Sponsorship NASA Road Racing Greg Collier 1st Race 2006

IN THE BEGINNING

For all of you that have been reading the “Getting Ready For The 2006 Race Season”, we ended on Wednesday when I picked up the PWR radiator and did the install. Thursday day was spent preparing all the necessary tools, spare parts, spare tires, and extra fluids, for that afternoon’s two-hour drive up to California Speedway. The plan was to drive to the speedway and drop off everything other than the car at our garage at the track, then a quick fifteen-minute drive to Colton to dyno the car. The rush hour traffic was insane but we made it to Fontana with five minutes to spare to drive to our eight o’clock appointment at Tuning Technologies.

I was tired and it was cold. We’re not used to 40-degree weather here in southern California, especially after it’s been in the low eighties here for the past couple of weeks. It was almost eight thirty when we pulled into the dyno parking lot and were greeted by Al and Chris, the owners of Tuning Technologies. These guys were great! After spending an entire day working on a bunch of EVOs, they kept the shop open so that we could break in the new motor and dial in the EMS.

I de-throned the car from the trailer and pulled the car into the dyno bay. Scot Gray showed up with his laptop and timing light in hand, which always puts a big grin on my face. Al and Chris spent twenty minutes strapping the “Flying Banana” to the dyno wheel. Scot started out with basic timing, and then began working on new EMS settings. It was at least an hour before we were ready to start breaking in the engine. With Scot behind the wheel he did the first pull around 3500 RPM according to “Motoman’s” recipe for wearing in a fresh motor. With cool downs we were on the dyno for over an hour before Scot started doing some serious tuning. His first pull was conservative and immediately indicated that the boost controller wasn’t working. We screwed with it for about 45 minutes but the damn thing just wouldn’t cooperate. At this point it was almost eleven o’clock so the idea of getting a new controller was out. Scot ran a vacuum line straight off the I/C nipple into the Tile wastegate. He did another conservative pull and we were in business.

To make a long story short, after more than a half dozen pulls, we were getting 389.85 horsepower with 360.48 (ft-lbs) of torque at 12 pounds of boost. Al and Chris were real impressed with the setup of the Engintecs 2.4 engine and the FP 3052 turbo. Everyone was impressed with the “semi” V mount intercooler setup. They were also impressed with the fact that there weren’t any leaks first time out. The motor sounded awesome, almost like it wanted more boost to make some huge numbers. The PWR radiator and oil temps were perfect, and there were no oil, water, or I/C pipe leaks so all was good to go. Seeing that this was almost a hundred horsepower more than I was running last year I was satisfied with the session. Scot was meeting us at the speedway in the morning anyway to continue tweaking the hp between my hot laps on the track. It was one o’clock in the AM and we took the car back to the garage at Cal Speedway. As we were leaving the track I asked one of the security guards if he new a shortcut back to our hotel. Dumb mistake! After two hours of being lost in a huge rain and hail storm we finally made it to the hotel.

Test Day

It was 6 AM and we had only three hours of sleep, but it didn’t mean snot to me as I was running on pure adrenaline anyway. We got to the track under dark black looming clouds. It was in the low forties and the wind was blowing about 30 miles an hour. We began doing our double checks on the car preparing for our 8 AM testing time.

This being the first event of the season, I needed to get my annual tech logbook signed for 2006. Since I was in the first test run group I was able to get some track time prior to my annual checkup.

The car was warmed up and I was strapped in waiting in grid to hit the oval. I got the thumbs up from the grid marshal and I accelerated onto the track. It had been three long months since I’d driven the car and it felt good. We were under double yellow flags for the first lap to warm up our tires. Once through the final turn onto the front straight I could see the green flag in the starter’s hand. Slowly but surely I pushed the gas pedal towards the floor. Shifting from third to forth the car launched like a frigging rocket ship. Fifth gear at 150 mph through turn two the engine sounded like a finely tuned Ferrari. Turn three onto the road course I was in absolute heaven. The power of the car was incredible. Where I had to down shift into second before, I could stay in third and power through the turns. By the end of the session I had an ear-to-ear grin and had run a 1:49 fastest lap. That’s seven seconds quicker than I’ve ever run at California Speedway. Yes, I was one happy camper.

Annual Tech

When I came off the track I went directly to the tech garage. As I shut down the motor this grinning face stared at me through the passenger window. It was Mitch, the engine builder from Chicago. I think I almost shook his hand out of his shoulder socket in delight with the new motor.

