Above: Great weather and great racing at CMP.
WIN OR BREAK
The trick to winning long enduro races is to keep making laps, have short refuel and driver change stops, and don't break or hit anything. Here last spring, we finished 3rd in Class C even with a cracked case bleeding oil badly, in the rain. This time we came back with a new case and double and triple checks on everything.
We arrived way before dawn on Friday for practice. Hawkeye and Dr. Steve are already there and asleep in their tent. Jamrod soon gets our garage space operational and we roll the Blitzwagen out of the trailer, ready to go.
While test driving the Blitzwagen, we create and fix a bad valve cover leak on the 1-2 cyl side trying to mend a small leak, and during the day, the starter push button decides to fail. We replace it with a part from a track vendor and all is well.
We are still running on Hawk pads from May, and we're surprised to discover when we stop to check, that our new, still in the box, Porterfield R4 pads for our Wilwood Dynalite front brakes are too thick to fit. We consider filing them down but decide not to, as the Hawk pads are in excellent condition.
Testing proves we have good handling, good power, and no changes are necessary. The 1974 front struts, the camber plates, the new cross-drilled front rotors are all working.
Above: Fresh 2.2 litre engine, detuned to 9:1 for enduro racing, 3-gallon dry sump for reliability, and sandbagged just a little down to 34mm venturis for more punch coming out of the corners.
Above: New upgrades. Camber plates atop 1974 struts for more bite in the corners and improved scrub radius. We now run 3° negative camber up front.
Above: You're not seeing double. For the downtown Camden block party Friday night, one of the other racing teams mocked up an effigy of the Blitzwagen, and towed it in on an improvised wrecker. Then, they dressed like our team has dressed at the costume events. You don't know if you should be honored or threatened by such antics.
Above: RetroRacing's Bear Necessities. Cute & Cuddly? No. The bears are styled off Ted, the psychotic, insulting bear from the movies of the same name. Good thing you can't hear them talk. On wait, you can:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tPOi_N0oxk (Clip from TED movie)
17Spt16; Sat. The morning is warm and overcast, no rain in sight. We are Class C. 95 cars start. We've put Dr. Steve out first. He runs an hour consistently, and is replaced by Hawkeye who does the same. He drives steadily, just clocking laps for his hour. By the time Hawkeye comes in and David replaces him, Steve tells us we are now leading Class C.
David puts in his hour, posting our best lap times (2:08), and hands over to Justin.
Justin is steadily building our lead. 10, 20, 26 laps. We have never been so far ahead. We're all jubilant. But our luck was about to change.
At about 1420 hours, 96 laps and four hours and eight minutes into the race, the exhaust lifter on cylinder #3 broke, shattering the rocker arm shaft's support block. Justin brings the Blitzwagen in, and we frantically look for ways to fix the problem but while we have rocker assembly parts, we have no backup engine this time, and only splitting the case would -- might -- save us. If we had spare lifters.
We just have to face reality and retire.
Above: The B-M-Wobbly powered AMC-AMX coupe gets owned in a corner. The Blitzwagen's smaller diameter tires and stand-on-it drivers make it a rocket coming out of a turn. Once the Blitzwagen was retired, the AMX went on to win the race overall, with a best lap time of 1:54.
Above: Four hours into fourteen, leading C class by 26 laps, the Racing Gods stepped in to not just pour cold water on our joy, but hit us in the head with the ice bucket. We broke the solid lifter on #3 cylinder exhaust and shattered the rocker arm assembly.
Above: Hot Shoe Blitzwagen driver and even better wrench David Scott grapples with the bad lifter.
Above; With the Blitzwagen out, Hawkeye no longer had a ride, but he had friends that had a ride. And out of fear or admiration, they complied. The pinkish hulk above is a 1961 Racing Rambler, Hawkeye set the best lap time of their team, a 2:15, and took them to 2nd in Class C. The Rambler boasts Wilwood brakes, a Pinto engine, and rock-hard suspension.
Above: Racing fuel for the drivers. A spy photo of the various paint strippers and bootleg hooch that keeps the team going.
FJC
