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GoodSport Racing Corporation - Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution News Goodsport Racing at the 25 Hours of Thunderhill
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| Goodsport Racing at the 25 Hours of Thunderhill | |
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This has been quite a 25. I want to express my extreme thanks to both the drivers, who really extended themselves to get the most from our situation, and the crew, who braved the rain, snow!, constant action, and difficult challenges for the entire race.
We arrived at the track still having to install the seat and nets, and then try to test as much as possible since the Lancer had never been driven on a track. We had dodged a bullet the night before, finding a misaligned balance shaft in the newly rebuilt Evo engine, but luckily we were able to fix it quickly with help from Sammy and Reyes. I had planned on having my cage builder and fellow competitor, John Pagel from Evil Genius, weld in the seat mounts, but Ryan from our crew said he could weld and we were able to allow John to concentrate on his own program. The cars were ready to go on track not long after midday, and I was pretty excited to see how well the Robispec KW / Koni suspension would work. The Evo was pretty well ready, so I thought, and we put both cars on track. By this time both Will and Mark were jamming on the many pre-race day projects we had to complete like getting tires mounted, testing radios, and finishing details on the Lancer. The Evo cycled through the test session pretty easily, with Yang, Tony, and Rich getting seat time and giving me great feedback on the car. Ken was first up in the Lancer and proceeded to spin it in turn 2 on the first lap. Not surprisingly he came back with complaints of oversteer, too much vertical motion, and too much spring. This feedback made me feel a lot better about the suspension as its easier to get rid of oversteer than understeer and I had brought softer springs to try. Drop 3 pounds out of the rear, a little more bump damping in front to fix the overrsteer, and some more rebound all around to reduce the vertical motion. Ken goes out again and gets much better results. Next up is JG, and we go through a couple more rounds of tweaking before he gives me a thumbs up. Glory was up next and said the car still oversteered a little so I decrease the rebound a little more in front. The car ended up 130 lb. lighter than I had guessed and was definitely a little oversprung, but I huddled with the drivers and they didn't feel it warranted a spring change as the car felt pretty good to them. I headed over to get the Evo log book signed off while the Lancer continued to run. When I looked up and saw Ryan running towards tech I knew it wasn't going to be good. The Lancer had crashed into a Cobra coming back on track after spinning off the back side of 5, damaging both cars. When I get back to the pits the nose is off the Lancer and the bumper beam and supports have been moved 8 inches to the left. Luckily, the damage appeared limited to the bumper beam and cover. Unfortunately we would miss qualifying the Lancer as I couldn't let it back on track until I re-aligned it, but as an E2 car that wouldn't hurt us too much. The crew got busy getting everything presentable for the race and did a great job with only the missing grill and a few pieces of white racers tape indicating the damage. While the Lancer headed to tech Yang got in the Evo and went out to qualify. One lap, 2:03, 4th in class, 12th overall. Good job. I spent the rest of the evening finishing up some details on the Lancer and headed back to the hotel. By this time Chris had arrived and I was relieved to have some more help on race day. Things were going smoothly in the morning until we went to start the Lancer and charge the Accusump. Oil immediately began shooting out of a fitting in the cockpit. I sent the Evo to the grid and went to find a #10AN to 1/2" pipe fitting. I could only find one with the wrong gender pipe thread so I called my brother Mike who was on his way to have him stop at the hardware store for the coupling. Twenty minutes to grid Mike arrives with the coupling. Leak fixed, we drop the car and set the front toe, making it to the grid with minutes to spare. Tony in the Evo and Ralph in the Lancer got good starts and we started clicking off laps. Tony calls in the radio and reports that he thinks he has a problem with numb steering and wandering. I'm hoping he just greased the tires and tell him to stay out until he's sure there's a problem. Next lap he's on the radio again and we bring him in. As he rolls in I see a flat front left tire and a one piece rim that's been converted to a two piece rim the hard way. My heart sinks as I know exactly what the problem is and know I can't permanently fix it. A bolt had stripped on the ball joint clamp and allowed the ball joint to come loose. I get in and get it