BoostAddiction
Well-known member
Most of the GJ gang probably know me for the Garagenous Zone, my garage I built in 2005, before I even knew there was a forum called Garage Junkies, as it was then known.
I was racing my Legends car then, and some of the pics showed that car, in Mad Cow Motorsports livery. I was pretty successful with the car, my last year having 11 wins in 12 races, and winning the state championship for my class. But I thought I was getting too old to be really competitive at the national level, and retired from racing to concentrate on another car project, the construction of a street component car that looks like the spawn of an IMSA GTP racer from the 80s, and a modern LMP1 car from LeMans.
I was enjoying the build, and made some good progress, but it got a little interrupted when the manufacturer and I had the idea that we should build one of these cars into a real race car, and contend for the National Auto Sport Association (NASA) Super Unlimited class national championship this year.
This was an audacious goal, considering that we didn't actually have a car, a driver, a team, a trailer, a hauler, or much of a budget. It was complicated by the fact that the car was an original design, so we didn't have the ecology of parts and understanding that comes along with, say, a 911 or a Corvette. Also, it was the fastest class NASA had for road racing, essentially completely open as to power, weight, etc., really a run-whatcha-brung class, so we'd be up against Really Fast cars, some of which were very mature in terms of development. And of course, none of us had ever run a car with the speed potential that we thought we were going to see. But naturally, details like that shouldn't get in the way of an adventure, so off we went.
Like most car projects this one was late. The car took longer to build since it had to be sandwiched in with actual paying work, and the original engine builder was three months late.
So our first actual race wasn't until June, where we were fast right off the trailer, except for a few problems like our engine, which didn't want to run smoothly (our driver could only use 2nd and 3rd gears, and the car bucked horribly under most throttle conditions). Still, with all the issues we had, including a massive oil and fuel leaks, we somehow managed to qualify on the pole for our first race.
That race lasted all of a few laps until we had to stop because of oil and fuel leaks. We thought the oil leak was due to a dry-sump engine that inexplicably still had an open hole in the block where the now-nonexistent dipstick was supposed to go. We scrounged around the pits until a Corvette driver took pity on us and gave us a dipstick which we safety-wired into place. We were golden until the next days race, which we also started on pole, until the second lap when, ahem, too much fuel leaked out on a hot exhaust manifold...and that day's race was done. Still, we had been fast enough in the first race to shatter the existing track record for the class.
So were we happy about the potential, thrilled and surprised about the lap record, but pretty bummed about the problems we'd had.
The next race was a month off, on another track we'd never run before (though our new, young driver had plenty of laps there in a Miata and a Legends car). In checking the engine before the race, we discovered chunks of metal in the oil. We knew that wasn't A Good Thing, and further checking revealed a blown engine. An emergency replacement engine that was destined for an airboat application was obtained, and installed. In a rush, as was becoming the norm, what with all the other work the shop had to do. So we prepped the car for the race, thought we'd fixed the oil leaks, and headed for the track.
Except the new/used hauler we'd bought had a small problem with the brakes on the trip down (they didn't seem to want to slow the 80 foot truck/trailer combo down at all), so we turned around, went back to the shop and fixed them. That meant we got into the track the night before at around midnight, just in time to find the worst possible pits in what was clearly once a pasture. We setup in the dark, and headed to the hotel for a couple of hours sleep before the first warmup.
That day we again qualified on pole, and led the race handily until- hey, how did you know? - we had to stop due to an oil leak that was making our car look like a really swoopy mosquito fogger. Apparently the entire source of the leaks(s) hadn't been fixed, but all we could see was that the car seemed dry as a bone in the pits, only to smoke like the Marlboro Man when given the boot. So we cleaned up the car, and tightened up all the oil lines and waited for tomorrow.
During which we again qualified on pole, led and failed to finish due to brake problems. And the oil leaks. Oh, and the engine blew it guts out through the side of the block, so that was the final straw.
