MISSION ROAD RACE AUG.27

[bertvorgon]

Morning World.

Here are some pictures and report from last Saturday's race at Mission. Weather could not have been better. No particular order for the pics today.

Mission Race Day August 27th

It was another wonderful weekend at Mission Raceway on Saturday for me. Successful for the Specialty racers.

Like modern Gladiators, donning their combat gear before entering the Arena, watching the process to get fire suits on, balaclava’s, shoe horn into the car, then Hans device and helmet, requires a few people to help.

Getting radio, cool suit plumbing and air supply had Steve doing that. Collin would then pull the safety pin out for the fire system. Andy would then fire the car, Collin and Steve would grab the massive hood, I would be at the nose to guide it into its hold down channels, and then tighten the dzus fasteners and the hood clamps. We all would push the car back out from the tent and off Andy would go, the crisp crackling thunder of the motor drowning out any conversation.

The same process was going on for Tracey across from us.

Practice session was a bit frustrating for Andy, as there was a herd of Honda’s, where Andy would come upon them with a 70 MPH speed differential at times.

Byron had his first race weekend, car looked good (vintage DRC car built by Specialty originally), needs another 100 HP! Ha! He had to sort a whole litany of issues from the previous owner, so that will be on-going for awhile. Byron, the machinist he is, made a beautiful new throttle piece, to get rid of way too much slack. When this car was built, a bunch of us had a hand in it, creating some clever bits during the height of the Datsun Radial Challenge (DRC) as all the local shops battled each other. Too much fun. So cool it still lives to run again and under Byron’s hands, it will be at its best again.

Mike Gibson ( CARTEL on the Realm) was there with his late style 240. He is an excellent driver and that car is wickedly fast. Mike did time in NASPORT when Collin was running, so tons of experience with the best. Sunday’s race was a barn burner between a Lamborghini, Tracey and Mike. Finishing order was just that.

Don Nimi and his co-driving partner Courtney were there, in their Formula Ford, a very nice and clean ride. They had an engine problem on Sunday, possibly a bent valve or pushrod.

During the break in the morning, after practice, Andy wanted the new tires put on, which is quite the process. The picture shows the leverage required doing the initial torque, then the air tool is used, moving the hub centric nut 3/8” of a measured inch, to arrive at final torque around 600+ Ft/Lbs! Those are BIG tires!

I wish I could have watched Byron, but the Specialty team needed lots of hands on deck to be ready for qualifying and then the race. When Andy comes in it is a reversal of the readying process, hood off as soon as the car stops under the tent. One has to wear gloves, as the fibreglass fender is so hot, it will burn you.

As the qualifying session was ending, I went back to the tent to grab the DZUS tool, which I knew I left on the bench, to be able to quickly get the nose off the car. NO TOOL!!! ARG, what did I do with it. I went into panic mode, as Andy would be in the pits in a blink. I had no change in my pocket to use, could not see a big screw driver. I started to walk to the paddock as at one point it was in my pocket, thinking it maybe fell out. I then thought I would run to Tracey’s tent and see if she had one. Sure enough I grabbed that one and blasted back to Andy’s tent. Steve came along to help get the hood off and it turned out he had grabbed it! At least I was not losing my marbles and I did leave it on the bench.

We took the back off the car to check the cool suit water and cold air intake, as Steve spotted water in the tube to the helmet. Ice had melted and the water level was too high with the extreme G-force. Fuel was also added. I crawled under the rear window canopy and cleaned the haze off the inside of the Lexan, glad I am still flexible in my later years!

At one point I looked over to Don, checking the Ford’s fuel level…he had run on fumes!

Now, a word on the Specialty lunch buffet, I call it a buffet, as some 5 Star rated hotels in Vancouver, cannot rival this spread. The crowd seems to get larger each time I go to an event. The social aspect is huge, such a wonderful gathering of friends. I again see people who go back to my racing days in the 80’s and 90’s, too much fun! Barbecued chicken and baked ham….really!

Reminiscing about the days of the Cannonballs, to the out of town Solo events, is always fun, some of which are legendary.

Andy placed 1st on Saturday’s race and Tracey 3rd.
Tracey placed 1st in DCM class on Sunday, Andy did not run.

