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Kakashi
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Qualifying Results
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ImprovedTouring.com | 2005 Schedule
New Blood in ITA - New Hampshire International Speedway
Article by: Greg Amy (April 18, 2005)
Photos by: Doug Koza, Digital Motorsports Images
Mother
Nature generously handed us a beautiful warm-ish weekend for the first
outing of 2005, at New
Hampshire International Speedway (NHIS).
The bottom line? The B13 Nissan has a very good chance of success in ITA.
Our experience this past weekend was very mixed, but extremely
promising.
We had a test day Thursday at NHIS, and Greg [Amy] was busy acting as both tech inspector and on- and off-track instructor Thursday, Friday, and Saturday for the SCCA school. The car ran great all three days.
Sunday was the one-day Regional, offering a 10-minute practice/qualifying session, a 15-minute qualifier, and the 20-lap race. Greg was pole position after the first session by two seconds, but keep in mind he'd had three days of track time and everyone else was rusty. Unfortunately, in the second session he bumped a curb on the first lap and mis-aligned the car, so he parked it for the session; he ended up gridded for the race third behind Richie Hunter in an Integra, Jeremy Sheppard in a 240SX, and two (or more!) Integras right behind, including Rick Benazic in last year's ARRC-winning Acura. Qualifying Results
The
start was perfect. Greg tucked up under the pole car and watched the
starter like a hawk.
Matt [Kessler, crew chief] was on the headset giving
rolling flag calls ("hold, hold, hold") and when that starter moved, so
did he (with Matt screaming, "GO, GO, GO, GO!!!" on the radio). By the
time he got to Turn 1 the #33 Kessler Engineering NX2000 was leading the
pack by a car length or more (he hit that start so perfectly that
several folks accused him - politely of course - of jumping the start.
No way, baby, and we have the video to prove it!)
For the first four (or so?) laps Greg led the field through the course, with the NX showing its torque out of the corners and the Acuras rolling him in at the end of the straights. Greg had to run a very defensive line to keep them behind him, giving them a speed advantage. At one point Greg hoped Richie and Rick might start tussling, giving him the opportunity to pull away, but that didn't happen.
Right
around lap three Greg noted the oil and water temperatures were
increasing very quickly and by lap four there was a noticeable flatness
in the engine; the car wasn't revving as well. Rick got by Greg with a
beautiful pass in turn nine; once he'd passed Greg couldn't keep up and
Matt told him to lower my shift points 400 RPM to try and save the
engine. Unfortunately, that didn't help; the temps were over 230 by
then. By lap six it was obvious he was in trouble so he backed off a lot
in order to finish the race.
During lap eleven the power was so bad it seemed he'd never make it up the hill in three; going down the front straight next time around he called in, "Smoke in the cockpit, I'm shutting it down." He coasted to a stop at three where he watched the rest of the race; Rick Benazic won with a comfortable lead and with Richie Hunter quickly on trail.
We haven't even begun looking into it, but we suspect the cause of the failure was a combination of too much ignition timing and not enough octane (or bad gas). We're running a new experimental ECU based on dyno tests on 93 octane; while it may work for short runs (it worked great for the test and school days), it doesn't work for extended 7000+ RPM runs. Fortunately, it didn't toss any major parts so the engine should be rebuildable.
Regardless of this result, we are psyched!! We proved the potential is there, now all we have to do is implement it.
Lots of folks came by to ask what happened and offer condolences and congrats. One person came by and commented how well such a "new car" is doing. Matt and I had to laugh; yeah, it may be a "new ITA car" but can't you imagine the development we've done over the last three years...all for fun, eh? __________________________________________________________________
Kakashi Racing | NHIS | Qualifying Results | ImprovedTouring.com | 2005 Schedule
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