Summit Point Reloaded. . .

            This past weekend had Onderko Motorsports at Summit Point Raceway in West Virginia.  I was excited to be returning to that speedway since we ran so well in June.  We arrived in town Friday night and checked in to the hotel, it had taken a little longer to travel on account of the rain, but we made it safe and uneventful.

            Saturday Morning bright and early we unloaded for the day and I headed over to the drivers meeting.  We went over the way the day was going to go, and the order of events and how they would be run.  It was a pretty normal start to the raceday.

            We got ready for practice, and headed over to the grid to get lined up.  We ran decent in practice; I made a significant gear change during the week and it really changed my shift points.  Once I got comfortable with the car again, I pulled back into the garage area.  There was no use in putting more time on the car with Nationals right around the corner.

            Qualifying came and we ran really well.  The times came way down, and I really started to get comfortable with the car.  Our fastest lap came on the last lap of qualifying, which tells me that the car is working really well and should be fast in the race.  When we checked the grid order we found ourselves on the outside of the front row.  That was our best qualifying effort this year.  So far the day was going very well.

            The call came from race control to start getting the cars to the grid.  Once again my team got the car ready to do battle.  I got ready too, and climbed aboard and belted in.  I really felt like we had a great opportunity to get an overall win on Saturday.  I knew that if I kept the car on the track and didn’t make any mistakes an overall podium was almost expected.  We took our pace laps and took the green flag.  The polesitter didn’t exactly jump the start but he did get an awfully great jump on me before the green came out.

            I dropped back to third as we headed down to turn 1.  It took 2 laps but I got back to 2^nd spot.  I lost some time to the leader, but I settled in and really started to push the car to catch him.  The car was really working well, and we were .5 seconds off the track record with our times.  I felt good, the car felt good, the crew was feeling good- and then it happened.  BANG.

            When I say BANG, it was a bang- followed by the transmission going from 4^th gear to 2^nd gear.  The telemetry started flashing at me telling me the motor was over revving, my brain was screaming at me to get the car out of gear.  By the time I pushed the clutch in, the motor had revved to 11,478 rpm’s- well above the 9500rpm redline.

            I got out of the racing line and headed for pit lane.  I made it back to the garage area and climbed out of the car.  I knew it wasn’t the clutch, and my fear was that I broke the main shaft in the transmission.  All I could picture was chunks of gears and metal gravy in the bottom of the trans.  I didn’t want to mess with it at the track so we loaded it up and went home.

            Sunday was supposed to be spent with my wife, but instead I went to the shop and tried to figure out what had happened.  Around lunchtime my wife, Marisa, came over to the shop and helped me pull the driveline.  She was a big help and actually was the one who first realized what had happened.  We run a sequential style gear box, and as we were working she noticed that the shift cam didn’t feel right.

            The bolt that held the shift cam had actually sheared and allowed the cam to come loose and would no longer engage a gear.  A 2 dollar bolt ended what would have been a great day.  The good news is that it should be a quick fix.  We are going to put in a fresh engine and the gearbox is currently being checked out.  This is not something I wanted to be dealing with right before Nationals.

            Next week I should have good news and we should be just about wrapped up and ready for Nationals.  A big thanks to Marisa for giving up some weekend time with me to help me figure out what was wrong with the racecar.  It looks like I might owe her a special date night.  Check us out on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter @justinonderko.  Till next week. . .

Countdown to Summit Point. . .

          It seems rain has made quite a few appearances at the race track this season.  The last 3 weekends in a row have had rain to some degree.  Grand-Am and NASCAR were up in New York this past weekend.  Watkins Glen is a beautiful racetrack, and is situated in an even more beautiful area of New York.  On Friday is poured at Watkins Glen, effectively washing out Nationwide practice.  The rules state, however, that you must complete at least one lap in practice to be eligible to take a qualifying lap.  Since the Nationwide Series allows for wet weather racing- Goodyear has developed a great wet weather tire for the series- the drivers had to strap in a take a lap.  Many of the drivers voiced their displeasure for needing to go out on the racetrack.  It’s a shame that the Nationwide Series has drivers with so little experience to begin with, and almost none of the drivers have rain experience.  You could tell just by watching the cars, the drivers were very tense inside of their cars.  All three races this weekend, Grand-Am, Cup, and Nationwide- were excellent races to watch.