I headed out at 4 pm, following a bunch of American hot rods that had been at a car show on the other side of the track. Traffic was light for me on the way back, cruising Zero Avenue again, so quiet and peaceful.

Next Friday is motorcycle day again, weather looks to be reasonable, and that will be good for Andy and the gang again.

Keith Law
August 29, 2022

[bertvorgon]

Mike's car

[bertvorgon]

Byron's car

[bertvorgon]

Don and Courtaney

[bertvorgon]

more

[bertvorgon]

more

[bertvorgon]

More and last for today!

Hope you enjoyed the trip.

[icehouse]

So many grey haired racecar drivers, you need to be one of them!

[bertvorgon]

I'm good with where I am. Back to my roots of 500 mile days of driving. From 1975 to basically 2000 I worked my ass off to achieve what I did. It's not lost on me, no matter what level, of how much work, let alone the cost, is to road race, and, my car is too nice now to risk. Be a different thing if it had been built as a dedicated road racer. As it was, the big crash at Westwood in 1983 was an eye opener as to how FAST it can all go wrong. I was lucky!

As a group we have been together for a LONG time, I go back to 1976/77 when I first wandered into Andy's shop, as he began his business.

[Byron510]

It was a very enjoyable first weekend of racing at Mission Raceway. And BTW Kieth, that's a great photo that you took of me in front of the car - thanks!
Saturday was literally the very first time I had ever driven this car. A fact that really sunk in as I was driving down to Tech from my paddock space at 7 am - my first drive! Because the previous owner, whom I know and respect very well, was such a small guy - there was no way I could ever fit in this car with the seat/wheel arrangement. Paul might be 100 lbs soaking wet - maybe 5'4". I'm a solid guy at 6' and a full 290 lbs! That just doesn't cross reference.
Now the car and I have history. I have helped Paul with this car since the day he bought it. I was Paul's shop mate from when he purchased the car in 2006 until I built my workshop in 2017. I caged the front half for Paul when he got the car - it's an old race car, log book dates back to 1983 and just had a roll bar, no cage. Also the Roadster medium close transmission and R190 originally came out of the Bronze. And I'd machined a bracket or two for Paul over the years.

Coming back to this past weekend racing as the new owner of the car. Saturday I did two practice sessions in the am, and a race mid-afternoon.

But first, race day went so well because of the prep work that went happened in the week prior to racing And there was a pile of work done to the car. And for that, I have my good friend Glen (Childhoodtoy) to deeply thank. Glen has put so much effort into this project, it's absolutely unreal. Neither of us slept last week!

Prep included;

- Modifying the roll cage, including removing the cross and seatbelt bars and moving them reward into the rear back stays to fit my much longer frame: I didn't count on this at all in the prep time budget - 2 days
- Mounted a new seat and set up the seat belts: budgeted maybe a day - took three full days! the seat mount ended up being cut out, dropped, refabricated and moved rewards and downwards to get me under the main hoop! then the belt locations were all wrong because I went so far reward. It was a struggle to get it all right.
- The gear shifter was about as bad as any 510 could be! The shifter could freely rotate inthe bushings and had about 6-8 inches of muchy free play. This was fixed with aluminum bushings and hard mount washers locked into the stock linkage both top and bottom of that monkey motion set up on the roaster box
- The throttle linkage had about 1" of dead play at the top of the range and was way too high for proper heal and toe action. I ended up making a new linkage 1 piece part out of 1" C1020 that mimicked the very worn-out Nissan comp piece. See photo below
- Fix window net to work for me - still needs mods as I can't get my hand far enough out the window for proper signals: a couple of hours as I found the locating straps were also failing upon inspection
- Fixed a leaking bulkhead fitting for the Accusump through the firewall
- Bleed the brakes - pads/shoes looked good, thankfully all checked out - damn 600V Motul fluid is expensive!!!
- minor nut and bolt check
- Found a stripped plug in the comp oil pan - no time for repair, I drilled a 1/16 hole in the block webbing up by the trans mount and lock wired the plug off, then hoped for the best. Over the weekend it didn't leak a drop - thank god. But there were leaks - see below
- Rebuilt the 3L Accusump as I was informed it wasn't working when I purchased the car. Everything looked all right and I think it just wasn't precharged enough. In any case, I replaced the O rings with Viton ones - likely overkill. But I did add a valve at the accumulator so that it could be filled to the top on the bench, then installed. I added an air charge after installation. As the car makes 75 PSI oil pressure, I put 60 PSI in the Accusump. That can likely be dropped to 30 and be easier on components. More research needed

