DNF
(c) 2004 J. Sage Schreiner
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I had hoped that the race suspension I ordered in August from Ireland Engineering would show up with enough time to get it mounted for the last two races of the 2002 season. Having adjustable race suspension was one of the last major go-fast modifications I had planned for 2002. But no luck the order showed up the day before Portland. Not that it mattered anyway despite assuring me that everything had been shipped, major pieces of the order were MIA.
Car and thirty-year-old tow rig both made it down to Portland without trouble. As I had before the Mission race, I watched the weather report anxiously. PIR drains well and has a lot of run off space, but racing with slick tires in the rain isn't pleasant on any track. Saturday was partly cloudy and generally pretty nice, but it didn't look like it was going to hold.
Just before Saturday afternoon's novice race, I tried to start my car only to find that it wouldn't start. With only minutes to go before the beginning of the race, I wasn't pleased. I expected to find that one of the wires had wiggled loose. If you recall, this was a brand new starter. What I found was quite surprising the three small screws that hold the starter solenoid in place had worked out and the solenoid had fallen off the starter! Luckily it was still sort of "dangling" in place. One of the guys from the next paddock space came over and helped strip-tie the solenoid, to keep it from falling off during the race. Meanwhile, the novice race had started without me. While I sat in the car and popped the clutch on cue, the "volunteers" tried to bump-start the car over and over again, but it simply wouldn't start. D'oh I had disconnected the negative battery cable before messing with the starter and forgot to reconnect it. One of the guys got the cable on, while another sprinted for a 10mm socket to tighten it down. The car bump-started immediately, and I made it out on to the track almost three laps behind, leaving three helpers cursing me between gasps.
Since I had cold tires, cold brakes, a cold brain, and little chance of ever catching anyone, I took it very easy for the first lap. Once the car et al. were warmed up, I used the empty track to practice. When the front runners caught up to me, I pointed them by. It wasn't much of a race. I did notice that I was having a trouble getting the car into gear. I ground the gears several times while trying to downshift to second for the chicane.
After the race, the Kahn Team Racing folks helped me figure out what thread and size of bolt I needed to hold the starter solenoid in place. As always, they were extremely helpful. The next morning I found several metric screws at a local auto parts store that worked for a permanent fix.
Sunday morning was cloudy and threatened rain. I kept my fingers crossed for dry track. Right before the noon driver's meeting it began to pour. I quickly changed to my "wet setup," which means disconnecting the rear anti-roll bar, over inflating the tires, and putting the better tires on the rear of the car. As I finished this, however, the rain stopped and the track began to quickly dry out. I left the rear of the car up and the tools out so that I could make a last minute decision if the race looked like it would be dry. This is a conundrum that all race drivers and teams have to put up with, at all levels of the sport. Wet setup or dry setup? It can be nerve wracking when it's not clear which way the weather will go. A wrong decision can mean a poor showing and a difficult car.
I put my driving suit on, but kept my blue grease monkey suit on over it and waited to see what the weather was going to be like. With about 15 minutes to go, it looked like the track was going to be dry, so I made the decision to go for a "dry" setup on my car I quickly reconnected the rear anti-roll bar links and dropped the tire pressure down to the normal range. Then I jumped into the car and got out to pre-grid. I kept my fingers crossed that the rain showers would stay away, at least as long as my race was running.
While I sat in pre-grid I eyed my competition. There wasn't a lot. Linda Heinrich, my usual competitor, was about 3 or 4 seconds a lap faster than me at PIR, so I didn't have a chance of keeping up with her. Margie, the woman with the yellow Datsun 510, wasn't racing that weekend. A little way behind me was a recently-upgraded novice driver, in a white G-Production Datsun 510. I decided my goal for the race was to stay in front of him.
Just as we pulled out onto the track for the pace lap, a few drops of water splashed on my windshield. Ferk ding blast! It wasn't enough to get the track wet, and as the green flag waved, the rain-splatters stopped. Going through the chicane on the first lap, there was the usual assortment of Group 2 spins and minor carnage to avoid. Then the race started for real. For the first half-dozen laps, I was able to steadily pull ahead of the white Datsun. There was no sign of anyone else from my class and I was able to race in some "open air".
