#rusty's racing

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Race Night Nine: NASCAR Support

Barrie Speedway has been hosting a NASCAR Canadian Tire Series for several years now.  Due to travel for work, this would be my last race of the year, but it sounded cool to run "in support" of the NCATS.

The "local" classes (pure stock and thunder car) run early in the afternoon and only have one heat and no practice.  NASCAR is really protective of the track integrity.  At the driver's meeting ahead of time they also called out there would be a black flag mechanical for anyone even with a hint of smoking.

The #50 took several days of work by Rusty  be in shape for this race.  The #2 was also an option but I chose the #50 since I'd never driven it at Barrie and there was no practice.

Heat one was a solid run for 6th.  For the feature I got the pole.  As I went out for the feature, I could not find 2nd gear.  Tried several times, but nothing.  I briefly considered running in 3rd gear, but decided it was best to pull off into pit lane.  After the fact it turned out the gear linkage had broken (no actual transmission damage).

One thing I didn't consider was the pay out - not taking the green meant I got a "no start" which meant $15 instead of $35.  I probably should have done one lap around the track at the back of the field and pulled off.

A bit of a disappointing end to an unexpected and fun race season.

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Race Night Seven: Big Wreck

Heat one saw me start and finish well back.

Heat two had a bit of an exciting finish.  I was racing the 3 (Randi Seguin) car for 5th on the last lap when a faster car came underneath me (I think it was the 57 of Ryan Toon), and then underneath the 3 in turn three.  I dropped down to follow the 57 and get a run for the checkered flag.  The 57 cleared, but I hadn't when the 3 car moved down the track exiting turn four.  With it being the last lap I kept my foot on the gas for the checkered flag, turning the 3, but I was able slide below and finish 7th.  Possibly I should have tried to move down almost to the grass or tapped the brakes, but it was also the last lap.

The feature was very short.  I started out in 3rd place, indicating that I was getting better in the handicap rankings.  The 3 car started on the pole in front of me.  On the first lap the 3 car went sideways in turn two and I nearly t-boned her, but she made a quick move and drove it down pit lane.  Lap two I was still up front when I got tapped by the 89 (Cory Horner) coming out of turn two.  I managed to save the car after shooting towards the inside back straight wall but got tapped again and shot up into the 27 (French Harpin - his own car, but running out of Rusty's shop).  He went into the outside wall and I spun down into the inside wall and nosed it.  The front end was pushed in and I couldn't shift into second gear, so my night was done.  The 27 was also messed up.  Rusty himself in the 2 broke a rotor trying to avoid the accident.  Three Rusty based cars, three DNF. Six or seven cars were involved and four put out.

There was another major wreck on the restart from this incident plus a black flag for rough driving after a driver took exception to being spun out.  There was not a lot of patience in the early laps tonight.

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Race Night Three: The Wonder and Tragedy of Setup

We weren't able to practice the Thursday following my first wrecks because the car wasn't ready, so we arrived early on Saturday to get in practice (and pick up another $50 in payout).

I had been thinking about how I could give feedback on the car setup all week.  After heat one I was pretty sure the car was tight because I had to turn the wheel a fair amount and cross over my right hand to make it turn.  Talking to Rusty seemed to confirm this.  You should need no more than a quarter turn of the wheel on this track.   Rusty changed the tire pressure in the left front, dropping it four pounds and I went out for another practice.

I couldn't believe how much different the car was with this simple change.  The car felt like it was "floating" a little more, but it turned through the corners really well, basically it "loosened" up.

All was good for a few laps, but then coming out of four I was in a tight squeeze with a car moving up and I hit the wall with the side of the car.  I immediately headed for the pits because the right front did not feel good.

Crew checked it over and it looked good until they pulled the right front tire.  The lower control arm was wrecked, in particular the ball joint was no longer seated properly.  Hence began a mad scramble to fix it before the heats, in particular the ball joint needed to be welded in place properly.  We couldn't find a torch in the pits, but one of the late model guys was very kind and sent us to his shop with his son (just around the corner).  In went the control arm and out I went (scratch since the car was just fixed and totally out of alignment) for heat one.  Got the car up on the trailer and used the toe bars to align the wheels.  Went out for a second poorly performing heat.

With two low finishes in the heats I was out of the top 18 "handicap" zone, meaning that I was way at the back to start.  Normally in the handicap zone you start in reverse order, ie the best car is 18th and the worst car is first.

I ran ok, but made a bad mistake in turn for during a restart, spinning out the car and nosing the the pit wall making the car handle even worse.  I limped home in 17th.

Race Results

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Rusty's Racing

I was working on a spread sheet to summarize the different makes/models/years of cars running at Sunset (looks like a lot of Civics and Mustangs) to get an idea of what a base car should be when I noticed that several cars were sponsored by "Rusty's Racing" a quick Google led to the Rusty's Racing site.  I was surprised to find a mini-stock arrive and drive program with several different cars.  After playing some phone tag with Rusty he graciously answered all my questions, such a "Will I be able to manage a standard?  Yes, its second gear all the way around the track." and "Quality of the cars? Safe, mid-pack/top 10 speed."

He was curious about my experience, so I told him about my late model driving at Barrie last year which was enough to be ok getting in the car.  He is also trying to get a mini-stock school off the ground that will include multi-car racing, flags, lights and everything you need to run for real.  I asked him about practicing because this is something I wanted to do, and he was headed up to Barrie this past Thursday and lets people run practice for a small fee.  Even his full race rate is $300, much cheaper than other rates I'd seen before.  So I drove up and practiced the 50 car.

I signed the waiver and first thing was remembering the 5 point harness hook up.  Next was driving around the pit area starting and stopping to get a feel for the clutch.  I got yelled "Fire" at a couple of times in order to practice escaping.  You do the following:

Hit the kill the switch

Put the car in gear if its not

Pull the fast release on the five point harness

Unbuckle the window net and throw it forward so the back piece comes out of the holder

Get out - don't try and remove the steering wheel

Then into the staging area and on to the track.  Happily the late model line I learned last year works for this car too.  I ran 30 laps in 3 sessions.  I fat footed the clutch instead of the break a couple times which pushed me up the hill in the first session and the first lap of session two.  Then I actually spun the car out going into turn one later in the second session.  Awesome, my first of many spins hopefully, Rusty and several of the others hanging out with him seemed happy I spun out too, because it meant I was pushing the car.  Session three was smooth, thought I need to drive a little deeper into turn 3 and carry more speed through turns 3 and 4.

3 sessions, 30 laps, $40!

My only concern with the car is the roll bar height is a little low for me, but Rusty plans to weld in some more bars to solve that.  Other than that the brakes were good, the picky up was snappy and it handled well through the corners.  At the very least its a car I can't outdrive right now.   A few other things I learned while I was there:

A rev limiter at 7000rpm prevents anything from really going wrong.

Learn welding - there are a lot of bars for repair all over the car

Barrie runs Legends tires

You need a NASCAR License to run at Barrie (but not practice) - $90

You wipe the Lexan windshield with pledge

The sun is terrible at 6pm coming out of turn 4

Maybe arrive and drive where I can work with someone on a regular basis is the right way to go to get started after all.  Next stop is to run multi-car practice before the race this Saturday to get used to traffic.  Target is to race June 25 at Barrie for real!