With the car in the tech garage they began their inspection and discovered when they shut off the master switch the motor kept on running off the alternator. I was also missing cotter pins in my seatbelt to car connections, I didn’t have a covered positive terminal in my battery box, and they didn’t like my crankcase breather setup. The cotter pins, terminal cover, and breather setup were no problem but the master kill switch could have been a big problem. Scot Gray made up a list and went to an auto supply house and picked up everything we needed to pass tech. He even wired the kill switch to shut down the computer that turns off the entire car. Besides being the best tuner in the universe, Scot is a good friend and die heart DSM lover, if that’s not already obvious with what he’s done with his own car. Mitch rolled up his sleeves and jumped right in there like he’s been a part of the race team for years. How cool is that?

We ran our second test session without any problems. Scot kept working on the EMS setup dialing in more and more horsepower, and with each lap the car would get better and better (what a frigging dream)!

Mid afternoon it started to downpour and they shut down the track. I’d been running Hoosier slicks and my rain tires had to be mounted if I chose to run them. Unfortunately I don’t have another set of 9.5 x 17 inch rims to mount the rains on. Hey, it never rains in southern California. When it was time for my late session half the track was drying and the other half was a raging river. I was concerned that if I ran the rain tires on the dry part of the track I would have chewed them up big time. Hoosier rains are for pretty extreme conditions and at 400 bucks a pop I didn’t want to chance destroying them before the race on Saturday. We called it a day about four in the afternoon after off and on rain showers. The weather report said it was supposed to rain big time all Saturday but I wasn’t all that convinced. I figured I’d wait until the morning before I mounted the rain tires to see for myself.

Saturday Morning

We got to the track and it was the same conditions. Half of the track was drying and the other half had six-inch pools of water. We went to the tire center to see if they had any Toyo Proxies RA1’s for the wet and dry. The guy said he had one set left that someone had reserved for the day before but never picked up. He said we could check by in the afternoon and if the guy hadn’t shown up we could have them. It was 10 o’clock when I got a cell phone call from Mitch over at the tire trailers. He’d talked the tire guy in to selling us the Toyo’s early. We immediately pulled the wheels off the car and got them over there. There was a huge line of people in front of us changing to rain tires so we ended up missing our qualifying session. Better safe than sorry I always say.

Race Time

It was 2:30 in the afternoon and I was starting last in the race because of missing qualifying. Super Unlimited was running with “AI” (American Iron) and “CMC” (Camaro/ Mustang Challenge). These cars are big ol high hp V-8 racecars if you don’t remember from last year. The “AI” cars are pretty decent drivers but the “CMC” guys can get a little squirrelly sometimes. The Super Unlimited group was small with a Viper, Grand AM Porsche, the Axis supercharged 350-Z, 944 Turbo Porsche, and me. Don’t ask me why, but the Super Unlimited group was taking the last checkered flag.

We took to the track behind the pace car. The sky was black as coal and the wind was blowing at gale force. As we turned onto the infield road course off the oval, raindrops the size of silver dollars began to fall. On the second small straight a-way it seemed like small streams of water were flowing over the track. Don’t forget that I was running on brand new sticker tires that had absolutely no wear on them. As we did our warm up lap I was scrubbing my tires in the rear of the pack like a drunken monkey. I figured I’d just take the first couple of laps easy then catch up if I could. We went through the last turn and the pace car went onto the hot pit lane. We lined up in race formation and the starter waited until we were almost under the flag stand before he waved the green flag. It was a go and we were off. In a pack of five we stuck to each other like glue through turn one headed for two. It was an awesome feeling to have the power to hang with the big boys on the oval of California Speedway. I lifted ever so lightly after turn two to give myself some room going into three and the infield course. 130 mph I pressed the brake slow and hard. As I lifted and turned the steering wheel the car spun into a 180. The motor didn’t stall and I power drifted back onto the track on the road course. In third gear I took turn four letting the back end drift out a bit. As I accelerated I hit one of those streams of water and the wheels spun. I hit dry pavement with traction then another water stream spinning the wheels. I did this three more times on the back straight coming to the buttonhook at turn nine. I slowed way down taking no chances of another spinout. It was drier pavement on the next straight and the car shot down the track like a frigging cannon ball. I could see my race group about a hundred yards in front of me, and I could also see the next series of complicated tight ass turns that they just negotiated. Again, I slowed down way before the first turn to ensure success through the maze that awaited me. There was a huge pond of water right at the apex so I had to change my race line to an off camber maneuver. Avoiding the first pond I hit the rumble strip and did another 180 in the center of the lane and stalled. By this time with two spinouts and the fact that the first race group had started so far in front of us, five “AI” Mustangs were barreling down on me. Taking evasive action all five of them cut straight across the track avoiding the turn completely. I was able to start the car and screamed out of my situation and came out onto the front straight.

