8-16-24, The Hill Speedway
Over the past week while going over the car, I found quite a few problems. The biggest thing being with the right front upper A-arm. I found that the bolts/nuts were loose. Once I tightened them up, I realized the upper A-arm was hitting the frame mount when pivoting up and down which caused a bind. This explains a lot of my handling issues from last week.
After doing some research and talking to others, I found out there are spacers that you are supposed to use between the mount and the A-arm shaft. I initially used some washers and reassembled it after checking the camber. But, I ordered the spacers from Speedway along with my new driveshaft parts so I put the spacers on before heading into this weekends race.
Originally, I wasn’t going to race at all this week. My daughter was cheerleading for the Troy Trojans football game so I planned on going to that. Because of that, I didn’t really touch the car all week since there was no urgency to get the car done quickly since, I wasn’t going racing this weekend.
Well, that all changed Thursday. My Dad sent me a message asking if I was going to race this week. I responded and said no because Daytona had a game. Then my mind started turning its gears. Daytona’s game was set to start around 7:30. Usually, the games end around 9-9:30. I reached out to some people to try and figure out what orientation the IMCA class was running at The Hill Speedway. It turned out, IMCA’s were running last this week.
So, here is what I did. First, I busted ass to get the car together Thursday night after work. I threw the driveshaft together with new u-joints and a new pinion yoke. I put the A-arm spacers in the RF. While I was at work the next day, I had my friend Connor come over and load the trailer, get me some race fuel, and put the body back on the car. Then, I raced home after work, quickly loaded the car onto the trailer, then raced to the track.
I had Connor and his wife drive my Mitsubishi Outlander while I drove the truck with the trailer. We stopped off quick and picked Camber up from her mom. Next, we went to the track. I had Connor and my dad unload the car and then Camber and I raced to Daytona’s game. I told my Dad what the plan was and what the risk was. The biggest thing was that the car needed to be on the track to take the green flag in the feature so I would get money back. I had Dad bring his suit and everything and just in case, told him to be in the car if it was looking like I wasn’t going to make it in time.
Now, one of the hurdles we had to face was the fact that my Dad and nobody else had cell service at the track. So nobody knew when I was on my way back to the track and I didn’t know if the IMCA’s ran yet or not. I pull into the track, IMCA’s are on the lineup, my Dad was in my car buckled in and ready to go. I quickly put my suit and everything on, pulled Dad out, I got in, fired her up, and drove to the lineup. By the time I got to the lineup, they are already sending us out onto the track so I could not have spared another minute without missing the start of the race.
Luck seemed to have been on our side. It couldn’t have worked out any better. Green flag came out, the car felt so good. It was hiking, it had traction. Then at the conclusion of lap one as I was throwing it into turn one, driveshaft came out again. Our luck ran out. All that work and running around, just to run one lap.
It was very unfortunate, but I got the data I wanted. The car handled well and I feel more confident going into the upcoming Series race on the 30th. We will do some digging into finding out what caused the driveshaft to come out again.
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