A weekend in the life of a ChumpCar team - The Eh! Team
Well.... where the hell do I even start?
First off, a HUGE thank you to to Blaine and Dave and Dan for taking me on their team. We didn't know each other at all before this and it was an absolute blast (more on that pun later, haha!) to work and race with them. Tim (bowtie) it was a pleasure meeting and working with you as well.
This build was only in progress for two months when we rolled in on Friday night. We drove in to a standing ovation. I guess people like seeing a minivan with a rollcage in it. I hopped in and quickly drove it over to the tech line to get it checked. We were all pretty much shitting bricks because none of us thought it would pass. Tim and Blaine wired up the brake relay IN the tech line and much to our surprise, we passed with flying colours.
/fuckyaface
We worked till about 10 when I left to my parent's place to sleep and the rest of the team kept working till the wee hours and they all slept at the track (crazy buggers!) I got there the next morning at 7:30 to a team still half asleep. I forgot to bring coffee, a MAJOR oversight, and I apologize to my team for that...
Blaine was the first to drive, since he was heading the team and did the most work building the car. He gets in, fires it up and hits the track with the rest of the racers.
And it promptly runs like a pile of shit. We get black flagged for being too slow and Blaine is in and out of the pits while we try and figure out why it's stalling every time he lets off the gas. Dave figures it's the idle controller, so he cranks the idle to 2000 rpm (who cares, it never idles) and Blaine hands over the controls to me. I leave the pits and the damn van is running pretty good!
It's a Ford Winstar... stripped. We weighed it and it was down to 2700 pounds. INCREDIBLE haha. I was absolutely astounded at how well it handled and braked. I was braking so late at the end of the front straight it boggled my mind. And it wasn't a slouch either. On Sunday I was hitting 178 km/h at the end of the straight. That's moving.
I put in 34 laps and it was running good when I handed it off to Dave. He had about 6-7 laps under his belt when a rod let go in a DRAMATIC way. It punched a hole the size of a postcard in the oil pan, dumping five litres of oil all over the exhaust. The fireball that resulted was quite spectacular and went all the way to the back of the van, where no rear tailgate created a vacuum that sucked the fire back INTO the van and all over Dave's back. Luckily, he was fine and got the fire out with our on-board extinguisher.
Here's the damage to the oil pan and the rod that came out. Looks like the rod bolts snapped...
Dave hopped on Kijiji and found another SHO engine in Carstairs, just north of Airdrie. So Dan and him jumped in Dan's truck and went to get it while Tim, Blaine and I ripped the old engine out. We had it out and off the subframe with help from Conroy, who graciously donated his engine crane to us. The new engine showed up later that afternoon and we furiously worked to get it back in the engine.
Now the SHO engine doesn't fit through the top of the engine bay in the Windstar, so it came out through the bottom. Luckily (that word kept popping up this weekend) there was a 10-ton picker truck there. It lifted the van right off the motor and onto jack stands. It also put the frame back onto the engine when we were done. It was our mission to get the van running that night, and by God, we did, to much cheering from our pit.
Saturday night ended around midnight and we all slept.
Sunday morning we were all there at 7:30 drinking Tim's and finishing up the swap. The green drops at 9 and we weren't ready yet so we continue working on the car. At around 10:30 we fill the rad with water to get ready to go.... and the water pump on the new engine pisses water all over the place. It took three in/out combos to get the seals set and right. Just before noon, the SHO was alive again as Dan took to the track in it. And no more than ten laps later, he coasts to a halt in the Bus Stop.
The car is towed back to the pits (thanks, Clem!) where we pop the hood and find the timing belt in two pieces. Thankfully SHO motors are non-interference, so there's no damage. Blaine and Dave hit it hard, swapping the timing belt from the blown engine onto the one in the Winstar.
45 minutes later, I'm back in the drivers seat. We'd swapped our nice Federal 595s on the front wheels and the new engine was pulling pretty hard. I went out and set a time almost 6 seconds faster than I did on Saturday. After three laps, problems again! I guess when we put the shifter back on after the engine swap, the bolts were only hand tightened, so the shifter fell through the floor! I grabbed it and held it off the ground as I drove the whole track in fourth gear and hit the pits. Blaine got it sorted out in five minutes and I was back out, running pretty hard.
Three laps later, our afternoon came to an end. I was shifting from 3rd to 4th when the tranny let go. There was a brutal metal noise, lots of crunching and no power.
It was pushed into the pits where we discovered the problem was terminal.
We received the "Spirit of ChumpCar" trophy for all the hard work the team put into van running all weekend. This is the badass trophy we got.
All in all, it was a FANTASTIC weekend! So much fun and a great experience. I can't wait to do it again.
Picture time! Sorry for the quality of the pictures, they're all iPhone pics.
So Much Win! racing lent me a paint pen that I then stole for the whole weekend and decorated the van with it.
So I put a few of their decals on the van.
After the engine let go, I decided to put it on the fender, like a kill decal on a fighter jet.
By the end of the weekend, the fender was pretty full.
This is our singed rear tow strap for the engine explosion.
After trading a little paint.
A 240 using absolute GENIUS to swap a clutch. The picker truck just plopped it on these.
I am told there's a picture of the fireball somewhere. As soon as I get it, I'll put it up.
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