By now, even we saw the pattern here. Fast off the trailer, but a lot of reliability issues. Luckily for us, they were issues that weren't specific to the design of car itself, but were problems with ancillary systems like the engine, plumbing, etc. And those could be addressed.
So we worked like the proverbial dogs (do dogs really work that hard? Mine seems to be a specialist in sleeping during the day...) and got the car ready for the next month's race, at the same track. This included a new engine, and a new engine supplier. Yeah, it only took two blown engines for us to realize we were not getting actual racing engines, but ones that were apparently assembled by apprentices that were kicked off the TV show. Or Trunk Monkeys.
We also had a permanent solution to the oil leak problem. Turns out the dry sump pump manufacturer called for a special sealant on the bolts holding on the fittings on the pump stages, but we just put them in dry. Apparently that was a Super Secret that they weren't telling everyone. But now we knew, and were loaded for bear.
At the track once again, we captured pole position, and on Saturday's race actually ran well until...wait- you haven't been reading ahead have you? Yeah, smoke coming out the rear... But we stayed out, and won the race- our first race win. The monkey was finally off our back.
We changed the oil, and rinse-and-repeat, did the same thing the next day. So now we had two race wins, as well as an uninterrupted series of consecutive pole positions. Incredibly, our lap times in the Saturday race were enough to capture another lap record.
So now we had lots of poles, two lap records at two tracks, and two actual race wins.
Unfortunately, the next race was the National Championship race meeting, where we were slated to meet the finest and fastest from all over the country. The Championship race was 45 minutes, twice as long as we'd ever run the car. And we'd heard about some of the cars from the West coast that were tearing up the tracks out there, with stories of a leMans & Daytona 24 hour -winning driver in a carbon-fiber bodied car with 850 HP.
So we went to the dyno and found 20 more HP. That made about 525HP to the wheels, just a mite less than the 700, or 850 or 1200 HP cars we also had in our class. Did I mention it was an unrestricted class? That means anything goes, and apparently that meant serious power to some of our competitors.
But hey, we had heart, our own design car, and a deep desire to win. Plus our driver was getting more and more comfortable in the car, and the lap times (and records) showed it.
Continued in the next post....
I was racing my Legends car then, and some of the pics showed that car, in Mad Cow Motorsports livery. I was pretty successful with the car, my last year having 11 wins in 12 races, and winning the state championship for my class. But I thought I was getting too old to be really competitive at the national level, and retired from racing to concentrate on another car project, the construction of a street component car that looks like the spawn of an IMSA GTP racer from the 80s, and a modern LMP1 car from LeMans.
I was enjoying the build, and made some good progress, but it got a little interrupted when the manufacturer and I had the idea that we should build one of these cars into a real race car, and contend for the National Auto Sport Association (NASA) Super Unlimited class national championship this year.
This was an audacious goal, considering that we didn't actually have a car, a driver, a team, a trailer, a hauler, or much of a budget. It was complicated by the fact that the car was an original design, so we didn't have the ecology of parts and understanding that comes along with, say, a 911 or a Corvette. Also, it was the fastest class NASA had for road racing, essentially completely open as to power, weight, etc., really a run-whatcha-brung class, so we'd be up against Really Fast cars, some of which were very mature in terms of development. And of course, none of us had ever run a car with the speed potential that we thought we were going to see. But naturally, details like that shouldn't get in the way of an adventure, so off we went.
Like most car projects this one was late. The car took longer to build since it had to be sandwiched in with actual paying work, and the original engine builder was three months late.
So our first actual race wasn't until June, where we were fast right off the trailer, except for a few problems like our engine, which didn't want to run smoothly (our driver could only use 2nd and 3rd gears, and the car bucked horribly under most throttle conditions). Still, with all the issues we had, including a massive oil and fuel leaks, we somehow managed to qualify on the pole for our first race.
That race lasted all of a few laps until we had to stop because of oil and fuel leaks. We thought the oil leak was due to a dry-sump engine that inexplicably still had an open hole in the block where the now-nonexistent dipstick was supposed to go. We scrounged around the pits until a Corvette driver took pity on us and gave us a dipstick which we safety-wired into place. We were golden until the next days race, which we also started on pole, until the second lap when, ahem, too much fuel leaked out on a hot exhaust manifold...and that day's race was done. Still, we had been fast enough in the first race to shatter the existing track record for the class.
