracked; the cold from last night and then the  warm up in the morning made it split open. We were lucky to have caught this before oil puked all over the track at 7,000 rpm, and most likely right after the engine would have seized.

After a few awkward hunches over the engine bay, an 1/8 NPT bolt was in place of the sensor. Problem solved.

PIR_track

The race began with a few parade laps around the track. The visibility and grip on the track will be reduced. This will be a recipe for creating havoc on the track and passing opportunities.

Tough sections on the track:

  • Corner 1 is a high speed tight right followed by a tight left - possible multiple contacts
  • Corners 7 to corner 8 is where multiple chumpers had left fluid on the track the previous day. In fact, it looked deceptively dry as water sheers off the pavement and collects on the curbing.
  • Corner 9 to corner 11 is a high speed corner where chumpers would leave the track and bring back grass or dirt. 

When it rains in Portland... it pours!

ChumpCar PIR Corner 6
Turn 6

Another issue was radioed back - the chumper is back firing and hydroplaning on the straight sections.

The solution - plan even further ahead for gear changes, or don't lift at all - "go faster you slug!"

Technical stuff : The vehicle speed sensor (VSS) has failed, (in fact the speedometer bounces back and forth from 0 - 220kmh -cool?) and, as a result the electronic control module (ECU) calculates those sporadic values. This means that air, fuel delivery, and spark will also be sporadic - resulting in possible engine failure if the right conditions meet for asynchronous combustion (aka, enigne backfire).

Unlucky - Starting position 30

The green flag dropped, and we're unlucky sitting in thirtieth position. It will be a battle to climb up the positions. Eventually, we move up to a semi respectable tenth position before the second driver change.

Turn 1 - Track starts to dry up.

The sun does eventually come back out in the afternoon.

This driver wasn't having a good day - I think this would be the 6th spin out in a row
T
Turn 1 spin out RX7

Other drivers were finding it difficult  to go through turn 1.

Corner 1 pass

First place would be out of reach, the chumper is low on power (back firing), but, we might be in contention for third place until...

Rick radioed in: "Check engine light is on, third gear is gone and, 4th gear is getting notchy..."

End of 6 Hours

In the end, we finish the race in seventh position!

Chumpwares

This is what we came here for - rusted pieces of metal and Chumpaign (some sort of sparkling wine).

Chump Car OctoberBrew N Bat 3rd place

We bring back home a trophy for the mantel.

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