Heading for Daytona...

[geechie]

...and the 2006 edition of the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona (or whatever the hell the race is called).

I'll be humpin' tires and passin' gas again for the Autometrics team (#14 GT). I don't expect we'll do all that well, but you never know. Our big spender went off to get his son (Leh Keen, a fairly talented young driver) a ride with another team. Took his deep pockets with him. It's really a shame, 'cause our team owner, Gordon Friedman is a very talented crew chief and team manager. We finished 3rd last year in team points and won the 6 Hours at the Glen. I can almost guarantee we got double the bang for the buck of any other team.

http://autometricsmotorsports.com/

This race we'll be running our 2nd car from last year. We'll have one "professional" driver, Cory Friedman, and four "gentleman sportsman" drivers as backup. It's gonna be a long four days of practice and racing and I doubt I'll have any opportunities to post, so y'all take care.

Looks like Speed TV is covering the event live starting at noon EST, Saturday the 28th.

If I have time, I'll take pictures.

George

[DarthRider]

You guys give 'em hell George!

Dave

[Tipstall]

Good luck.

Ken

[Dallara]

Go get 'em, Geechie!

Man, I'm with ya'... Nothing quite like when you lose a bunch of funding and still have to race the same guys! And I know what you mean about doing more for less, too. Sometimes it makes you look like you do it with mirrors! :angel:

Still, when you lose some funding is when everybody else thinks you're out of it, and stops worrying about ya'... So you got the element of surprise going for ya', SO SNEAK UP ON 'EM AND PIP 'EM AT THE POST!

Good luck and I hope you guys win it going away...

Cheers!

Allan (Dallara - The Rubber-Banned Man)

[arkline]

George,

I'll be watching and if you get a chance, turn to the pit cameras and give us a big smile and a thumbs up. Oh, and good luck! :thumbs_up:

[geechie]

... it don't.

This was without a doubt the worst weekend of racing we've ever had.

Oh, before I forget, thanks a lot you guys, for all the good wishes. I sincerely appreciate it.

Well, to start this tale of woe. The car owner is a fine young man by the name of Patrick Small, of Birmingham AL. He bought the car midway through the season last year from Tom Sorriano who, with Branson Patch, had campaigned it at a number of the Rolex races and had crashed (sometimes with a great deal of help from one or more DP cars) it and/or broken it several times. We tried not to think of the car as jinxed, but it was hard not to given its sad history. Since it had run pretty much a full Rolex season, we had to have the motor rebuilt by Porshe USA to the tune of about 19 large.

Apparently it was a good rebuild, 'cause at testing a couple of weeks ago we were getting speeds in excess of 172 mph on the banking. Previously the top speed had been somewhere around 168-169.

Cory (Friedman, our Ace driver), started the car in initial practice Thursday and reported that while it was making good power, it was very "nervous". The back end was stepping out pretty severely upon accelerating out of corners. Cory is very astute, and could handle it, though. Well, Patrick wanted to give it a go, and it's pretty hard to say no to the car owner. He got his "out" lap and maybe one flying lap. As he came by us (Our pit was #26, right on the start/finish line) headed for turn one (off the NASCAR track and down onto the infield section) he looked pretty good. And that was the last time that car will probably ever look good. He lost it at somewhere in the neighborhood of 160 mph and slammed into the turn one tire wall. He was shaken up pretty badly, spent the night in the hospital for observation, and was released the next day. The car, however, was not so fortunate.

The front end of the drivers side was freakin' demolished. I'll post some pictures tomorrow of the damage. And it wasn't just body work; the tub itself was bent. The floorboard area just inboard of the driver's seat is noticeably crimped. The seat mount is twisted, and all manner of stuff was broken loose. To say that he hit it "a ton", would be an understatement. Well, it looked like we were through.

