Chuck's Corner Report 2

Tuesday, 09 March 2010 14:35

March 5 , 6 & 7 at Texas World Speedway. We were all packed up on time and got to TWS on Thursday evening. We paddocked with Louis Rivera and Austin Snader, a karting graduate!  Louie brought his “GTLouie” and Austin and his father Tom brought their E Production RX8.  We all like to be near Louie as he and his son Tony built the RX8 and Louie knows more about Miata’s than all of the rest of us put together.  Fridays practice sessions were uneventful.  With a few practice laps, our F Production Miata started to show its muscle and our times came down into the competitive range. But the car was having problems with what felt like a fuel starvation problem.  Our new Hoosiers were on their way via UPS, and with some new rubber we would be right down where we needed to be.  All in all, we were happy with our progress… But, the afternoon came and went right along with the UPS truck, and no tires!  They had been delivered to the wrong Race Track and were now sitting at MSR 100 miles to the south. On Saturday we did manage to get the tires transported to TWS, but not in time for qualifying! In spite of that Stuart qualified on the inside of the second row and second in class! I got in line at Mike Sauce’s Tire Service to get them mounted and balanced. Unfortunately it was a long line. Well to make a long story short Stuart has to go out on the same tires that we had already run for two races, a day of practice and the mornings qualifying!!!! And they’re off!!!! Stuart hangs in there with Eric Prill and his “Jesse Prather Racing” Miata for the first three or four laps with the car still fighting a fuel starvation problem from Friday. We knew if we were to have any chance at all that we had to save what little we had for the end. But victory was not to be ours. Eric and E Production Caterham decided to have a heated battle for first overall and the rapid pace soon used up what tires Stuart had left. They were still insight when the “Checkered Flag” flew, but Stuart’s now “CORDED” Hoosiers were barely enough to get him through impound!  Another hard fought “Second”! Like we always tell our customers, it pays to plan ahead!  I will take the blame on this one. Sunday, and we now we have our new Hoosiers and we are ready to go! Our plan is to do five laps, enough to get the tire up to temperature and clock in a good lap. Things go pretty much as planned, but there is some traffic on every lap. We are considerably faster but still fighting our starvation problem we cannot figure out and to only earn the same qualifying spot as yesterday. It’s now 15 minutes before Race time!  The clouds have thickened and it has begun to sprinkle, do we go with Rains or Slicks? Well we decide Slicks are still the way to go but are ready just in case. The green flag falls and we are off to a terrific start! There is a little extra pushing and shoving but all is well through corner one. Things progress well! Eric is now leading the E production Catherham and Stuart is right on their bumpers! Oops! A Catherham doesn’t have bumpers! In fact it never did! …to take that a step further, it’s a KIT CAR that really has no place in a Production Car Class!  But that’s another story!  Back to the race!  All at once we hear Stuart’s motor pick up a higher pitch?  It had started to stumble between shifts again.  He falls off the pace and finished a disappointing third.  After some reconstructing of events we conclude that we have a fuel pick up issue due to debris in the fuel cell. Now it’s Monday and we are all “bench racing”, and do you know what we conclude? That the third…fifth…or tenth place finish is better than the best day at the office! “DAMN I LOVE RACING”!  Stuart, Alec, and a new customer Jim Kelleher and his son Conner, will be racing at Motor Sport Ranch Cresson in Fort Worth this weekend. Well that’s all from “Chuck’s Corner” for now. C.U.Racing!