Track day repairs. Rally and save the day vs. F this, I'm going home?

[sugarwood]

"OK, who's got an engine"?

I applaud the gung ho attitude but major track repairs seems like a game for young men (and maybe some Youtube clicks)

Me? Even if I had the skills, and the tools, I'd have packed it in and gone home.
Seems a game for young men who will look back and think, "Where did I have the energy for that?"

The last minute locally sourced engine that was a mismatched engine is just textbook.
Relevant action starts at 12:00

I'm also shocked there is not one comment that says, "Don't drive on the track while spewing oil"

Let's hear some stories of your gung ho track day repairs!

[Pazuzu]

All of my stories are related to rock crawling events (think King of the Hammers, etc)

I lived in AZ, and these usually took palce in CA, so we had a 400-500 mile drive back and forth for long weekend events, driving trucks that were wiggly at best, downright wobbly at worst, and often couldn't go above 60mph. People came from all over for these events, and we had big bonfire camping areas in the desert.

One time, a guy drive his Toyota 4x4 out there from Connecticut. He was used to mud offroading, where you drop the clutch and modulate your speed with the gas. When rock crawling, you modulate your speed with the clutch. Well, he wasn't good at that, and burned it up the first day. We found a section of desert that had a ridge, pushed his truck over so the left tires were on the ridge, and used that as a makeshift garage pit. Sent someone into town (an hour drive), and we pulled and replaced the clutch right there, 4 wheels on the ground, in the sand. Two guys bench pressed the transmission out of and back into place. He finished the weekend, drove home and had that clutch for several more years.

Another time, someone grenaded their rear end. We opened it up, and saw that the spider gear was cracked. So...we took 3 batteries, used jumper cables to wire them in parallel (series? cant remember), and created a stick welder. Welded the spider gears together in the housing, creating a welded locker. Closed things up, and ran that for the rest of the weekend. Now...before we closed it up, we tossed a good handful or two of sand, some beer, several cigarette butts, the broken gear pieces into the third member, AND NO OIL, just for good measure. The owner knew that the whole thing was going to have to be replaced when he got back home anyways, so we wanted to see what happened. Welded Toyota third member survived for 2 more days with that crap rattling around back there.

One other time, I rolled my 4Runner on the trail out there, ended up breaking the engine mount and cracking the intake. Whenever I went above idle, the engine would lurch over, which opened the plastic intake, creating a massive air leak, and it would die. We ended up welding 3 links of a spare chain between the frame and the engine mount, to keep it from lurching over (that chain was still on my engine when sold it many years later...). We also took a roll of duct tape and some random spare plastic tubing, and made a makeshift cold air intake which led through the driver's side headlight hole, which was, of course, missing a headlight after the roll. Drive back to Arizona like that, then for several more months afterwards.

You're right, doing desperate things in the field to vehicles is probably just for the clicks. Especially when you've destroyed your ride home, with 500 miles of desert driving ahead of you...

Point being, if you want to survive the apocalypse, drive a Toyota truck, because they can be fixed with anything.

[Skytrooper]

I raced Chumpcar for a bunch of years after tiring of SCCA. The seat time was awesome. My team hauled an enclosed 28 fot trailer behind our diesel short bus. Tools and lots of spares, engine included, was the name of 5he game for a race weekend. Good times.
In the cool rainy NY weather at Watkins Glen , we had to rebuild the xmsn after Friday night practice. Worked under the ez up until xmsn removed then carried into the nearby lavatory building to do the rebuild where it was warm and the lighting was better.
At Nelson Ledges our car got hurt badly on the 3rd lap. We found a junkyard that was open on a Saturday grabbed two complete drvers side steering knuckle assemblies ( one was a spare) and less than 3 hours total were back cranking out lost laps. Another time, same track, we did an engine change and were back turning laps in under 3 hours.
Of course we did have one "fu**- it time. The whole team was sick and the engine decided it was time to give up. It was a cold, rainy weekend. Nobody had the gumption to do an engine change. So, since due to the weather, the trailer had become a bunkhouse...everybody crashed for the rest of the weekend. We were all much better for the drive home Sunday afternoon and all team members were able to go to work on Monday.

Ahhh....those were the days !

[fastfredracing]

Speaking from someone who has done this engine replacement before , I was happy to see them not finish, as this was my prediction from the beginning
Id have loaded up and headed for home on that one, Had it been a Honda Civic, or something like that, I may have had a go , but on a BMW, there will we be a plethora of broken hoses and things that will jump out and surprise you .

[flatbutt]

The best I have is when I tore off my bikes clutch lever assembly during an enduro here in jersey. I used a vice grip clamped onto what was left of the cable to activate the clutch and get back to my trailer.

[svandamme]

These boys seem to be confused about being a pro racing team, the radio headset in the pits.. thinking they can do an engine change in the pits..

unrealistic much?

[matthewb0051]

My first and only time to the Nurburgring in my E30 M3 was great...until the wipers came on

Seems a wire had shorted under the dash and made contact with metal causing the wipers to come on and drain the washer fluid also.

I was able to pull fuses and disconnect some stuff to put a stop to it and take another lap. But the drive home was horrible without wipers and fluid; the bugs were killing my windscreen so a few gas station stops were necessary to clear the windscreen to see

[ted]

Wife spraying simple green on my hair to wash the grease off.

Rebuilding a 5 speed dog box in the Laguna Seca pits.
Started rebuild Saturday at lunch and made the race Sunday at noon.

