Grattan, August 2003 race report
(click on thumbnails below for larger picture)
Since Mosport, searching for why the red rocket was slower than new blue, I removed the small "cherry bomb" style muffler and replaced it with a 2 1/2" to 3" adaptor and a 3" straight pipe. The sound is awesome now. It turned out that this was the tweak needed to make our cars equal in acceleration. Grattan turned out to be a mixed bag for both of us. While we had fun, Jack had the following encounter with a poorly driven porsche.
Cause:
Effect:
Jack was done for the weekend. Prior to this incident we had a brilliant dice in practice Saturday morning where we were feet from each other the whole time. This makes it all worthwhile! The Sunday morning enduro race entry was moved from new blue to the red rocket. In the enduro, Tony in the red rocket was keeping up (and even passed at one point) a very fast Lotus 7. The red rocket was gaining in the corners and losing on the straight (opposite what I'd expect). In the process, Tony set a fast lap mark for the uncle jack racing team: 1:35.421. Previous best in new blue was 1:36.1 by both Jack and Tony. Unfortunately, the transmission gave up the ghost after about 45 min. of the enduro ending the weekend for the remaining uncle jack racing team car. Further inspection after the race showed that the tranny repair would end up being less than $100 so things are much better for the red rocket than new blue.
Saturday race photos for red rocket:
Things are looking up for Road America in September! Both cars will be repaired and on the track. Since the performance differences have been eliminated, it looks like fun will be had by all in the one-upsmanship challenge.