Hondas in the midwest have had some bad luck this year, mine included. Well, the weekend didn't start off well for us again. Rob broke something in his trans on Friday. I went out for the morning practice session, my car was rev cutting at 6500, so I didn't even turn a timed lap. I was already in the paddock and here came Sam's car on the flatbed, blown motor. Jer Myers didn't make the weekend due to no oil pressure on the dyno. So, we went from 5 signed up to 2 running, mine not so well.
I've had the issue happen before, always first session of the day, so I don't think it'll last. But, I go out for quals and the same thing, except now it is rev cutting at 7k and the CEL is on. Phil brings a distributor down from Holland, I go to put it on and notice that the bottom bolt for the distributor is loose. I tighten it and hope that was the odd issue. I go to drive the car and there is no tach signal. haha. Really!? I trace the issue back to the tach wire off of the distributor being in a butt connector that isn't intact any longer. So, I have to add wire and two new butt connectors. I drive the car around and don't have any of the issues.
I go out for the race, I'm not datalogging the race because the car was just "good". We start dead last since I didn't have any timed laps and Helen was the only one in our group to qualify. I make it about 3/4 of a lap and the CEL comes on! Great!! I think quickly, go in or stay out because the motor will be fine, just WAY down on power. I decide to stay out because with us starting from the back, anything can happen. Plus, I can work on my racecraft, etc. Before the race even starts, there is a 944 sitting on the inside of T10. After a couple laps, we have a SM stuck in the sand in T11. Around the same time, there was a SM that spun right in front of me. So, anything and everything was happening. I come up the front straight and there is a double yellow at start/finish, as well as the other flag station before T1. Then going into T3, I see the black, ok, we are going in. I then drop the pace to a cruise and there is also a black flag at T5. I turn into T5 and am about to turn into T6. When all of a sudden, there goes a SE30, what the heck! We pit in, I notify the grid workers, but he holds the position. The rest of the race was pretty fun after the black flag stint. Helen was moving along, so I finished P2. But, apparently, she passed under double yellow as well, so I went away with P1!
We again headed downtown for dinner. They had the brick oven pizza place for lunch and I was really digging pizza, but that wasn't an option. So, we went to Nemo's, we had been there before and it was pretty good. It was good, but they were slow, so I was ready to get the heck out of there. haha. I took the kids outside and thought that this was a pretty cool shot of South Haven.
Bailynn and I went back to the ice cream place, then we headed to the beach. We hung out at the beach for a bit, but it was pretty windy and chilly. So, we headed back to this cool park that they have in South Haven. After that, they took me back to the track so I could swap distributors. We swapped them while they headed back to South Haven to watch the sunset.
With the distributor switched, I was looking forward to Sunday. On Sunday, we had qualifying and two races. I go out for qualifying, the car revs to 7k, has VTEC, and no CEL. haha. What in the world!? Phil's brother needed the distributor back, so I sat out the first race of Sunday to try and figure some stuff out. I swapped the original distributor back in hoping that we could pull a datalog from the next race. Luckily, there were a few people there to help. Andy, his buddy, and Nick all came up to the grid to help turn the datalog, Solo, and GoPro on. haha. Quite the production it is with club racing. Helen's clutch went in the first race of Sunday, so she was going in after the green flag lap. We didn't start dead last because SE30 was doing a standing start. We started right behind SM and coming out of T11, I couldn't see the starter, but when I heard noise, I went. I went left because the SM in front of me went right slightly, so I expected him to go towards the "party" line. Once he saw me go left, he stayed, so I had two choices, check up or go two in the grass, up against the wall...
I chose the wall, what a wild ride it was. With the way that Lightning had went over the weekend, plus I just got off my provisional, I didn't want to "chance it" into T1. I got bottlenecked by two SMs coming out of T2, so I held the line. One went wide into T3 and the other pushed through T6. On the next lap going into T3, two SMs made contact, one of them rolled. I knew that the double yellow would be coming out after the hot pull incident from the day before. So, I got by 3 or 4 cars before the double yellow came out. The race was 11 laps long and 5 of them were under double yellow. Given the motor/electrical issues, I was happy with my performance on Sunday. I started 22nd and finished P9 in the group with the 5th fastest lap of the group. And, best of all, I got to drive the car up on the trailer!
We hit up Arby's on the way out and headed south. Great overall weekend with the family, just need to sort these issues with the car. I can't wait for the Corvette track here in a few weeks!
Watch race one here.
Watch race three here! (Wild start)
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