At that point I was thinking I just needed to survive the race. The oval seemed dry so I felt comfortable applying power down that section of track. I noticed that the rain started right before the road course so I knew I’d have to be conservative running through those sections. When I’d get behind a car they’d throw up a twenty-foot high roaster tail of water onto my windshield. I’d drive in the center of the water spray waiting to see brake lights to know when the turn was coming up. I had to make a plan as it became real obvious that I needed to learn how to drive on the new Toyo tires. With that, I slowed my speeds through the road course and tried to make up some time on the oval. It seemed like a good plan. (It wasn’t) With the two spinouts and slower speeds the front of the “CMC” group caught up with me. I think it was lap six when a Mustang tried to pass me in a “one car only chicane”; he had a Camaro a couple of feet behind him. I knew the Camaro was gonna T-bone me so I accelerated over a freshly painted rumble strip that sent me flying at a 100 mph off the track onto wet grass. I’m not quite sure but I think I did two complete 360’s for 75 yards stopping within a couple off feet of a concrete wall. I remember pretending I was really drunk letting my body be limp as a noodle. To my surprise the car started right up and I drove into the pits, then into my garage. I sat there shaking my head thinking the worst had happened to the car. Not so… at least for the moment the car seemed ok. With a further inspection we found that the Hein swivel bolt had sheared off one side of the rear anti-roll bar (sway bar), and you don’t want to drive on a super speedway without an anti-roll bar.

Scot Gray to the rescue again. Scot drove to RRE that afternoon and picked up the only Hein bolt for this particular anti-roll bar that exists in the western hemisphere.

With that, our first race was complete. I’ll receive points so it wasn’t an absolute waste. Dave Royce, a professional driver came up to me afterwards and asked what happened. When I told him that was my first experience running on the Toyo’s he laughed saying it takes a while to get use to running those tires in the dry, especially when they still have their stickers on them. Oh yeah, the guy that almost T-boned me in the “CMC” group came up after the race and apologized. At least that’s something.

Sunday Morning

It was so cold in sunny southern California on Sunday morning that all the windshields on the cars and trucks at the hotel had a sheet of ice on them. I used a full container of windshield washer and heater defroster to get them clear. The good news was the fact it wasn’t raining. As a matter of fact it was sunny and looked to be a pretty decent day.

Scot had dropped off the new Hein bolt at our hotel that night so installing the anti-roll bar was first on the agenda that morning. Easier said than done. With the help of Mitch it took us a good hour to get the bolts to line up with the body of the car. We missed morning practice so we decided to change to a new set of Hoosier slicks from the Toyo’s.

Good tires, good anti-roll bar, good weather, it all finally seemed to be coming together.

Qualifying

We get an entire 20 minutes to qualify so this was a good time to scuff the new Hoosiers and make sure all systems were good. I figured I’d take it easy and bring it up to speed by the end of the session. The track was dry and it was still sunny outside. I ran the first couple of laps getting the tires up to temperatures and feeling comfortable that the car’s rear end was intact. I began running a little quicker each lap blowing down the front straight. There was a Winston Cup car that someone decided to run in the Super Unlimited race that day. He had no restrictor plate so the car was pretty balls out. He was behind me when we came off the road course onto the oval and he figured he’d pass me no problem. There are three pictures in succession below showing that he couldn’t catch me on the front straight. How frigging cool is that. With the qualifying session complete we did our cool down lap. When I went into turn three off the oval a big puff of smoke blew in to the car. I checked all my gauges and saw that everything was good and thought maybe it might have been the car in front of me. When I got to the buttonhook at a measly 35 mph the car completely spun out. “Holy crap”, I thought to myself. I got it re-fired and carefully drove to my garage. I told Mitch what had happened and he said he saw a big puff of white smoke come from the front driver’s side wheel when I turned left onto the road course. With further inspection we found oil covering the right caliper, wheel, and tire. I only use half a timing belt cover so when we removed it we discovered that the balance shaft plug had popped off. A coat of JB Weld, Mitch popped it back in and we were good to go. Mitch was a full member of the race team by this time, with hands that worked at the speed of lightening, he got a taste of “there’s no time to do anything!”

