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Adventure at Llihrednuht PDF Print E-mail
Written by Ken Huey   
Tuesday, 06 May 2008
Article Index
Adventure at Llihrednuht
Saturday Race
Sunday
Recap
 

Sunday was a chance to get better running Thunderhill backwards.   After the warm-ups we got permission to take a couple of our cars out to test during a HPDE-3 session.  Instructions was to give the HPDE group a half lap head start before heading out.  Greg was testing Ron's car and Ron was able to try out the #95 Thunderbolt car just to see what another 944-SPEC car feels like.  I think Ron likes the Thunderbolt car a lot.  Smile

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During qualifying  the backwards Thunderhill voodoo struck again.  Rick went thru Turn 5 too hot and ended four wheels off.   Smoke was filling Rick's cabin and he quickly headed back to the paddock.  Upon inspection the off road excusion and re-entering the track in a bad area cracked the oil pan.  We were assessing the situation.  It's a three hour window between qualifying and Sunday's race.  Swapping out the oil pan from my disabled car is not realistic in that time frame.  After the oil was drained into a catch tray we all help push the car to a shop at the track that can do welding.

Even taking off just the oil pan on Rick's car for repairs doesn't seem doable with the clock ticking.  The shop ended up using JB Weld on the oil pan.  They said they repaired even worse and a car lasted 14 remaining hours of the 25 Hours of Thunderhill race without problems.   They roughend up the surface with a grinder, cleaned with brake cleaner, mixed a special blend of JB Weld and applied  with their fingers.  After the JB Weld had a chance to set they filled the engine with oil and ran the car on their dyno threadmill to make sure the repaired oil pan can withstand the pressure and heat.  Sorry, no engine dyno data because that's not what they were testing for. Smile   Rick made it to the race with less than 20 minutes to spare!

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Sunday's race had Rick on pole, follow by Greg.  Steve got faster and qualified for position 3 on grid  followed by Sid, Ron and Jerry respectively.

Rick was in a zone, boken oil pan and all and held Greg off.

Rick's recap with his battle with Greg:

The Sunday race start, Greg started outside of me, but there was no car in front of him.  On the start I passed the car in front of me on the inside, and Greg drove right through the open position in front of him and around the outside of the next group of cars.  When I got to the next group of cars, they were already at the Turn 15 apex, so I had to slow down.  Greg and I got to 14, my front bumper was just about even with his back bumper, we went through 14 like that, Greg outside and me inside. On the exit of the corner, I drifted out to Greg's car and tapped his left rear with my right front, I was trying to get a good run out of the corner.  Greg stayed on driver's right, down the straight so I went left and the drag race was on.  when we got to 13, we were side by side.  Through 11 Greg was still on the inside, but further back and by the time we got to 10 I was clear and took the normal racing line.
For the next 4-5 laps, I would pull away from Greg, then he would catch me again heading up to the cyclone.  He just couldn't quite find a way pass.  We got split up in slower and faster traffic and I managed to pull away.

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Steve and Sid were going at it as was Ron and Jerry.

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Sid's mini report on Sunday's race:

I was on the outside and when we took the green flag, I was able to go around the traffic and pass about 2-3 cars to get right behind Greg.  Steve got caught up behind the traffic on the inside line and that is how I managed to stay ahead of him.  It was unfortunate that on the 1st lap, Steve spun on Turn 4 because I knew I would have had to fight hard to keep him from passing me.  I relaxed a little and within 2 or 3 laps, I noticed Steve was closing the gap fast.  That pushed me to step it up and I was able to hold him off due to several cars passing and somewhat blocking him.  That gave me the opportunity to keep my 3rd place finish. 

Rick took 1st, Greg 2nd and Sid 3rd for the podium

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