I ran the car as received, and to be honest it handles really well. It turns in better than the Bronze, rotates well under both throttle and trailing throttle, is very stable under braking, and didn't run out of brakes (no pad fade or fluid boiling). All this was great considering that car has
- There are no coil overs or suspension adjustability
- The springs all around are much softer than I am used to
- Front sway bar is 7/8" and mounted in rubber
- Has all rubber suspension bushings - age unknown
- The tires (Toyo R compounds) are literally years old! More than 3 - need to check the date stamps to confirm
- The carbs run really fat coming out of the hole, enough to make it stumble badly exiting turns 2, 3 and 6 even above 4k RPM
- Has no brake bias adjustability

Mechanical and design problems include;
- very flexible brake pedal arrangement - spongy pedal but not due brake fluid or pad/shoe seating
- clutch not disengaging, causing rough shifts
- Clutch not engaging well near the end of the sessions
- oil pan leak - really bad - leaves a puddle every time it's parked
- transmission seal leak (front) - adding to the aforementioned oil puddle
- carb bogging - Dellortos may go in favor of late Mikunis as I have a full jet set for tuning
- no air-fuel or O2 gauge in the exhanst

Given all that critique, the car was still a blast to drive and I really enjoyed myself. I felt confident driving the car, as it was well balanced and inputs were smooth.

I hope to tackle all but the flexy brake pedal issues by the next event in mid-September. Here are some photos courtesy of Glen and my neighbour Brian who both came out with their families to cheer me on;

Day one, new seat in original seat mounts - still couldn’t get behind the wheel with the seat mounted as far back as possible

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Seat mounts cut out

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New set rails under construction

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Fitting new seat belt bar

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Old seat belt bar removed, new one installed and bar painted

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New set mount installed and painted

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Seat in it's final position

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All four lower belt points attached and 2x2 plates bolted in underneath

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New shifter parts installed, but not the shifter- that's for the Greg Terry car

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New throttle linkage in the mill, lathe work already completed

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Throttle manifold linkage completed - zero play now present

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Parts for the new ramps for the trailer, the old one got misplaced when being lent out, but my friends are good friends and they covered the cost of the materials to make the new ones

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Ramp bar mounted on the trailer. the bar obscured the lights, so additional ones were added below

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Looking rather clean before the first practice session. The old QX56 tow pig in the background with the new roof rack Glen and I made the week before so that I could haul both kayaks upcountry.

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Turn 2, behind the pace car

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Turn 2 again, mid way through the race

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Just about brake marker 5 on the front straight. I started braking later than most at marker 3 due to having a light car and not a whole lot of power.

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I hit the scales on the way off the track 2340 with 15L of fuel onboard

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A racers laundry drying day after the weekends over!

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[iceman510]

Looking good Byron.

This is prescient for me, as I am picking up my vintage race 510 in about 2 weeks or so. I have no good idea of what the car needs and what I will have to do for prep over winter, so that will be interesting.

Is the B/S for B-sedan? I see the car doesn't have flares. Did it race the equivalent of IT before?

[gooned]

Nice reports both of you, haven’t made it to the track all year.

[dodgydan]

hay Byron my son Collin and i were at mission on Saturday for car show and watched some racing. we were at the corner before pit entrance and watched a car with engine troubles dump oil on track in apex of last corner. next car came around and spun. then your 510 and another car in close quarters cam around and we were very impressed by your collision avoidance. fun to watch.
and wow, that specialties gt1 is quick.

[JasonLee]

Hi Byron. I was also at the Historic Hot Rod Reunion on Saturday, and had a chance to see you do a few laps before I knew it was you behind the wheel. The car looked fantastic! My calendar is already marked, and I look forward to seeing you (and Keith)at the next event in mid-September. Great write-ups both of you!