            The countdown to Summit Point is in its final days.  At the time of writing this, 48 hours from now, we will hopefully be checked into the hotel, and getting ready for bed.  Again- I’ve said it before- but when we travel, we always stay at Holiday Inn Express- never had a bad experience.

            The car is sitting in the shop, ready to go.  The guys were able to work ahead on some things and we were able to give ourselves a cushion on time.  It’s nice not to be rushed, but I’m sure something will pop up as we load everything up.  In fact the last time we went to Summit Point, we got a very- VERY late start.  Our truck and trailer sits just outside the shop, we have a dedicated parking spot for it, so it very rarely gets moved in between races.  As we were getting ready to pull out of the shop parking lot, the truck lost all of its power.  Long story short- like 4 hours long- a groundhog had a Thanksgiving Day feast on the engine’s wiring harness, and it shorted out a few things.  Luckily, we have some people who not only are great with racecars, but are great truck mechanics as well.  Some wire, a few connectors, and a little luck- and they got us back on the road.  We made it to the hotel at 3:30 am, and had to be at the track by 6:30am- everybody did a great job and didn’t complain too much about the lack of sleep.  I’m hoping for better than that this week.

            The last time we were at Summit Point, we missed the track record by .062 seconds.  We’ve made a few changes and think we have a real good shot at nabbing on Saturday.  The weather forecast is fair, with only a 30% chance of showers and a high of 77 degrees.  Give me a little cloud cover during the race, and it should help us get a little more grip on the track.

            If all goes well this weekend, we will be qualified for Nationals at Mid-Ohio in September.  When we get back from Summit Point, we will have 2 weeks to go over everything and get back to race ready condition.  We’ve had some mechanical issues that have required some thought, and it will be nice to have a chance and see if the changes we made will work.

            Check back next week, we will have results from Summit Point and we’ll see if the changes we made worked.  Also- we’ll know if our name is in the record books or not.  We will try for updates throughout the day, so check me out on twitter @justinonderko.  Also friend me on Facebook, and we should have updates there as well.  Wish us luck- and- till next week. . .

           

First Race- First Win. . .

So this is normally where I talk about all of the racing results from the past week.  While I will give kudos to Dale Jr. for his first win in 4 years, I’m not going to spend a lot of time any other team’s results.  I want to give proper thanks to MY crew for their efforts this weekend.

We got a very late start Friday night on our way to Summit Point Raceway.  I had some trouble with animals at the shop, and a groundhog climbed into the engine bay of our tow vehicle and had himself a snack on my wiring harness.  After we got the mess straightened out we set off down I-81S towards Summit Point.

We arrived around 2am got a spot in the pits, (one of the last that were available) and headed to the hotel for some much needed sleep.  The only problem, we had to be back at the track in less than 3 hours, it was going to be a long day.

I have to give a shout-out to Holiday Inn Express, every time my wife and I have traveled in the last couple of years, we have always been very happy with our stay.  This past weekend was no different, after a quick power nap we were having breakfast and leaving for the track.

This was our very first race with NASA, and it was also HyperFest, which is one of the biggest races that are held for NASA.  The pits were packed, the teams were hard at work, and the driver’s were signing autographs.  As for my crew, they rolled the car out of the trailer, and polished it up, all the work was done- that’s a rule in our organization- all work is done before the car is loaded up.  I went to and returned from the driver’s meeting with the schedule for the day.  Our morning practice wasn’t for another hour, so we watched turn 10 for a little while.

