Mincomp Musings

Tested in the U.S.A.

WILD BILL HICCUP AT
NATIONAL RUN-OFFS
Well ... This year's runoffs have come and gone, held this year at the Mid-Ohio raceway in place of the usual and much more familiar Road Atlanta in Georgia. I guess the best way to go into this story is to just start at the beginning.
PRACTICE ...
In Saturdays unofficial practice, Joe Huffaker Jnr. clicked off some lap times under the lap record driving Mike Kearney's Fortech Mini. Well, this set the pace that the rest of us were going to have to deal with. What really seemed to be on everybody's mind was what lap times Joe was going to do when he got to know the track!!
... MAKES PERfECT!
Well, when I got on the track on Monday the car was really not very good. It was set up for 100 degree conditions, and out here at was only 34 degrees - the car just had no grip. One thing was very apparent, and that was I was going to have to pick up a lot of speed somewhere! By continual fiddling with the chassis I was able to bring myself to a fourth qualifying spot with Joe on the pole, a Nissan (Datsun) 210 in second, and a Toyota Starlet in third.                                                       FIRE IN THE HOLE!
At the start of the race we (the front four) fell into place and I was content to sit a second or so behind the front three and let them do what they were going to do. I knew for a fact that two of the cars up there were capable of inflicting some  skullduggery. However, on the third lap, I developed a fire inside the car with me - and quite a sizeable one at that! It seems the exhaust tunnel that runs down the inside of the car got packed full of leaves and they decided at that moment to burn!! Because of this little diversion I fell back from the others about six or seven seconds - this was definitely not part of my race plan. At this point I said 'fire, what fire?' and pressed on ahead.
THIRD AND COUNTING
I started to catch up by a half second, then by a second a lap. On the ninth lap Huffaker's race ended with a motor failure, so now I'm third and continuing to gain on the front cars. Now at this point, I must say that in the beginning laps the chassis was real good and I was starting to think I could win this race if I could get up with the leaders. Then with five laps to go my tyres finally came up to temperature and this car became unreal. It would do unbelievable things. This race car and myself are at our fastest when the chassis will do four-wheel drifts in the turns, and that is exactly what I was now able to do. On the last lap I made up all of my 3.2 second deficit and the three of us went into the last turn of the last
lap nose to tail.
RACING FOR THE LINE
The Toyota slid up enough to give me a 63Y2" hole - and I took it. His rear hooked, he came down on the track and I was there. I don't believe he had any idea I was anywhere near. Well - we hit. We both spun, my motor stalled , I re-fired and we had a drag race to the finish line. I won the race for second place with a very angry Toyota Starlet trying to exact some retaliation at the next turn on the cool down lap. Now I know that this wasn't a win but it is what I have to settle for ... for now.
REFLECTIONS OF THE DAY
I am proud of my statistics. I ran every lap of every session, changed motors after the first qualifying session because it was planned to do so, worked hard to get the chassis right (be it about 10 laps later than desired). I gained on the leaders not because they were slowing - the fact is their last six laps were consistent w ithin a tenth or two every lap, but my laps were a second to a second and a half faster than their laps the last six laps. I set the overall fastest lap of the race on the second to last lap (the last would have been faster if the contact had not taken place) and in doing so set a new lap record for GT5. Adding this to my horrible year in general, I guess I can be pleased with the way we got things turned around. Oh, and what about the fire? When I pulled in at the end of the race the flames were out but it was still smouldering...
AND NOW THE 'THANK YOU'S' ...
Thanks to Mini Mania for sticking with me when things were bleak.
Thanks to Richard Longman &. Co. who built me a GT17 cylinder head that gave me an extra 200 rpm down the Mid-Ohio back straight over the head I have been using the last couple of seasons (this head did not even see the dyno! After some valve spring changes it was just bolted on).
Thanks to Tim Kerrigan and his Redline oil for the best racing lubricants, and nobody makes a better tyre than Goodyear. Thanks to Mini Spares Centre London for providing the excellent Tran-X plate diff and drop gears, without whose total reliability the power would never have beell put down. And finally a special thanks to the  'Crew Chief from hell' Rich Warnock. Hey! Thanks Dude. Yes, better believe I did that ...