Two weekends ago our team raced at Charlotte Motor Speedway with Chump Car World Series. It was a great time and I wanted to share our team's experience. If any of you have been considering racing with Chump, do it!!! I apologize in advance for the summary being quite lengthy and forgive those with ADD for not finishing it
The Lady in Black. The Track Too Tough to Tame. The Monster Mile. The Paperclip. The Rock. Thunder Valley. Just a sampling of the nicknames of some of the famous NASCAR tracks around America. Charlotte Motor Speedway’s alter ego? “The Beast of the Southeast”. And thanks to ChumpCar, we have the rare opportunity to race crapcans for 14 straight hours on the full road course configuration! 8am-10pm. On the banking. Under the lights. At a famous NASCAR track. Sweet!
The weekend started Friday morning with the usual group arriving at the shop mid-morning. With CMS in our backyard, the decision was made to forego the usual Penske truck rental and only take what we could pile into five trucks. Besides, we may still be on the no-rent list after the “Racin’ for waffleswaffleswaffleswaffleswaffles” stickers were plastered on the side of the rental truck. By sometime shortly after noon, we had the USS Enterprise (1972 Ford LTD), Sanford & Son Truck (1964 Chevrolet C-10), SuperDuperSupra (1988 Toyoya Supra) and the USS POS (1991 Ford Escort) loaded up and headed to the track. Bringing 4 cars, we had eight drivers (Dwight, Graham, Jim, John, Kevin, Lee, Morris, and guest driver, Steve). The only highlight at this point in the day was the EPA/OPEC nightmare of 200 gallons of high octane in the back of Graham’s truck.
Upon arriving at the track, we see a LONG line of eager Chumpsters at the tunnel gate. With the two leaders of our team participating in tech inspections and two more volunteered to set up the track chicanes, we jumped to the head of the line. Some of those folks had been there since 8am!!! By far, it was one of the largest groups of cars we had seen at a Chump race. By mid-afternoon we were all unpacked, registered and setup for the race. We embarrassed the Chump Diva during safety gear inspections with a bit of rubberized, mechanical pleasure tucked into Jim’s helmet. She turned about three shades of red and then wanted to take pics to savor the moment. Jim and Dwight started helping with technical inspections and Kevin and Graham set off to the track to build jersey barrier chicanes. Word of caution: Jersey barriers will fall off a tailgate when driving around the top of the banking in T2. And slide for a good 40 yards. Down the track. To the apron. They will also fall off the tailgate at any speeds greater than 30mph. Once the chicanes were set, at John’s direction, we headed off for pizza with a hooker named Rosalee.
Saturday morning arrived wet and cold. After a short driver’s meeting, we headed off to get in the cars and start the race. Jim in the Enterprise. John in the POS. Morris in the Supra. Kevin in the Truck. The first stints were interesting. Rain off and on, people driving like idiots, jersey barriers and cones flying in the air, etc. The problems for the POS started right away, as it wouldn’t stay in 3rd gear. In order to keep it in gear, you would have to hold it in and steer with one hand. That made for some fun racin’! The back straight chicane was perfect for a two car entry and exit. The front chicane was too tight for good racing as it necked down to one lane. But, that did limit the speeds out of the chicane for the turn-in to the infield section. One exciting point on pit road was when two cars got together in the front chicane, smacked the outside wall and then one of the cars came barreling straight across the grass towards pit lane directly towards our pit. What we did not know was that he was pitted several spots up, but it sure looked like he was going to crash the wall in our pit. The racing got so stupid with people killing the plastic barriers, at one point the race directors red flagged the race and brought every single driver out to the Start/Finish line to point out the stupid driving as well as let everyone know who had bought jersey barriers. $500 for each barrier you destroy. In front of everyone, John Condren went down the list of teams that had already bought barriers in the first few hours of the race. About mid-afternoon, Leigh had a “fill my pants” moment in the Supra when he went from 6th to 3rd gear in the back straight chicane. The black marks were very impressive. Sometime later that afternoon, a car took a nose dive straight into the pit road wall to the right of the infield entry.
With Dawn (aka The Pit Bitch) commanding our pits and Hunter and Bryan helping out, our pit stops were some of the fastest we have ever had. Typical pit time was around 9 minutes, as opposed to the usual 15… yes, we know this is painfully slow, but we simply don’t care… at least not enough to try to win. We are there to have fun! The vast majority of the day went by without a hitch. Graham, Steve, Morris, Dwight, Jim, John, Leigh and Kevin all took turns in the cars. The cars all ran like a top. There is NOTHING like going three wide through NASCAR T3 and T4 with you foot to the floor and passing on the outside a foot or two off the outside wall. The Enterprise was a blast like always. Fast, mean, and loud. The Truck was a LOT more fun than it had ever been, Dwight’s latest bit of suspension tuning made a huge difference. The newly rebuilt tranny had started grinding in 3rd and 4th, though. The Supra was unbelievably fast. That car is GREAT! Everything was running good.