I do not often get nervous at the racetrack; it is more like a second job to me anymore than anything else.  For me it’s where things make sense, and I feel like I have some sort of control over things.  This weekend, however, was different.  Not only did I have a brand new racecar, it was a brand new track, and I hadn’t even been able to shake the car down.  “Go big or go home, right?”

Practice came and went and I spent the entire session learning and figuring out the car.  We ended up 7^th overall on the speed charts, which wasn’t bad considering PT-A (our class) wasn’t supposed to be able to compete with the cars in our group (SU GTS ST ST2).  I didn’t really want to make any changes to the car; I just needed more laps in it.

Qualifying saw us lose a little bit of speed from the morning session, but I think it was due more to the heat of the day than anything else.  We wound up starting 6^th in the first wave.  In this type of racing the start is made up of 3 waves, or evenly divided groups based on speed and class.  The waves are spaced out and take the green about 30 seconds apart.  It aids in track congestion, and also spaces out the action for the fans.

The green flag for our Main Event flew around 4:30pm and I raced hard with the cars in my group.  In road racing, there is so much more to worry about, you not only race the cars in the group for the overall win, but you race the cars in your class for a class win as well.  You can’t get wrapped up in racing with someone if it doesn’t benefit you at the end of the day.  I ran in the top 10 for most of the race, but got passed on the last lap when I moved over for the overall leader to go by.  We did win our class, though, and that is what we came to do.  We had a lot of people drop by our pit area after the race was over.  Turns out we made a splash with the new car.  A lot of people liked the way it looked and sounded, and it was really cool to have that many people drop by.

Sunday was a much nicer day for us, we were able to get a full night’s sleep, and come to the track well rested.  After a quick wipe down, the car was gone over for the day’s events.  We decided to make a gear change, to get a little more top end out of it.  We seemed to get beat coming off the corner and down the straights on Saturday.  We figured by dropping the final drive ratio, we would be able to get a little bit more out of each gear.

It worked like a charm and qualifying went great- except for lap 7, when yours truly had his first off track excursion.  I overdrove turn 5 and locked up the RF tire and slid off the track into the grass.  With no real damage, other than to my ego, I got back on the track and headed for the pits.  No sense in continuing if something was wrong.

Sunday’s Main Event was scheduled for 3:00pm.  We were again the first wave, and supposed to start 6^th again.  However, 5^th and 3^rd place had catastrophic failures and could not make the start.  I’ll take the spots anyway I can get them.  The start was fast and we piled into turn 1, the leaders got loose and checked up- in turn I checked the structural integrity of 3^rd place’s rear bumper with my front bumper.  In case you’re wondering, he needs another piece of tubing to stiffen it up.

With cars that were roughly the same speed as mine, I was able to run the corners faster and make my way to the front.  I passed for the overall group lead on lap 6 going into turn 1.  The problem with that was 2 GTS (a class much higher than mine) cars passed me 4 corners later.  That means, while I did pace the field for a short time, I wasn’t given credit for leading a lap.  I kept the leaders in sight for most of the race, just in case they did anything stupid.  I was on track to finish on the podium overall, and win my class again.

Sometimes the racing gods smile on you, and sometimes they don’t.  I’m not sure what happened, but with 2 laps to go, we ran out of fuel.  We don’t have a very big fuel cell, but our calculations had us making the distance, but not with a lot to spare.  The bad news is we lost the podium finish, I think the good news is that we had enough laps on the field that we won our class again.  We will make sure and let everyone know.

I want to thank everyone who is involved with our organization; you have all been a part in the big changes and moves forward.  I want to thank OC2 Interactive, it was nice to carry you on the side of the car this week, and I look forward to working with you guys this season.  Everyone needs to check these guys out; they specialize in web based design projects, and if you need to get noticed- talk to them-“on time and in budget”.

Mostly, it was good to get back to the track, the sights, the smells, the sounds- you just can’t go to long without being there.  I look forward to Pocono in July, we have an appearance up that way Saturday night as well, so that should be fun.  Check us out on youtube, we will have video from this past weekend, incar- roofcam- as well as driver cam.  Till Next Week. . .