Race Time

An hour before race time we noticed that the big dark clouds of Saturday were rolling back in. The big bright sun that had been warming everybody all day disappeared and the cold harsh reality of the winter storm appeared to be upon us once more. A few large raindrops would fall, then nothing. All the racecars had changed to slicks so anyway you looked at it, it would be an even playing field on the track.

I had resigned myself to make it through the weekend without any more incidents. My game plan was to start slow, feel comfortable, and balls out if I felt comfortable. Driving at those speeds, on that track, in those conditions, it’s real important that you feel confident about what you’re doing.

We lined up in grid via our qualifying and it turned out that I was in front of the Axis Z car. We had that Winston Cup car, the Porsches, and the Viper from yesterday running Super Unlimited. Again, we were running with “AI” and the “CMC” guys. I was bound and determined to be passing rather then being passed like the day before.

Behind the pace car we all climbed on to the track. The usual roar of hardcore V-8 motors echoed over the 145,000 seat capacity super speedway. We split up into three separate groups leaving plenty of room for our race classes. I warmed up my tires paying close attention to every nook and cranny of the track. There were no pools of water or free floating streams blanketing sections of the inside straight a-ways. The car sounded great and I felt confident having the Hoosiers back on.

The last turn up onto the oval we drove. As our group tightened up the starter threw the green flag. It was as though the Super Unlimited group were all in tow; we blasted down the front straight through turn one then turn two. We single filed out and braked for turn three onto the infield road course. The Axis Z was right on my ass on a mission to pass me so I let him. There was no way I was gonna let someone else dictate a different plan than I had made for myself. As all our tires got warmer and warmer the group moved faster and faster through the turns. The Axis Z seemed to be on a charge trying to get to the front of the pack but I kept my cool. The cars began to spread out a bit with me at the rear but I could care less staying with my plan. I ran lap two quicker than one, then lap three faster than two, and so on and again. We started to come up on the slower “CMC” cars, passing one then another. Then we came up on some “AI” cars and did the same. I felt good and the car felt good as I was keeping pace with the big boys passing cars on the oval, the inside straights, and on the occasional turn. I was out braking people but best of all I was out powering people, and that felt great.

As I came out of the final turn onto the speedway there was a Camaro smashed into the outside wall with steam belching out its nose. There was a tire about a hundred yards down the front straight sitting on the side of the track. I found out later that the tire had come off sending the car into the wall. The driver was fine.

It was about lap twelve that I noticed the coolant and oil temps started to rise. Without warning they both went to max. I couldn’t frigging believe it. I decided to slow down to half speed and do a lap to see if I could cool the car down, but no dice. Holy crap! I drove into the hot pits then decided to take it straight to the garage. As I pulled into my garage I noticed the Axis Z was already in his stall via some suspension damage. My car was idling at 3000 RPM so I shut it down leaving the fans running. Oil had literally poured out of the breather filter and was coming out from under the hood. Thank God it hadn’t touched the manifold or turbo or I would have had a major engine fire.

My adrenaline was pumping like the engine had been running so I jumped out of the car and went for a walk.

When I came back to the garage Mitch and Scot were discussing possibilities. The rain was pouring the wind was blowing and all the race teams were packing their trucks for their journeys home. It could have been something with the new coolant system or whatever. I wasn’t about to do a tear down at that point to find out. We made points for both days of the weekend and I was cold and really tired and ready to close this chapter.

The car sits covered on the trailer today Monday. I’ll roll it into the garage in the morning and begin to check for all the obvious failures. Mitch has already e-mailed me a list of things he wants me to check.

This is racing guys… you win some and you lose some. You break stuff and then you fix stuff. But all I’ve got to say is when we’re on the other side of the learning curve of this new setup, it’s gonna be unbeatable.

Scot’s plan is to run the car with the boost controller off for 12 pounds of boost, which is probably well over 400 hp at this point with his added track tuning. Then we’re gonna go 16 pounds with the controller on setting “one” and then 21 pounds of boost on setting “two”. Do the math… that’s gonna be a lot of frigging horsepower!

Finally, it was an excellent three and half days of tweaking on the car, passing the annual 2006 tech, and racing at a world famous race facility. I also made a good friend for life meeting Mitch and enjoying all he has to offer as an excellent person, besides being a master engine builder. What more could I ask for?

Greg