Bill Dearborn

Well I went to my first track even on Saturday. It was my first time with Trackmasters although I know a number of people who have attended their events. It was a well run event and I can say I will do it again. Their format is Open Track and School. For people running open track you have to be approved by one of the senior instructors before they let you go by yourself but it is worth it from a track time stand point. We had 2 sessions in the morning one for an hour and the other for an hour and a half then 3 sessions in the afternoon. One hour session followed by 2 45 minute sessions. I started with a full tank in the morning and just barely finished my cool down lap at 11:30 when the reserve light went on. I filled up at noon and had to add 2 cans of gas by the end of the 2nd session in the afternoon. Definitely a lot of track miles and I didn't use all of the time because I didn't want to get to tired. The Open Track group had GT1 cars, C6 Z06s, a Ferrari 575, some GT3s and several NASA Race Trucks in it so I was in some fast moving company. On the straights I was actually doing pretty well against the trucks however they corner quite well. They stay flat as a pancake going through the Bus Stop.

One thing they do that I haven't seen in a long time is throw the checker at the start finish and end of the back straight. This gives you much more time to cool your brakes down and I have to admit it helped greatly. I had much less heat checking of the rotors in the front and none at all on one of the rear rotors.

I went out for the last session and got very lucky. As I was coming into the Esses the yellow lights started flashing and the first flagger I saw had a standing yellow as I lifted to assess the situation up the hill. I was going about 80 out of two when I saw the next flagger with a yellow and black flag and then I saw what looked like a fan belt on the track which I ran over followed by a large grey object that went under the car and hammered under my seat. At the exit of turn 3 there was a Mustang (not visible from T2) off to the side smoking from the hood. When I got back to the garage and talked to some of the people I found out the Mustang had some serious engine damage and the timing chain cover and timing chain were missing from the car along with the front of the crank. Today I got the car up on the lift and although that piece of metal made a lot of noise as it scraped under the car I couldn't find any damage. I just wonder if it was the timing chain cover or something else from the engine. Anybody know what the timing chain cover on a small block Ford looks like? Funny thing there never was a debris flag and one of the guys behind me got into some of the fluids that were dropped and just about went off track.

Bill

larryfs

will I be spending mothers day with you Bill ?