Bumps in the Road
Race weekend #1 recap:
WOW! What an incredible weekend this team had even with our continued struggle with fuel pressure issues! We had an amazing time at Calabogie Motorsports Park with the Lucky Dog Canada endurance racing series. We nailed most of our goals by proving we built a damn fast little race truck, made some new friends, learned how to road race, and proved to ourselves how much this dream was worth it after 2 years in the making. Huge thanks to everyone who's helped with this journey so far especially this weekend.
The details, for those who like to read...
Friday:
We got to the track early as planned, unload and set up trailer in the cold pits. Brought the truck to tech. Flew thru tech without issue but found out about the tracks, strict noise policy of 99.9 dB. The team scrambled to Canadian tire and happened to find the muffler we needed along with a pile of adapters and clamps for a trackside replacement of our straight pipes. Meanwhile, myself, Jon, and Mars had booked a driving instructor to ride passenger during Friday night's open lapping session. With the truck not allowed on track (without muffler) we were forced to rent a race prepped Mazda Miata. Using the Miata was a huge blessing in disguise because it's a great neutral balance car to learn in. Our instructor was excellent and we learned alot in only the few short laps each of us made in the driver seat on a track we've never been to before. Once lapping was done, just as sun was setting, the work began to install muffler and finish the odds and ends we had originally planned for the afternoon right after tech.
Saturday (7 hr race):
Woke up feeling excited for the long day of racing ahead. Immediately in the morning 1 hour practice session Mars radioed in that we still had fuel issues which we thought were fixed before loading the truck at home. This was the start of a long day. We missed the green flag by 3 laps or so as we replaced the fuel pump. We battled fueling issues all day but did manage to turn 22 laps during the race. We were able to borrow a surge tank system from another racecar not running in this race and hack it into the truck. It seemed to help but we still could not get the truck to run with less than 3/4 tank of fuel.
Sunday (8 hr race):
New plan of attack. We quit trying to fix the truck and decided to pit every 20 mins or so to add 5 gallons of fuel. This strategy worked well enough for us to turn laps most of the day however in the late afternoon the engine was starving for fuel even with a completely full tank. After exhausting all possible trackside repair options we decided to pack up the hot pits call it about an hour before the finish.
Overall, we turned some crazy fast laps (especially Jon), kept all the fenders on it, and had a blast. For a bunch of rookies in a truck, our time on track was phenomenal. The truck has over 100 race laps (over 505km) and the only known issue is fuel related. This is extremely motivating on a brand new build with a brand new team.
Of course I've missed plenty of details but that's the quick summary. We are looking forward to fixing the truck and running again in July.
P.s. open to discussing financial partnerships with anyone looking to get onboard from the start.... this $#*+ is expensive!