tighten it, knowing that the movement had already ovaled the spindle and that there was no way to keep it tight from here on out. I send the car back out hoping I would get enough time out of it to find a permanent solution. We source a better nut that might provide more clamping force and try it on the next pit stop. At this point we are only 40 laps out, but every passing minute makes it less likely that we can recover. I can't find a powerful enough welder to weld the hardened steel of the ball joint to the spindle, and the custom parts necessitate switching out the entire front suspension off the parts car, definitely putting us out of contention. We try a few more hours where we would get some laps in, the joint would come loose, and we would tighten and go back out again, but it became apparent that no amount of clamping force in the world would keep this thing tight. Meanwhile, I really hadn't been hearing anything from the Lancer, a good thing. The Lancer was running steady, only 15 laps out of podium at 12 hours and looking good. We had only done one front left tire change at 12 hours, and the Yokohama A048 showed their ability to stick just as well as the Miatas on RA-1s, our main competition. Ralph, Glory, and JG had all done a fantastic job on their three hour shifts and had nothing abnormal to report about the car. I felt it was about time to try and catch the leaders, so as Art heads out in the Lancer I tell him to drive as fast as he can without greasing the tires or cooking the brakes. The crew was really doing well with the pit stops which was great since I was pretty busy trying to keep the Evo running and find a permanent solution that would allow the Evo drivers to make a respectable finish. After about 40 minutes he calls in complaining of grabbing, then no brakes. He comes in immediately and I jump over the wall to find smoke pouring off the left front brakes. I pull the wheel and find the outside pad in good condition with moderate wear. However, when I look on the inside I see almost no pad whatsoever, with just about 1/3 of the pad remaining, friction welded to the piston of the caliper. I had seen this before on single piston calipers when the pad gets hung up on the caliper. I ask Art if he felt a spongy pedal and he says yes, making me realize the pad edges had somehow seized in the slots. The spongy pedal was caused by the piston actually bending the pad, making it touch the rotor only in middle. Eventually, the pads wears unevenly enough split it in two, creating a wedge than can slip through the edge of the caliper. This is bad, as the rotor tries to pull the wedge through the caliper edge, pressing against the rotor and causing the brakes to lock up if you just touch them a little. Since we had to do a brake change on the rear anyway, I send Ryan over to grab a Caliper off the spare Lancer while we get the rear pads changed and slap in new front right pads just to be safe. With the new caliper on and bled, we get the car back out after a long pit stop. Luckily, for the remainder of the stint Art reported no problems and great brakes. By this time the Evo had gone back paddock, so while I was on the Lancer brakes, Sammy and Reyes from FIA/Method4 was hard at work trying a permanent solution for the Evo. Then the call came. Ken and the Lancer were immobile at the head of pit road. As tow brings the car in, I see that the spindle has broken. The spares car has the parts we need, but I quickly realize because I had modified the tie rods the result would be massive understeer and dangerous bump steer. Using tie rods off the spare Lancer was impossible without dropping the engine, which wasn't reasonably possible this late in the race. With the Lancer out, I got back to the Lancer to find Sam had the Evo ready to go again. Yang and Steve were chomping at the bit to get back out so we sent Steve back out for some more laps. Well, he stayed out for almost an hour so we though we just might be getting somewhere. Yang and Steve spent the next few hours playing in the rain and even a little snow, coming in every once in a while to have the ball joint tightened until finally the allen cap screw started to strip. I immediately tried to remove it, but knowing we had put it on with 175 ft.-lb. of torque made removal unlikely. Hour 18, game over. I felt bad for the drivers and crew, as both cars had showed potential early on, but if this stuff was easy it wouldn't be fun. I've gone on far too long, but I must mention the incredible skills, talent, and good nature that every single crew member and driver brought to the team. I can't thank them enough and am sorry we didn't get on the podium. However, we'll be back next year with some more lessons learned and some more tricks up our sleeves. Thanks to: Mitsubishi Motors NA Yokohama Tire Corporation FIA Method 4 Robispec Innovate Motorsports Ground Control Evil Genius Racing Amaral's Engine Parts and Machine |
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