So were we happy about the potential, thrilled and surprised about the lap record, but pretty bummed about the problems we'd had.
The next race was a month off, on another track we'd never run before (though our new, young driver had plenty of laps there in a Miata and a Legends car). In checking the engine before the race, we discovered chunks of metal in the oil. We knew that wasn't A Good Thing, and further checking revealed a blown engine. An emergency replacement engine that was destined for an airboat application was obtained, and installed. In a rush, as was becoming the norm, what with all the other work the shop had to do. So we prepped the car for the race, thought we'd fixed the oil leaks, and headed for the track.
Except the new/used hauler we'd bought had a small problem with the brakes on the trip down (they didn't seem to want to slow the 80 foot truck/trailer combo down at all), so we turned around, went back to the shop and fixed them. That meant we got into the track the night before at around midnight, just in time to find the worst possible pits in what was clearly once a pasture. We setup in the dark, and headed to the hotel for a couple of hours sleep before the first warmup.
That day we again qualified on pole, and led the race handily until- hey, how did you know? - we had to stop due to an oil leak that was making our car look like a really swoopy mosquito fogger. Apparently the entire source of the leaks(s) hadn't been fixed, but all we could see was that the car seemed dry as a bone in the pits, only to smoke like the Marlboro Man when given the boot. So we cleaned up the car, and tightened up all the oil lines and waited for tomorrow.
During which we again qualified on pole, led and failed to finish due to brake problems. And the oil leaks. Oh, and the engine blew it guts out through the side of the block, so that was the final straw.
By now, even we saw the pattern here. Fast off the trailer, but a lot of reliability issues. Luckily for us, they were issues that weren't specific to the design of car itself, but were problems with ancillary systems like the engine, plumbing, etc. And those could be addressed.
So we worked like the proverbial dogs (do dogs really work that hard? Mine seems to be a specialist in sleeping during the day...) and got the car ready for the next month's race, at the same track. This included a new engine, and a new engine supplier. Yeah, it only took two blown engines for us to realize we were not getting actual racing engines, but ones that were apparently assembled by apprentices that were kicked off the TV show. Or Trunk Monkeys.
We also had a permanent solution to the oil leak problem. Turns out the dry sump pump manufacturer called for a special sealant on the bolts holding on the fittings on the pump stages, but we just put them in dry. Apparently that was a Super Secret that they weren't telling everyone. But now we knew, and were loaded for bear.
At the track once again, we captured pole position, and on Saturday's race actually ran well until...wait- you haven't been reading ahead have you? Yeah, smoke coming out the rear... But we stayed out, and won the race- our first race win. The monkey was finally off our back.
We changed the oil, and rinse-and-repeat, did the same thing the next day. So now we had two race wins, as well as an uninterrupted series of consecutive pole positions. Incredibly, our lap times in the Saturday race were enough to capture another lap record.
So now we had lots of poles, two lap records at two tracks, and two actual race wins.
Unfortunately, the next race was the National Championship race meeting, where we were slated to meet the finest and fastest from all over the country. The Championship race was 45 minutes, twice as long as we'd ever run the car. And we'd heard about some of the cars from the West coast that were tearing up the tracks out there, with stories of a leMans & Daytona 24 hour -winning driver in a carbon-fiber bodied car with 850 HP.
So we went to the dyno and found 20 more HP. That made about 525HP to the wheels, just a mite less than the 700, or 850 or 1200 HP cars we also had in our class. Did I mention it was an unrestricted class? That means anything goes, and apparently that meant serious power to some of our competitors.
But hey, we had heart, our own design car, and a deep desire to win. Plus our driver was getting more and more comfortable in the car, and the lap times (and records) showed it.
Continued in the next post....
Y'all had yourself some summer there. How bout some more pics. 