[Jeff Higgins]

I crewed for a couple of years, off and on, in the early '90's on a local NHRA Division 6 nitro funny car team. Held the MPH record in Denver for a year or two... We got pretty good at rebuilding motors and installing a new set of clutch plates between every round. Does that count?

[A930Rocket]

All I have is an off with the 930 into the tire wall at turn four at VIR. Busted the front air dam into 10 pieces, broke the air dam oil cooler, broke the right headlight and dented the right front fender. Two or three of us with the help of another guy duct taped and pop riveted the air dam back together. A trip to the race parts vendor/trailer gave us the parts to delete the air dam oil cooler and only use the fender oil cooler.

Made the last session Saturday and drove all day Sunday.

Won the award for the most work done on the car that weekend. 😂

[ted]

TRE Dave was racing and loaned me a stack of washers and a long bolt to get me going again in time for racing him the next day at Big Willow.
That and some safety wire and tape.

[unclebilly]

Like Skytrooper, I raced Chumpcar for quite a few years.

When we ran the 911, we replaced a clutch disk that exploded in a couple hours including one of our team members going to the home of the local guy pitting next to us to borrow a clutch disk from a 914 he was parting out (we ran a 901 transaxle in that car). We also blew an oil line and set the car on fire (again) in another race (also at Spokane) and sent 2 team members to a hydraulic hose shop to make us new lines after hours to get back in the race.

Another race at Watkins Glen, we pulled an all nighter replacing an engine in the 914 with the Nissan 3.0 V6. We were too tired to drive the next day - I tried to race but pitted after about 5 laps as I was in no shape to be on a race track. We got hit on the first lap so despite having a team of experienced drivers, a very fast car that was well set up, were not in contention.

The key to winning endurance races is to minimize pit time. If you are making repairs, you are not winning.

[smadsen]

Back in the early '70's during Saturday practice, my Formula Ford got punted by a spinning car in a typical Formula Ford Fuster Cluck, into the wall, driver's left going over the tunnel at Turn 1 at Riverside Raceway at about 130 m.p.h. Nose cone & radiator hit me in the face as it flew back over my head spewing water & oil, left front wheel & suspension landed on top of the steering wheel, bent frame, what a mess.

Red LeGrand (it was one of his cars, a Mk10FF) and I worked on the car back at his shop in Sylmar until 3 in the morning straightening the frame, welding in a few new pieces, re-hanging the radiator, fixing plumbing, fitting a new nose piece, reassembling the left front suspension, and then getting it down on the floor and doing a complete chassis alignment.

We got back to the racetrack and qualified Sunday morning somewhere mid-pack. In the typical 50 car field I think I finished maybe 10th. Now 50 years later I still remember LeGrand saying "come on, let's get this thing back to the shop, I've got all the parts we need."

What made racing fun then was that we all did our own work and the whole park was full of people of a like mind.

[aigel]

Of course you are going to try to fix the car at a LeMons race. It is an event to race and wrench with friends. You'll have to fix the car eventually anyway and the weekend is already booked. They will look back at this fondly, much more so than if they went home.

They were not terribly experienced on that car, which probably slowed them down. Even down to picking the car - who picks a 4wd car for a lemons race? Another beginner mistake is to not camp at the track and try to sleep at a hotel. All you need is a cot and a sleeping bag.

[drcoastline]

New Jersey Motor Sports in Millville. My home track.

[Skytrooper]

I raced at NJMP. It is a fun track !

[sugarwood]

Originally Posted by smadsen

Back in the early '70's during Saturday practice,.

Damn, that's 50 years ago. That put you in your 80s. Cool to see you are still into cars. Lifetime hobby for some!

[IROC]

ChampCar/ChumpCar seems to be a breeding ground for spending some serious paddock time. I've been racing in that series since 2014. I've packed wheel bearings at 11:00 pm in 25F weather, etc. Some teams go to extreme lengths to get back out there and turn in laps. We lost 4 hours at a Road Atlanta race one year due to a failed fuel pump (dual pumps on an E36 - took us a while to diagnose and find a spare). Fun stuff.

Even the great ones have to work on their cars. Here's Randy Pobst troubleshooting an issue on his Volvo:

[ted]

We all have done the pit scavenger hunt right?
2 of my favorites were...

At Laguna Seca I needed to replace a little pipe thread to AN10 fitting that was leaking oil.
I asked a friend at Bruce Canepa's pit area and he came out with a 5 gallon bucket of used fittings.
In that pile I found what I needed and made the afternoon race.

At Coronado one year the bumpy track pulled out and stripped a 5/8 inch diameter lower upright bolt.
On a Saturday afternoon my wife and friends drove around San Diego looking with no luck looking for a 3/4 inch diameter fine thread 2 inch long replacement bolt.

Robby Gordon's big hauler with his off road trucks were at the race too.
I asked Robby's crew member if they had any 3/4 inch fine thread 2 inch long heavy duty bolts.
Inside his semi trailer he opened a drawer and there was 2 of the exact bolts I was looking for.
We drilled out and tapped the uprights for the bigger 3/4 inch bolt and made the Sunday morning race.

Every race someone comes over to our trailer looking for something and I try to help them anyway I can.

[smadsen]

Originally Posted by sugarwood

Damn, that's 50 years ago. That put you in your 80s. Cool to see you are still into cars. Lifetime hobby for some!

Well, my knees are 80, but actually I was born in 1947.