Pike's Peak Double Rational, May 28-29, 2011

Brian Linn

Brian Linn

Well-known member
The Pike's Peak double Rational is less than a week away and they have 56 entries for the National and 19 for the Regional. Bill Blust was kind enough to let me drive his newest MG, so I'm making the trip to CO. Despite the light entries, the prod classes each have reasonable representation. SM is tops with 7 entries, then SRF (6), FV (6) , FF (5) and then HP and S2 with 4 each.

E Production 3 entries
23 Gillespie, Keith 1992 Honda PreludeHasport Performance Tempe, AZ
26 Lamkin, Bill 1999 Mazda MiataHoosier/MazdaSpeed Broomfield, CO
53 Ruse, Guy 1987 Mazda RX-7 PEARL AUTO BODY Boulder, CO

F Production 2 entries
32 Frank, Neal 1990 Mazda Miata Santafepens.com, Krone Pen Co., Lamy Pen Co. & Retro 1951 Santa Fe, NM
88 Jensen, Paul 1991 Mazda Miata Colorado Springs, CO

H Production 4 entries
1 Linn, Brian 1966 MG Midget - Red Line Oil - Bill Blust Hermosa Beach, CA
4 Entriken Jr., Robert (Rocky) 1964 Triumph SpitfireIkke så Hurtig Racing Salina, KS
24 Blust, Jamie 1962 Triumph Spitfire Castle Rock, CO
81 Oleson, Jerry 1962 Austin Sprite Aurora, CO

GT-Lite 1 entries
04 Goodale, Jonathan 2009 Mazda MX-5 Miata MazdaSpeed, Hoosier, Joeapex.com Conifer, CO
 
It's a smaller event this year, but we'll have a good time.

Come by Dan Spirek's trailer Saturday night. We typically fire up RockBand on the XBox 360 via huge projector onto the side of the hauler.

Jon promises not to sing. Much. Without jager anyway.

See you there!
 
We should have a good group. Only a couple DOT cars so far, 5 total counting the regional guys.

This is a Jager free weekend, so you can sing your heart out Bill.
 
Race 1 results:
1. T1
2. EP Guy Ruse Rx7 1:03.48
3. GTL Miata Jon 1:05.76* NLR
4. EP Woody Adams Catheram 1:06.10
5. HP Jerry Oleson Sprite 1:07.04
6. FP Paul Jensen Miata 1:07.24
7. SSB Stan Czacki
8. FP Neal Frank Miata 1:07.41
9. HP Brian Linn MG 1:08.13
10. SSB
11. SSC
12. EP Keith Gillespie Prelude 1:05.75
13. HP Rocky Entriken Jr. Spitfire 1:15.46

There were a couple of regional Spec M3's in the mix along with another SSB miata.

The weekend started off bad when we unloaded Jamie Blust's Spitfire and he tried to start it. It made an ugly sound that I don't think I've heard before. We tried push-starting it - same sound, loosened the starter, same sound, looked around and picked other people's brains, crawled around underneath, then put it back in the trailer. Jamie found the problem on Sunday night after taking it home and tearing it down a bit. He can explain it better, but part of the exhaust was rubbing on the flywheel through an access hole in the bellhousing, after the exhaust had separated. What was odd was that he had tested the car the week before at High Plains and everything was good to go. I had spent some time under the car looking for the problem and probably should have seen it. Because the noise was on the exhaust, it resonated front and rear and made the problem hard to locate.

I was driving Bill Blust's latest Midget (the former Comptune car the Neimeyer (sp?)won FP, then Chima then Jamie Blust (light blue), then Ron DeVogel then Randy Arbogast GTL). It's a pretty car, running a limited prep 1275. I qualified about .6sec behind Jerry, but there was three cars between us (two FP's and a SSB Camaro). We were all a bit nervous about the start, but everything was fine and after a few laps I was behind Jerry, but a 5-7 sec's back. Every time I came onto the banking Jerry was at S/F - and it stayed like that for the first half of the race. My oil temp was climbing and I wasn't going to catch Jerry, so I backed off a bit and looked to get a finish. Congratulations to Jerry on a well deserved win.

On Sunday AM, after a lot of indecision on my part, I decided not to race. The risk/reward ratio was too far on the risk side of things with the engine running hot. I don't need HP finishes and wasn't paying to drive the car, so I didn't want to return it with a hole in the engine. Jamie wasn't racing and stuck helping me and I thought he would rather be somewhere else. So we loaded up and got out of Dodge. Don't know how things went for race 2, as I was probably on my couch in CA watching the Indy 500 after watching F1 when the race started in CO.
 
Pretty disappointed as I missed another race being not ready in time. Too much to do in the last two weeks... which sucked because I really did work hard over the winter to be ready. :boohoo:

Friday was supposed to be local dyno tuning day; instead I wasted the entire day tracking down a failed resistor in wire from the crank trigger sensor, then a loose hot wire for an injector... both just intermittent enough to take a lot of time to resolve. I called it at 7pm Friday night. Since the dyno was only 20 minutes north of the track, I decided to go down and crew for the day Saturday. Really odd taking your rig to the track and not going to registration.

Enjoyed watching Jon go fast - he broke the lap record Saturday with a horrifically oversteering car.

Jerry was driving his butt off and deserved the win.

Nice helping and watching but I'm ready to be out there.

At least the yard looks nice.
 
Frustrating....to make a long story very short it was a silly mistake on the Blust boys part, already fixed and ready to go (cheapest fix ever $20). Stinks because we made some changes over the winter that we feel made the car better. Will have to wait until July 4th now. To add even more frustration we were going to go to the June Sprints.....but the job has put an end to that.

Watching the race Jerry Oleson drove his rear off and looked like he had a lot of fun....all smiles....and I think a new lap record on the "old" course
 
My motor lost power about 5 laps into Saturdays race just when I was starting to get used to the car and the track.
The highlight of my weekend was watching Jerry drive his midget.
I had a big smile in my helmet whenever I saw him in spite of my own problems.
The track personell, workers and officials were all first rate.
 
Yep, I was working my ass off. Too many cars in the same second of qualifying but making that time very differently. Was expecting the worst on the start but it was so slow I was coming off the banking before I saw 2nd gear, kept my head down and got by Stan's Camaro and chased a couple Miatas. By the time I started looking around I could not see Brian, turns out he was just in that sweet spot where if I'd made a mistake I would have seen him go by. Sorry about Jamie's Spitfire, glad it's an easy fix. Rocky came out from the Mid Div, said it's his first "National" campaign. Brian got any vidieo? Feel like my car rolls too far in left handers wondered if it would show up.
 
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