Chump Car - John Allen Special USFail1 Race Team Build

[dinanm3atl]

How'd you guys do this weekend? I came by to say hi, but you all seemed in the middle of something with the car all jacked up, I meant to come by later and introduce myself, but we blew our motor so we took off early.

38th. Didn't run last 45min basically. Bent a trailing arm.

Rough weekend. In paddock? Come say hi next time :)

Bushing replacement and then filling trans.

[dinanm3atl]

Not sure how many total cans. Really didn't keep track and we ended up with extra.



Road Atlanta 2014 - Start of a new era in ChumpCar


This was the roughest weekend we have had in ChumpCar. Some might ask how is that possible when we blew up in 1hr30min at a 24 Hour race on our first weekend... well let me fill you in. Prepping for this race we had to change multiple transmissions. Replacement had no third gear. Third time was a charm. Car was prepped well. New parts all around.

New tech process. REALLY checking over the cars now...





First for us with a test day on Friday. What did we find?

Our transmission was PUKING fluid. And we need control arm bushing. We ended up being much longer at track on Friday night than expected. Did eventually get the bushings replaced with hand tools. That was fun. A lot of fun. The trans was filled on Saturday morning from 6am to 7:55am. Combo of Lucas Stop Leak, Lucas Fluid and random generic fluid... why? The stop leak and Lucas is so think we had a lot of trouble getting it into the trans. It was JUST above freezing at this time. We closed up the trans and I got in the car to start race... hoping it would make it.

As said we made it to the grid with about 5min to spare...



Race Start!




First 2 stints no problem. So far so good. Running in the 20s and we keep moving up as we can run full 2hr stints. Third driver in and again no problem... until 1hr59min into his stint. He is dive bombed into Turn 7, pushed wide and we contact another car.




We get it back out. Thanks to Motorsport Hardware for making awesome studs. They held the rest of the race. Over 9 hours of racing.




We ran without incident into sunset and until the darkness fell...











Around 7pm our 6th driver gets in. Plan is 1hr30min stint and I'll cover the final 1hr30min of darkness as I normally do. I explained to turn quick, safe and most important clean laps. 3rd lap the car spins in Turn 12 from track left, across track, hops a curb and ends up facing uphill in the grass driver right. Luckily no damage. On the radio the car will not refire. All switches cycled and we have nothing... here it comes in on a flat bed.




Apparently the Main/Fuel Pump Relay and DME relay no longer wanted to be installed. We ran to harvest them from our own cars. Luckily before we had those back to the car we found them in the engine bay. Installed them. Car fires RIGHT back up. Driver sent back out for about 1hr. I enter the car around 830pm with 1hr30min in front of me. We lost 9 positions from 25 to 34 during the off. Wanted to make it back into the 20s so I started pushing hard. Searching for a lap time around my day light time of 1.54.

All was well until about 45min left in race. I entered turn 3 as normal. Jumped the curb and came down. The car snapped sideways which was extremely odd. Almost looped the car but got it back under control. My brain said "Too much curb" and I carried on. All is well until Turn 6. Get on brakes and enter corner and car has to be controlled in a slide. Not normal. Setup Turn 7 and it wants to get sideways again. Starting to think a tire is going down or we broke a spring. Unsure I carry on at normal speed down back straight. All feels normal so hoping maybe there was something down on track and I've made it through. Get on brakes into 10A and it snaps sideways again. Not fun from 120mph into the braking zone around the 100 marker... get it under control and hit pit lane.

Since we normally start packing up on final stint only one person is in our pit box. I explain on radio as I was rolling in check rear spring, shock mount and left rear tire. All looks good. We don't know 100% what is wrong as it's dark. Our lights are gone. We've already been hit once. We don't want to write off the car. We park it... disappointing and not what I wanted to do but the best choice.

We end up 38th out of 109 cars. Not terrible but we wanted a Top 20. Our home track quality finish eludes us again in 2014. Next up Daytona and then Sebring.


Assorted photos. As always can follow us on Facebook :)

https://www.facebook.com/JohnAllenSpecial

[DER E30]

Do those wheel studs stick out past the face of the wheel?

Great pics and story! :up: That sucks about the trailing arm...

[Roysneon]

Did you find out what was causing the odd behavior?

[dinanm3atl]

Do those wheel studs stick out past the face of the wheel?

Great pics and story! :up: That sucks about the trailing arm...

Yup. When we first got them we had 20mm spacers.

Thanks!

Did you find out what was causing the odd behavior?

Yup. Bent trailing arm.

[lemansguy]

just read the entire thread. awesome build and love what you guys are doing! wish i was closer to help out and be apart of this, im going to start looking locally for a team i can participate with. ive been doing autox for a couple years, but this looks a lot more fun!

keep up the good work!

[JCarp90]

I demand updates.

[dinanm3atl]

It's parked. Will have a work day soon. We race in Daytona in May.

[kingston]

I haven't gotten to run our car yet this year. With the new season, we've de-contented it a fair bit. You guys didn't have any trouble running the rear aero? We ditched our front splitter...maybe it should go back on...

[dinanm3atl]

We are all claimed and legal. Some stuff was removed.


Drove someone else's E30 at VIR today. Did 4 of the 12 hours.

[M-technik-3]

Chump is jumping up in $ required to run these days not sure how much longer that is going to continue before going to a SCCA for nearly a like budget.

[dinanm3atl]

How so? We run nowhere near the SCCA budget. 5-6 people get to drive per race.

[kingston]

I may end up starting my own team. The rest of the team is on the opposite side of the state from me, 250 apart. Need to find some like-minded peeps in Kansas City! LOVE reading posts from your team!

[Nygdup]

Maybe we'll have an update this weekend. A few of us are getting together tomorrow to begin repairing the Road Atlanta damages.

[Nygdup]

So.. you got the Road Atlanta recap, and have an ideal now of some of the trials we encountered during that race. Well, this past weekend we finally got a few of the guys together for the first time to really start assessing and repairing damages in preparations of our next race in May at Daytona.

How the poor girl looked when we rolled her out of the garage.

John Allen Special Daytona Prep Day 1 by RichE30, on Flickr


John Allen Special Daytona Prep Day 1 by RichE30, on Flickr


John Allen Special Daytona Prep Day 1 by RichE30, on Flickr

First we addressed the bent studs that happen from contact early in the race. Big thanks to Ryan Castro and Motorsport Hardware for hooking us up with a new set. For those that are real observant, you'll notice that our Kosei wheel is missing it's centering ring. Sometime during the race, the centering worked its way through the center hub of the wheel. Time for a new wheel and ring.


John Allen Special Daytona Prep Day 1 by RichE30, on Flickr


John Allen Special Daytona Prep Day 1 by RichE30, on Flickr

Once the wheel was off, we did a quick visual inspection checking for other damages. Yep.. found some. Broken sway bar link


John Allen Special Daytona Prep Day 1 by RichE30, on Flickr

Pulled off the bumper to check for damages there. Broken shock mount.


John Allen Special Daytona Prep Day 1 by RichE30, on Flickr

If you remember from our post race recap Halston felt that something was amiss in the rear suspension, thinking it might be a bent trailing arm. My suspicion is this busted coolant hose instead. I believe he was driving through his own fluids, causing the car to feel REAL uneasy.


John Allen Special Daytona Prep Day 1 by RichE30, on Flickr