[Byron510]

Hi Dan,
I am glad you got to see that, and that the outcome was as good as it was. It was a close call. The incident you saw happened in the fastest corner on the track, the sweeper that is turning 9 leading onto the front straight. This was my 1st novice race, the SCCBC executive decided to throw a number of senior drivers out in the field to “play” with us a bit. They would go into corners offline to see if we would follow them. They’d draft really close, to see how we would react - it was all fair play.
I was having a great race with a light blue Miata for a number of laps - another novice driver. He’d outpower me on the straights, I’d real him in on the corners and braking. It was good clean fun, but close competition.
Coming into turn 7 on this particular lap, which would be the corner to your far left as a spectator- the standing yellow flag was out. So I backed off a bit to survey. As I apexed turn 7 and headed for turn 8 and scanned turn 9, the next corner station showed a waving yellow meaning the situation was not just cautionary. With a scan coming into 8, I saw the Integra spun off to the outside of the apex of turn 9. The Miata had backed off very little and since the apex and racing line was clear, neither did I. I saw no reason as the racing line was unobstructed. Just before entering the apex as both the Miata and I were well on the throttle, the Miata started to rotate in front of me a lot more than it should have been, and I gently lifted to see what was going to happen next. Then the Miata got off the throttle and presumably, on the brakes. I saw the inside rear wheel lock up, sending the car sideways and into a spin. I was right on the Miata's ass at this point - I had a very clear view of what was happening. It was also clear that the door through the apex was now closed! The current trajectory options were;
- a collision with the driver's side of the Miata
- practically head-on with the Integra that had initially spun.
Neither option was favourable. Under hard braking, I chose to head for the outside wall. If I could scrub off enough speed there was a chance to get around the outside (backside) of the spun Integra. There was about 12-15’ of space, but my angle of attack was completely wrong as both drivers' sides of myself and the Integra were about to pass, I think I was off by about 3'. Addionally depth of the marbles out there could be measured with a yard stick! To make the hole I saw, I had to scrub off a lot of speed in very little time. The goal was accomplished and was able to scrub off enough speed before starting my sharp turn around the back of the Integra and still not hitting the wall. But it was close - those tires were right outside the pas side window!
Interestingly, my father was also standing out there at the same place you, your son and apparently Jason was. I wasn't aware my father was there, and I had a text waiting for me when I finally looked at my phone after the race. The text read “A bit of a heart in the mount moment for you?”. Well, that’s one way to put it.
Another comment was made when I picked up my Drivers log book from the novice director following the day's events. He saw the incident as well, but it was another driver's comment that was included “Excellent accident avoidance displayed”. I believe I have years of ice racing and rallying to thank for teaching me to quickly look and commit to alternate doors in similar situations. I may be currently holding a ‘Novice’ race licence, but I know I’m not a novice driver. But what did surprise me is how calm I remained after the incident, and I carried on with no further thought of it. This did surprise me after the fact.
Following the race, I had numerous people comment that it was close call, but from my vantage point, it really didn’t seem that close. But I understand that my frame of mind is out of context. As a driver, events and time start to slip in such moments when your brain and body react to such situations. There's a lot of chemistry going on at that point. I don't understand it all, but I am aware that it's happening. It would be interesting if someone had photos or videos to review.
Anyways, I’m just happy that it all turned out well in the end for everyone. BTW, the young guy who dropped the initial oil from the Pro-3 car? His name is Josh, and is a nice young guy - but freakin' tall! I don't look up at too many people, but I feel very short next to him. We did our driver training together a few weeks earlier. Anyways, turns out that when he went off in 5, it cleared a sensor off the oil pan. I actually watched him go off the track on the previous lap. His team replaced the sensor with a plug, and the car was out again with another driver in the next race. Also, the driver who initially spun in the Integra is a senior driver named Ryan. I talked with him later. His comment to me was “You know, I’ve never worked on a 510, and when I saw you coming, I was thinking I was going to have my first chance!” He thanked me for completing the maneuver and avoiding the collision in the fashion that I did.

Byron