It's been a year in the making, but we finally finished the ASC car. Most of the delay was due to work, lack of work and moving race shops but as frustrating as it can sometimes be, we never gave up on it. So now comes the fun part, the testing and development. For it's first outing, we wanted a venue that offered minimal traffic, lots of open track time and since we didn't know if it would run only a lap or the entire day, it had to be inexpensive. Ben was also doing his first shakedown with his car now fitted with a peripheral port 13b.

Willow Springs Raceway's big track had open testing but since there was a VARA event that weekend, traffic would be heavy. I figured that accidently bumping into somebody with our untested car would make lots of friends, especially in their hyper expensive vintage cars. They also charge $75 per car and $75 per driver, then a $75 annual testing membership which expires in the first day of the calender year (even though it's now September), then a $10 gate fee per person making it a grand total of $245 for a day of testing!

Buttonwillow Raceway offered open testing on Friday at $185, everything included. I had minor concerns that SCCA was hosting a regional event that weekend and over 30 cars were expected. But hey, everybody smashes into each other in the SCCA anyway so they wouldn't know the difference! Ben really wanted to go to Willow while I was rallying for Buttonwillow, that was until I had an unexpected meeting scheduled for work on Friday afternoon.
This meant that we had to test over the weekend which left me doubtful that it was going to happen. A couple days after I had all but given up hope of testing, I got an e-mail from the SpeedTrial USA guys announcing their event at the Streets of Willow. All of us had run with the SpeedTrial guys before so I was aware of their events which mainly offer Hot Lapping sessions to the import crowd with street performance cars, hopefully they wouldn't mind the RealRide Racing "Beverly Hill Billies". I went to their website and saw that only 5 cars were registered in their Advanced Group on Saturday and 6 cars on Sunday. After alerting the guys, we all agreed to go on Sunday so Ben and I pre-registered. I had a wedding to attend Friday night and this would also give us Saturday to finish up on final tweeks on the car. Well, it turned out that the wedding was on Thursday (who gets married on weekends anyway?) but we were already signed up.

On Sunday morning, it takes me and Tim about an hour to load the truck and the car onto the trailer. Since we haven't gotten a trailer for the ASC car yet, we are using the trailer for the #47 RX7 which is about 2 feet narrower and 3 feet shorter. The process of loading the ASC car onto the trailer goes something like this:

1) Add the ramp extensions to the regular ramps.
2) Roll the ASC car onto the extensions.
3) Get the ASC halfway up the ramps and discover that the rocker panels are caught.
4) Try to back the ASC car down the ramps but discover that the rocker panels are caught.
5) Pull out the floorjack and lift up the corner that's caught.
6) Add wooden blocks under the ramps.
7) Use metal shears to trim away the sections of rocker panels that are caught.
8) Push the car up the ramp.
9) Discover that the other side is caught.
10) Cuss and swear then yell at each other.
11) Trim the other rocker panels.
12) Cuss and swear, then yell at each other again.
13) Strap down the car, then yell at each other as you pull out of the driveway.
... and we do this for fun right?

On the drive up to the track, I suddenly realize that in the last 2 months, I've been to the track about 6 of those weekends.... all but one at Willow Springs.... Damn, I need a life. We stop at a gas station to fill up the ASC car, the founders of ASC (Miguel Capparos and Doug Davis) were brilliant in mandating the spec motor which just takes pump gas. $60 to fill up the car and an extra 15 Gallons in the fuel jugs! Can't run this fast for that cheap in many other race cars.

If you think loading the car was bad, unloading it is much worse. Even with Justin there to help, it takes us another hour to unload it. More cutting of the rocker panels and more wood blocks... Tim has to drink an extra bottle of water to quench his thirst from all that swearing. We finally get the car off and I drive it to the tech shed. Sean has also entered his primer grey 1974 Camaro which he's been developing into a vintage race car. Ben's RX7 is the only car that seems to fit the SpeedTrial import car theme. Our friends at TRS Racing work Technical Inspection with Mike in charge that day. After I hand Mike the tech form which decribes the car as a 1999 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, he looks at the car, then at me like I'm nuts, signs the form and says "You tech it yourself! Are you crazy?".

When I return to our pit, the guys have pulled out the chairs and set up the canopies. In typical RealRide Racing fashion, the heckling begins immediately. Ben starts cracking jokes about me being at the wrong track as this one has right turns as well. Tim and Justin both have bets going with how long Ben's car will go before it breaks (unbeknownst to me, Justin had bet that the ASC car wouldn't finish the day either). Sean and Tim's brother Matt try the "If I don't make enemies, I won't have any" approach, but that doesn't work either. Since our group is the first practice session, the track is still green. Morning sprinkles didn't help either and everybody seems to be sliding around. I climb into the car and start it up for it's first real outing. This group consists of Ben's RX7, a few race prepared Honda Civics, an E30 BMW M3 race car, and 3 aircooled VW powered formula cars... nothing of similar power range to gauge my car against.