All except the POS. That poor little Escort has been used and abused for years. Ran without oil at VIR last Spring. Ran at 7,000 rpms for most of its post-junkyard life. Blown clutch at CMP last Fall. Offered for sale but no buyers took the bait. She lived a hard life and finally gave up the ghost with Morris behind the wheel. You could see the crank as soon as you opened the hood. Down to three thirsty V8s, we still stayed busy ferrying fuel from Graham’s loaded gasoline bomb to the pit stall. After going through 200 gallons of high octane, Jim and Hunter had to make another run for another 110 gallons late in the evening so we could finish the race.
Right as the sun went down and the lights started coming on, the driver of an Infiniti went in too hot into the infield and hit one of the walls. The driver was momentarily knocked unconscious and the car caught on fire. A fellow driver got to him before the safety crew and pulled him to safety. Well done, sir. Good save! By the time the emergency crews arrived, the car had flames reaching 20+ feet in the air. Thankfully, the driver was ok with only bruises and abrasions and a sore body the next couple of days.
Things for the team got a bit interesting in the last hour of the race. Graham was in the Enterprise, Kevin in the Truck, and Steve in the Supra. With Kevin following Graham out of T4, Graham locked down the tires in the Enterprise coming past the front straight dogleg. He slid for several hundred feet, blasted two jersey barriers and almost hit the outside wall. Meanwhile, Kevin went down across the front straight apron trying to avoid the jersey barriers sliding down the track. The race was once again red-flagged while they reset the barriers. At least one of those barriers was found upstairs in the Speedway Club. The Truck was refueled while the Enterprise was repaired with a SawZall and the Supra stayed out on track. The race restarted and finished without another incident. The S&S Truck placed 20th, the Superduper Supra 25th, the Enterprise 27th and the POS Escort 45th out of 46 cars. Due to penalty laps, the Enterprise, Supra & Truck all started 25-30 laps down at the beginning of the race.
AFTERMATH:
Enterprise – Frame turned out ok, but the sheet metal and front bumper are toast. Ironically, the wreck that it was involved with last year at Rockingham, saved the car. When Dwight hit Bert, the front end was ripped off and supports were welded in to support the radiator. The supports were left on after the facelift and saved the old girl from the barrier. She will get another facelift from another ’72 donor car at the shop.
Sanford & Son – Transmission needs to be checked out to figure out the grinding.
POS – Replace engine (same Mazda/Ford 1.8L engine ordered)
Supra – Not touching a thing on this car. She is a work of art!!!
For more information on our cars: http://wrecklessabandonracing.com/about_the_cars.html
Thanks,
John
The Lady in Black. The Track Too Tough to Tame. The Monster Mile. The Paperclip. The Rock. Thunder Valley. Just a sampling of the nicknames of some of the famous NASCAR tracks around America. Charlotte Motor Speedway’s alter ego? “The Beast of the Southeast”. And thanks to ChumpCar, we have the rare opportunity to race crapcans for 14 straight hours on the full road course configuration! 8am-10pm. On the banking. Under the lights. At a famous NASCAR track. Sweet!
The weekend started Friday morning with the usual group arriving at the shop mid-morning. With CMS in our backyard, the decision was made to forego the usual Penske truck rental and only take what we could pile into five trucks. Besides, we may still be on the no-rent list after the “Racin’ for waffleswaffleswaffleswaffleswaffles” stickers were plastered on the side of the rental truck. By sometime shortly after noon, we had the USS Enterprise (1972 Ford LTD), Sanford & Son Truck (1964 Chevrolet C-10), SuperDuperSupra (1988 Toyoya Supra) and the USS POS (1991 Ford Escort) loaded up and headed to the track. Bringing 4 cars, we had eight drivers (Dwight, Graham, Jim, John, Kevin, Lee, Morris, and guest driver, Steve). The only highlight at this point in the day was the EPA/OPEC nightmare of 200 gallons of high octane in the back of Graham’s truck.
Upon arriving at the track, we see a LONG line of eager Chumpsters at the tunnel gate. With the two leaders of our team participating in tech inspections and two more volunteered to set up the track chicanes, we jumped to the head of the line. Some of those folks had been there since 8am!!! By far, it was one of the largest groups of cars we had seen at a Chump race. By mid-afternoon we were all unpacked, registered and setup for the race. We embarrassed the Chump Diva during safety gear inspections with a bit of rubberized, mechanical pleasure tucked into Jim’s helmet. She turned about three shades of red and then wanted to take pics to savor the moment. Jim and Dwight started helping with technical inspections and Kevin and Graham set off to the track to build jersey barrier chicanes. Word of caution: Jersey barriers will fall off a tailgate when driving around the top of the banking in T2. And slide for a good 40 yards. Down the track. To the apron. They will also fall off the tailgate at any speeds greater than 30mph. Once the chicanes were set, at John’s direction, we headed off for pizza with a hooker named Rosalee.
