The race weekend for Project Yellow Racing consisted three days on track. The plan was to participate in the open practice on Friday to give the car a nice shakedown, as well as give everyone a chance to learn the track. The has to be a balance between track time and accumulated damage to the car. Since we are racing with a 22 year old car in a mostly unknown condition it stands to reason that the more miles you put on it the higher chance of failure there is. So the plan to learn the track and save most of the car for the race seemed like a good idea.
We unloaded the car and prepped everything to get ready for our first laps. This is the first test of the car since it was put back together after all the clutch incident back at the shop.
For this test session we thought it would be good to have a driver and passanger to maximize the track time for everyone. The idea that the more experienced driver could take a few laps to show the new guys where the vague approximation of the racing line is and what to look for with the car's capabilities. So the first two strapped in and headed out to the track, only to have the pit marshal inform us that there were no passangers allowed. Talk about scrapping a well laid plan... So we dropped off the passanger and headed back to the track entry only to have the same marhall tell us the session was flagged for the lunch break. So right off the bat PRY is batting 0 for 2. In literature this is called foreshadowing... if only we knew how much we were going to be tested in the coming hours.
After the luch break we prepared to finally get out on track for the first time. The track goes green and the Project Yellow Racing CRX heads out onto track for the first time. There is somthing truelly awesome that happens when you take to the track for the for the first time. You head from the paddock, to the hot pit, and then to the track to take your first laps in anger. This feeling was short lived for us at PYR. The fears were realized when we found that there had been no improvement in the performance of the clutch over the parking lot test sessions back in Colorado. To describe what the clutch felt like you have to picture a snowmobile from the 70s. If you have ever had the occasion to ride somthing with a centrifugal clutch you know what I mean. You basically increase the amount of throttle you give it till it finally starts to grab. In our case you would try to apply the throttle and instantly rev the motor to about 4k rpms. After trying to accelerate off the pit exit it was painfully clear that our fix back at the shop failed horribly. Three laps were completed during practice, and this was only because the driver missed pit in twice!
The setback because of the slipping makes everything much harder now. Since we are now working on a tighter schedual because of the necessary clutch change, it was decided to put the car through tech inspection so if we had any safety issues we would have the oppertunity to fix them overnight. Tech was mostly harmless we escaped with a few infractions but they should be easy fixes compared to the clutch.
The inspectors found that our battery tie down was not securing the battery enough for their likeing. We also had some small rust holes in the body between the cockpit and the fuel tank. Nothing a little aluminum tape didn't fix. The left seat mount was also deemed a little too loose during scrutineering, and appearently our coolant was still a little sweet. Thats right our inspector tasted our coolant making sure we were running water! So after not passing tech inspection we packed up and headed to southern race shop, also known as Sandeep's Houston house.
Once back at the garage we promptly started working on removing the transmission from the car. As part of the race preparation we thought of having a few spares sent down to Houston just in case. From the fears back during the test in Colorado a new clutch kit and flywheel were sent incase we had problems. Well we had those problems so the preparation paid off. At about 3:30 am we called it a night. The new clutch and flywheel had been installed, the seat mount fixed, and the battery more secure than before. Sleep comes easy when you are that exhaused, however it makes waking up much harder. So when 6:30 came around and it was time to pack everything to head back to the track it was real tough to get up and about.
After shaking the cobwebs off with a shower it was time to drop the car off the jack stands, flush the radiator a few more times, and load the tuck and trailer. With a quick bite to eat it was time to head to the track and start RACE DAY!