NERDS RACING - North East Recreational Driving Schedule

A friend of mine (I worked with him in Wash DC for three years) drove out to visit me at the track over the lastSummit Pointrace weekend in his latest street toy.

Since he had driven his previous street toy (a Porsche 993) on the track and raced an older Porsche 911 before, it was not a surprise to learn that he had signed up to drive 2 track days being run by the Ferrari of Washingtondealership and the Ferrari Owner's Club. What was a surprise, was that the event was open to anyone. I had planned a track day with my recently revived street toy (1991 MR2 Turbo), but one of the many hurricanes had washed that out for me. I eagerly signed up for one of the 2 FoW track days and set about doing some of the maintenance tasks and final upgrades that I had put off until I was thru breaking in the rebuilt motor. My "sponsor" (Merritt's CITGO) nicely agreed to sign off on the pre-event inspection form because they had done the NJ State Inspection on the car within 6 months. The last of this effort was completed just before I set out for the track at about 11:30AM on Sat 16 Oct.

The weather started out nicely fall-like (cool and clear), but I drove thru a minor rain shower while negotiating the Baltimore Beltway. The weather at the track was brisk, but dry. My friend Kevin said that it had poured rain very briefly earlier that day, but the track was completely dry again. I rode shotgun for his first on-track session after my arrival. In the closing minutes, he managed to go off course in Turn 3 and get stuck in the gravel trap. Reportedly, the brakes had given up/gone soft on him, he dropped a wheel off the edge of the track, and the combination tossed the car sideways. They stopped everything to pull him out of the gravel and then it started to rain really hard again. Since there was only one more session that he could run in and the track wasn't going to dry anytime soon, we consolidated our track gear into my car and drove his car into DC for the night.

We were both a little nervous because the last time we tried to run a track day together, he had a minor crash in the first session and I "blew up" my motor in the second session.

After a pleasant dinner out and a night's sleep, we woke up at oh-dark-thirty to drive back out to the track. Registration, Grid Inspection, and the Driver's Meeting went fairly smoothly/painlessly for me and I eagerly buckled in for the first Blue Run Group (experienced, but not the ultra fast Red Group) session. I had been having trouble with my wastegate and controlling the turbo boost level, so I took it very easily the first 2 laps. When I finally stomped on the go pedal a little harder, the boost spiked off the gauge and then went to zero. I putted around that lap with very diminished power and pulled into the paddock. Not only had one of the blow-off valve pressure lines come loose, but the coupling between the compressor and the intercooler had come off too. I re-attached all of that and then tie-wrapped all the pressure/vacuum hose connections (which I should have done when I put it all together the first time). I also changed the boost control valve setting.

The second session went exactly like the first, only there was no "off the gauge" boost spike (just 20-25 psi levels) and only the coupler had blown off. There seemed to be some oil on the coupler and intercooler tube, so I washed that off with brake cleaner and reassembled it hoping the oil had been the primary cause of the slippage. Another session yielded the same results and the same fix. What was really needed was a bead (either welded or rolled) at the edge of the intercooler tube, but I had no tools to do either. Just before lunch, an older Lola/Ford Formula 1 car did some demonstration laps.

After the catered lunch (just sandwiches, chips, cookies, and drinks), we wandered around and looked at all the various and exotic machines gathered for the fun. There was an older Kudzu prototype racer with a triple rotor rotary engine (the owner/driver/designer is Jim Downing who also helped invent the HANS devce),various street and competition Ferraris (of course), but one rather spectacular F40 owned/driven by the FoW owner. There were also Porsches, Corvettes, BMWs, a Grand Am Cup Integra (purchased from the same team I had raced with in 2002), and a Noble (a very nicely done twin turbo kit car).

I tired driving my car on the track one more time, but really pussy-footed the gas pedal in order to keep the turbo boost below 10 psi. The coupling still blew off after 2-3 laps, so I decided to give up trying to drive my car and rode with Kevin for one more session in order to get a video clip.

He had changed his brake pads to a semi-race compound and experienced no further brake problems. He did spin in Turn 1 while giving a corner worker a ride and almost spun there again for my last ride. (Sorry, I didn't catch that on tape) I left before his last session, but he said in a later email that other than drifting slightly off course once, it was fine/uneventful. Other than a temporary return of an idle problem I had experienced earlier, my car ran fine on the way home so I didn't need the rental car reservation I had made just in case. I got stuck/stopped on I-70 just east of Frederick, MD while they flew in 2 medivac choppers for a bad accident (it was 50 yards up the highway from me) and the rubberneckers slowed everyone down on I-95 just north of Baltimore. There had been a 94 car pile-up there Sat night during a quick/severe hailstorm. Other than some skid marks and a wheel/axle lying in the median, there wasn't anything left to see though.

Not a great driving weekend for me, but I got see lots of terrific cars and ride in Kevin's Ferrari. I also know what my biggest track problem is and can get someone with the right tools to fix it easy. With such a custom/one-of-a-kind configuration in this car, I expected some teething issues. I just really want it to be ready for a big National MR2 meet (with a track day) next summer in Kansas commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 1st car.

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