The slight problem I had had shifting during the weekend became more pronounced. It slowed me down, as I had to spend more time getting the car into gear before the corners. The white 510 started to narrow the gap between us. I watched him slowly gain on me over several laps, so I found more speed. On the following lap, coming through the last set of high-speed turns that lead out onto the straight, I suddenly hit some slippery track, probably oil or coolant, and locked up all 4 wheels. I went straight off the track at around 80 mph. The whole car felt like it was going to shake apart from the bumpiness of the dirt. Despite the rain, I was surprised by how much dust and gunk ended up inside the car (and my mouth). Luckily, Portland has a ton of run off space, so I got the car slowed down, turned around and back on the track with no harm done but I watched out of the corner of my eye as the next half-a-dozen cars through hit the same slippery patch and spun or overcooked the braking zone. I was back on the track with no places lost and a net gain on the white Datsun 510 chasing me. I was glad that my first foray in kinetic automotive agriculture ended benignly.
We received the "5 Minutes" sign from Start / Finish, indicating that there were just a few laps left in the race. It was a weight off my shoulders, as it meant I was going to be able to stay ahead of the Datsun.
Or not. With one lap to go, as I downshifted to second for the chicane, the transmission broke. Despite having the shifter in position for second, the car wasn't in gear. What the f?! It surprised me, and I got the car off to the side of the track. I discovered that if I stuffed the shifter into gear and held it with almost all the strength I could muster, the car would stay in gear and just barely roll forward. It made a horrible racket, however. Dreams of finishing the race in first gear flashed through my head, but I decided that wouldn't be the brightest idea, as I was hardly in the running for a championship. Staying off the track, I limped over to a turn station where the worker asked me if I needed a flat tow. I decided that I could make it back on my own power, once the race was over. After the winners made their victory lap, I pulled back onto the track and drove back to the paddock at about five miles per hour.
It was my fist "Did Not Finish" result ever, and I was bummed. One of my goals for the year had been to make it through the year with no DNF's a goal I had just failed on the LAST FREAKIN' LAP OF THE RACE. I was doubly bummed because I realized that if I had babied the transmission more carefully over the weekend, I certainly would have been able to finish the race. I felt like banging a dent into the roll cage with my head.
But that was the least of my worries. The car was now stuck in gear. Because I had a tow dolly, not a trailer, the rear wheels of the car rolled along the ground. If a car is stuck in gear (especially first gear), the rear wheels will quickly accelerate the engine to a speed many thousands of RPMs beyond what it can take destroying the engine in a mess of bent expensive whirring bits. Expensive = bad.
I scratched my head and thought of a variety of possibilities ranging from the insane (Find a volunteer to ride in the car with the clutch depressed. All the way back to Seattle.) to the ill-advised (putting the car on the dolly backward which might have been okay, except that the steering wheel doesn't have a lock on it any more which meant that the tow rig was going to be squirrelly at high speeds. Like ten miles per hour.) to the inane (just drive the car back to Seattle in first gear.). After talking to a variety of folks, I decided that the best option was to remove the driveshaft, disconnecting the driven wheels from the engine.
So I did. Despite the fact that it was raining. Unbolting the ends of the driveshaft was, relatively speaking, easy. That only took about two hours. Working the drive shaft off its flanges, past the exhaust and out of the car was a pain in the butt, requiring that I almost remove the exhaust system. And did I mention it was raining? It was four long, wet hours before I was headed home.
Most of the trip home was in absolute, pouring rain. Driving along the highway at 45 miles per hour in an old pickup truck that never quite goes straight, with big rigs blasting by, isn't my idea of fun. But I had spoken to Hugh Golden, and Hugh seemed to believe that doing a tranny in a week was possible, especially as pulling the driveshaft off was a big chunk of the job. Of course, he wasn't taking into account the astounding (and hopefully entertaining) incompetence of the Unsage Mechanic, but it put the bug in my ear. Even as I drove home, I began to plan the job. I'd have to finish removing the old tranny, then make a trip to the junkyard to find a replacement. I'd have to mount the new transmission and hope that it was a good one. Finally, Id have to remount the driveshaft and exhaust. My chances of success were slim, but I was going to try. It was going to be a long week. Again.
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