When the grid worker signals me to go out onto the track, I release the clutch, get on the throttle, hear the engine rev, and smell clutch! I back off the throttle a bit and the car slowly accelerates off the line. On my first lap, I notice that the car is really hard to slow down and it's really loose, but shrug it off to cold tires and brand new brake pads that need bedding. The clutch is slipping really badly and I can't get more than half throttle without it slipping. Then on my first hot lap, I go flying into one of the off camber turns, step on the brakes and drive right off the track! Embarrassed, I slowly pull into the pits so that Tim can check for any damage (the cars are so low that any off track excursion could cause serious damage). After Tim gives me the OK sign, I go back out paying careful attention to my braking zones. A few laps into the session, I notice that the car is still loose... I mean REALLY loose... so loose that Justin comments that it's entertaining to watch from the grandstand. "Your front tires did 1.8 miles per lap, but your rears did about 2.3 miles!" he says. Every application of the throttle, even if I just breathed on the throttle, resulted in the back end sliding around. Turn-in and it comes loose, get on it and it comes loose. Meanwhile, the clutch is still slipping. Fortunately, I'm shifting without the clutch pedal and left foot braking so the slipping clutch is less noticeable until I get on the throttle hard. But I'm really enjoying this "dog ring" gearbox as every upshift or downshift is lightning fast. Even with the slipping clutch, acceleration is incredible and I'm blasting by the other cars like they're standing still, sometimes passing several at a time. Even Ben's car, which many onlookers describe as blindingly fast and probably the next fastest car of the day is no match as I get around it effortlessly. Towards the end of the session, I reach down to shift the transmission and the shift knob comes off in my hand... oops, must have forgotten to tighten it. I try to stuff it somewhere in the car but there's nowhere... no door pocket (no doors!), no glove box, no passenger floorboard area, nothing.... and the pocket of my driving suit is below my seat bolsters. I make a mental note to install some kind of mini storage container in the future as I pull in slowly. As I pull into the pits, they chequer the session so Tim asks me to shut it off.

We notice a small puddle of water next to the rear tire and realize that we forgot to install a radiator overflow catch can. I also tighten up the fuel filler hose connection by the fuel cell. Nothing major but by the time we get everything done, it's time to go back out. Before I go out, Tim suggests that I turn 2 revolutions on the Brake Bias knob to dial in more front brakes. This seems to help as during this next session, the clutch is slipping just as bad, but the turn-in oversteer is a bit better. Rolling onto the throttle continues to make the rearend very loose but I'm getting a bit better with the brakes, even so, I still give cars in front of me extra room under braking. Inside the cockpit, nothing feels right... the car is simply undriveable: With the clutch slipping so badly it seems to accelerate slowly compared to the engine noise (which it is of course), I'm slipping and sliding at every corner and my confidence in braking is pretty low. Yet from the grandstands, the guys just see the ASC car tearing through traffic. The sensation of speed is very misleading in such a big car. It's not until I close in on another car that I realize how much faster I'm going. My past experiences with driving a faster car are usually measured by the amount of space that I cover each successive corner. In this car, it seems that I come up on another car every time I look up. Though we're not here to race, we've never run this track in this configuration so stopwatches give us no reference lap time. However, using the relative speed of the other cars gives us a basis of the ASC car's performance level and the guys are pretty impressed. Nor have we run an ASC car before so when I notice that the water temperature has reached 220, I'm immediately alarmed and shut off the engine, coasting into the pits.

After Tim tells me that 220 is perfectly normal for a brand new engine (Tim describes it as "Tight") running in near 100 degree weather, I'm relieved. But it's too late to go back out as the session has once again been chequered. Tim and I sit down for a download session and agree that the first item on our list is to remove 2 shims from the throwout bearing to reduce the clutch travel. This entails removing the transmission which Tim figures will take an hour after the car has cooled down, which means that I'll miss the next session which is fine with me. While we wait for the car to cool down, Justin takes a few laps in Sean's car to help him with his setup.

During lunch break, Tim and Matt remove the transmission but in the process, Tim accidently cuts the o-ring for the throwout bearing. Since we have no spare at the track, he announces that we're done for the day. Sad that we're done, yet happy that the car is basically running well, he's met with little resistance from me. Meanwhile Ben's car suffers a similarly minor fate as his fuel pump dies with no warning. Meanwhile Sean seems to be having the time of his life after some setup help from Justin. Removing his rear swaybar and dropping 5 psi out of his rear tires has taken most of the oversteer out of his car and he's now drifting through the corners with ease.

Loading the car onto the trailer is a true Monkey Circus act... it takes all 6 of us to do this and any onlookers are amazed with what they see. Matt and Tim come up with this brilliant idea to back the trailer under the car. To do this, we have to jack the race car up to the maximum reach of the jack, then repick the jack points to get it even higher. Then we line up the trailer perfectly to the car (this takes about 4 people guiding the person driving the truck) and slowly back it up until the front tires are on the trailer. Once the front tires are on, we remove the front jackstands and continue rolling the trailer backwards until the rear tires are on the trailer too. It's truly a spectacular sight and people are looking on in amazement, but we get it done and it's certainly a lot less frustrating than the traditional method.

RealRide/Pennyweb