Part III – Race Report Wrap-up for Billy Beer … Racing
Saturday night the If Its Not Punk It’s Junk team had their friends “The Mice” come to that track and play a free punk rock show, but it was so cold I passed on it and we all went out for steaks instead. When in Buttonwillow the place to go for dinner is The Willow Ranch. When we walked in the hostess asked if we had a reservation and we all looked at her like she was dumb, as the place was empty. Well it was packed 30 minutes later as pretty much everyone from the race track showed up. Really good steak, and I’m sure they are locally grown. The entire central valley smells like manure.
I was a little more prepared for the cold this night, but I think it was slightly warmer, like 35 degrees.
Sunday morning we rotated the tires and checked the fluids. Jeff did some expert autocross voodoo with the tire pressures and that was that. Away we went. Steve, Jason and Jeff had the first 3 stints and those went off without a hitch. Everyone was a few seconds a lap faster immediately thanks to voodoo and a familiarity with the track and the car. We did notice the car was smoking a little bit more, and were told by the officials to try to get it under control.
With borrowed tin snips and some sheet metal from the owner of the racing limo we fashioned a few deflector shields to keep the tranny from leaking onto the exhaust. For a complete bodge job, it seemed to take care of the problem and our car stopped smoking while stopped in the pits.
Unfortunately it started smoking while driving flat out, though we weren’t oiling the track, so we were allowed to continue. But the writing was on the wall, the magic smoke was little by little coming out of the motor. Still we didn’t seem to have any less power, so we kept going.
So, since the car was still running we kept going. A few hours later though…
If you look behind the Oldsmember car (which was powered by a very strong running 403 Olds motor) you’ll see our poor car getting the hook back to the pits.
We looked it over and poked and prodded, but I was pretty sure the motor had just had it. It still cranked over and didn’t sound like anything catastrophic had happened, but it just wouldn’t start.
None of us were happy, but we had fought the good fight and we had slowly made it more that 1/2 way thru the second day of racing. This team and this car will be back, and make no mistake, we will only get faster.
Anyone got a Ford 200ci six they want to let go cheap?
