Chris Schaafsma
Well-known member
As Mike Ogren noted, it has been hard for some of us to get timely updates posted here.
We had a good weekend in HP, with just 6 HP cars entered, but a pretty deep field overall.
The Friday practice session was generally drama free. I ended up with the best HP time, with Sargis about a half second behind. The afternoon qualifying session was gridded by registration date, and class, which put HP behind all of the slower FP cars, so I gave up a lap to wait and pull out onto a clear track.
I went a few tenths faster, and Steve went a few seconds faster. The order was Sargis, me, Vickerman , and it stayed that way after Saturday Q2. I had a clutch chatter degrade to a serious clutch slip in Q2. We pulled the trans to change clutch, and found the release mechanism in the trans to be seized somehow, so swapped in trans #2 for the weekend before the race.
AFTER the trans was in we double checked the diff (I run a spool or welded diff), and were bummed to learn that this trans was mis-labeled, and was in fact a stock open diff.
So I started the race in the outside, 2 rows behind Sargis, with Vickerman on the inside 1 row behind me. My side of the grid was late and sloppy forming up and coming out of 14 to the start. I was WOT from the moment we reached the hill to the braking zone if T1 just trying to maintain spacing with the car in front.
A few laps in Steve spun in 5, and by that stroke of luck I ended up leading a few laps of the race with a one wheel drive fwd race car. Once he recovered Steve made his way past pretty quickly, once he fought his way past the black FP Miata that was defending the HP field VERY aggressively. It didn’t take Eric long to dispatch me. A few laps later Gauper was on my bumper and we had a great asymmetric battle. He was crushing me in mid corner to exit, but has been chasing an issue of some missing horsepower this season, so I was able to build a gap on the important straights. In the end I edged him out for 3rd.
After the race I borrowed a spare trans from Trainer so we could have a locked diff on Sunday. And trans #3 for the day was in the car before dinner.
Sunday we started in the same positions relative to each other, but this time someone in the outside row missed a shift as they crested the hill, and we had to get deep into the brakes to avoid a collision just as the green flew. Vickerman put several cars between us before T1, and Sargis was long gone. As I caught back up to Eric, Steve lost a rod a few laps in, parking drivers right between the carousel and kink.
Once it got past Eric we found ourselves behind a white FP Miata for several laps, so I had some fantastic top speeds with a strong draft 3 times a lap. As the tires got hot the FP car slowed a bit, so I moved to put him between us at T8. As I made my late brake move Eric -just- touched my rear bumper at turn in, and surprisingly the rear bumper cover came free. Then as we worked our way through the carousel he started to drop back, and parked the car next to Steve.
My car was still tending to loose in fast right handers despite all setup changes over the weekend and with 20+ seconds in hand over Greg I backed off a bit to avoid throwing the car off the track in the wrong place.
The weather was fantastic, the brats were delicious, and the competition was strong.
THANK YOU BILL TRAINER for graciously loaning me a transmission so we could race competitively Sunday.
I don’t know the stories of the other classes beyond Schreyer winning EP on Saturday and Brakke won on Sunday.
Chuck Mathis just finished rebuilding a few transmissions, and we are looking forward to the HP Invitational race at Mid-O Jul 30-31.
Sorry for the late update, but I was out of country for work the past few weeks.
We had a good weekend in HP, with just 6 HP cars entered, but a pretty deep field overall.
The Friday practice session was generally drama free. I ended up with the best HP time, with Sargis about a half second behind. The afternoon qualifying session was gridded by registration date, and class, which put HP behind all of the slower FP cars, so I gave up a lap to wait and pull out onto a clear track.
I went a few tenths faster, and Steve went a few seconds faster. The order was Sargis, me, Vickerman , and it stayed that way after Saturday Q2. I had a clutch chatter degrade to a serious clutch slip in Q2. We pulled the trans to change clutch, and found the release mechanism in the trans to be seized somehow, so swapped in trans #2 for the weekend before the race.
AFTER the trans was in we double checked the diff (I run a spool or welded diff), and were bummed to learn that this trans was mis-labeled, and was in fact a stock open diff.
So I started the race in the outside, 2 rows behind Sargis, with Vickerman on the inside 1 row behind me. My side of the grid was late and sloppy forming up and coming out of 14 to the start. I was WOT from the moment we reached the hill to the braking zone if T1 just trying to maintain spacing with the car in front.
A few laps in Steve spun in 5, and by that stroke of luck I ended up leading a few laps of the race with a one wheel drive fwd race car. Once he recovered Steve made his way past pretty quickly, once he fought his way past the black FP Miata that was defending the HP field VERY aggressively. It didn’t take Eric long to dispatch me. A few laps later Gauper was on my bumper and we had a great asymmetric battle. He was crushing me in mid corner to exit, but has been chasing an issue of some missing horsepower this season, so I was able to build a gap on the important straights. In the end I edged him out for 3rd.
After the race I borrowed a spare trans from Trainer so we could have a locked diff on Sunday. And trans #3 for the day was in the car before dinner.
Sunday we started in the same positions relative to each other, but this time someone in the outside row missed a shift as they crested the hill, and we had to get deep into the brakes to avoid a collision just as the green flew. Vickerman put several cars between us before T1, and Sargis was long gone. As I caught back up to Eric, Steve lost a rod a few laps in, parking drivers right between the carousel and kink.
Once it got past Eric we found ourselves behind a white FP Miata for several laps, so I had some fantastic top speeds with a strong draft 3 times a lap. As the tires got hot the FP car slowed a bit, so I moved to put him between us at T8. As I made my late brake move Eric -just- touched my rear bumper at turn in, and surprisingly the rear bumper cover came free. Then as we worked our way through the carousel he started to drop back, and parked the car next to Steve.
My car was still tending to loose in fast right handers despite all setup changes over the weekend and with 20+ seconds in hand over Greg I backed off a bit to avoid throwing the car off the track in the wrong place.
The weather was fantastic, the brats were delicious, and the competition was strong.
THANK YOU BILL TRAINER for graciously loaning me a transmission so we could race competitively Sunday.
I don’t know the stories of the other classes beyond Schreyer winning EP on Saturday and Brakke won on Sunday.
Chuck Mathis just finished rebuilding a few transmissions, and we are looking forward to the HP Invitational race at Mid-O Jul 30-31.
Sorry for the late update, but I was out of country for work the past few weeks.