Saturday morning arrived wet and cold. After a short driver’s meeting, we headed off to get in the cars and start the race. Jim in the Enterprise. John in the POS. Morris in the Supra. Kevin in the Truck. The first stints were interesting. Rain off and on, people driving like idiots, jersey barriers and cones flying in the air, etc. The problems for the POS started right away, as it wouldn’t stay in 3rd gear. In order to keep it in gear, you would have to hold it in and steer with one hand. That made for some fun racin’! The back straight chicane was perfect for a two car entry and exit. The front chicane was too tight for good racing as it necked down to one lane. But, that did limit the speeds out of the chicane for the turn-in to the infield section. One exciting point on pit road was when two cars got together in the front chicane, smacked the outside wall and then one of the cars came barreling straight across the grass towards pit lane directly towards our pit. What we did not know was that he was pitted several spots up, but it sure looked like he was going to crash the wall in our pit. The racing got so stupid with people killing the plastic barriers, at one point the race directors red flagged the race and brought every single driver out to the Start/Finish line to point out the stupid driving as well as let everyone know who had bought jersey barriers. $500 for each barrier you destroy. In front of everyone, John Condren went down the list of teams that had already bought barriers in the first few hours of the race. About mid-afternoon, Leigh had a “fill my pants” moment in the Supra when he went from 6th to 3rd gear in the back straight chicane. The black marks were very impressive. Sometime later that afternoon, a car took a nose dive straight into the pit road wall to the right of the infield entry.
With Dawn (aka The Pit Bitch) commanding our pits and Hunter and Bryan helping out, our pit stops were some of the fastest we have ever had. Typical pit time was around 9 minutes, as opposed to the usual 15… yes, we know this is painfully slow, but we simply don’t care… at least not enough to try to win. We are there to have fun! The vast majority of the day went by without a hitch. Graham, Steve, Morris, Dwight, Jim, John, Leigh and Kevin all took turns in the cars. The cars all ran like a top. There is NOTHING like going three wide through NASCAR T3 and T4 with you foot to the floor and passing on the outside a foot or two off the outside wall. The Enterprise was a blast like always. Fast, mean, and loud. The Truck was a LOT more fun than it had ever been, Dwight’s latest bit of suspension tuning made a huge difference. The newly rebuilt tranny had started grinding in 3rd and 4th, though. The Supra was unbelievably fast. That car is GREAT! Everything was running good.
All except the POS. That poor little Escort has been used and abused for years. Ran without oil at VIR last Spring. Ran at 7,000 rpms for most of its post-junkyard life. Blown clutch at CMP last Fall. Offered for sale but no buyers took the bait. She lived a hard life and finally gave up the ghost with Morris behind the wheel. You could see the crank as soon as you opened the hood. Down to three thirsty V8s, we still stayed busy ferrying fuel from Graham’s loaded gasoline bomb to the pit stall. After going through 200 gallons of high octane, Jim and Hunter had to make another run for another 110 gallons late in the evening so we could finish the race.
Right as the sun went down and the lights started coming on, the driver of an Infiniti went in too hot into the infield and hit one of the walls. The driver was momentarily knocked unconscious and the car caught on fire. A fellow driver got to him before the safety crew and pulled him to safety. Well done, sir. Good save! By the time the emergency crews arrived, the car had flames reaching 20+ feet in the air. Thankfully, the driver was ok with only bruises and abrasions and a sore body the next couple of days.
Things for the team got a bit interesting in the last hour of the race. Graham was in the Enterprise, Kevin in the Truck, and Steve in the Supra. With Kevin following Graham out of T4, Graham locked down the tires in the Enterprise coming past the front straight dogleg. He slid for several hundred feet, blasted two jersey barriers and almost hit the outside wall. Meanwhile, Kevin went down across the front straight apron trying to avoid the jersey barriers sliding down the track. The race was once again red-flagged while they reset the barriers. At least one of those barriers was found upstairs in the Speedway Club. The Truck was refueled while the Enterprise was repaired with a SawZall and the Supra stayed out on track. The race restarted and finished without another incident. The S&S Truck placed 20th, the Superduper Supra 25th, the Enterprise 27th and the POS Escort 45th out of 46 cars. Due to penalty laps, the Enterprise, Supra & Truck all started 25-30 laps down at the beginning of the race.
AFTERMATH:
Enterprise – Frame turned out ok, but the sheet metal and front bumper are toast. Ironically, the wreck that it was involved with last year at Rockingham, saved the car. When Dwight hit Bert, the front end was ripped off and supports were welded in to support the radiator. The supports were left on after the facelift and saved the old girl from the barrier. She will get another facelift from another ’72 donor car at the shop.
Sanford & Son – Transmission needs to be checked out to figure out the grinding.
POS – Replace engine (same Mazda/Ford 1.8L engine ordered)
Supra – Not touching a thing on this car. She is a work of art!!!
For more information on our cars: http://wrecklessabandonracing.com/about_the_cars.html
Thanks,
John