Well, OK, the car was through, but Autometrics was not done yet. The owner, McGrath Keen, of the 14 car (our primary car) from last year, had left us to go to Synergy Racing. Mostly, I believe, to give his son Leh (say Lee) a better chance to gain more visibility with a bigger team and maybe get a shot at a ride at Le Mans. Well he had taken last year's car home to GA, and it was up for sale. Our gentleman drivers decided to pool their resources and buy the car. The deal was cut, and we had the car brought in. It got to Daytona about midnight Thursday and was at the track Friday morning.

In the meantime, we snatched the fresh engine and tranny out of the wrecked car and shoved the bent up body into the hauler. So bright and early Friday we began work on the new (old) car. We pulled the engine and tranny out of it (remember, that engine had run the full 2005 season and was getting pretty tired) and replaced it with the engine/tranny from the wrecked car. We're running wider tires in the front for 2006, so we had to replace the front fenders as well. And of course, this is Daytona, so the shocks and springs needed to be changed too. Other changes included decals from last year and even the car number. We had to re-enter (That will be another $5K, please.) as the #15 car.

Well, we had missed qualifying on Thursday, but there was qualifying on Friday for positions 31 through the end of the field. Couldn't make that either. It was starting to get real tense in the garage. Well, we got her all buttoned up about 15 minutes into final practice and got out onto the track with about 30 minutes of practice time left. Well, maybe not completely buttoned up. Seems we had forgotten to connect the front sway bar and the alignment was more than a tad cockeyed. Cory took the car out, then in, then out , the back in... for about 5 laps total; not sure that he ever got a flying lap.

Back in the garage we began to finish the car up. Gordon (Friedman the team owner and Crew boss) had brought in some pretty good mechanics for the weekend, and brother, they earned their money. Unfortunately, Bob, the best of the hired guns, was not at all familiar with the computerized alignment system we use, and that slowed the process considerably. Further complicating matters was the fact that the drivers wanted to practice driver changes (and they needed it, too). That took precious time away from the mechanics who had to stand back and watch these 'rich' guys in their fancy-dancy suits, fumbling around with straps and cool suit hoses and radio plug-ins. The hardest part was keeping a straight face. They closed the garages at 9:00 PM Friday, and the car was not yet ready.

Saturday morning we started back at it. We got the car aligned and the right amount of camber and toe set somewhere around 11:00 AM. Just in time to go to the grid... starting dead last.

Cory started the car, and was moving up through the field very well. He moved us up to about 10th in class before we had to come in for a fuel stop around 1hr 15 min into the race. Gordon, I think, must have had a feeling we wouldn't finish the race, because instead of just fuel, we also made a driver change and put fresh tires on. Later he told me he wanted to give all the drivers a stint in the car on fresh tires as soon as he could. They had, after all plunked down a lot of money for a chance to drive in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona. Usually, we do at least two stints on tires; sometimes at night we get even more. Well I only had 4 sets of wheels to work with and Gordon wanted two fresh sets with lugs glued ready at all times. Hooshier was taking about 45 minutes, from drop off to pick up, to finish mounting a fresh set of tires. That gave me less than a half hour to get them back to the pit, change to nitrogen, set the pressures mark them all with position (on the car, i.e., LF, RF, LR....), set number and car number and get them in the rack ready for the tire changers. Now it was my turn for some ass-bustin'.

With the long, full pit stops every hour and change, we had fallen back a bit in the field. Driver number four got in the car about 3:45 PM Saturday (the race started at noon). I had just dropped off the last hot set of wheels (after cleaning them of wheel weights, rubber build-up, and deflating them), and was headed back to the pits when I heard them (on the radio) talking about the car smoking on its last trip by. A couple of minutes later, around 4 o'clock, the car quit and coasted to a stop on the infield grass. Every body headed for the garage at a dead run.

The car came in a few minutes later via tow-strap. When we tried to crank it, it went squeeeek, eeeek, skiiink, eeek. Adam (Friedman, chief engineer) plugged in the computer to the MOTEC system and downloaded the data. It appeared that at some point during the final stint, the engine had been revved to about 11 grand. I think red-line is at about 8,500 or so. (Yes, of course, it does have a rev-limiter. Unfortunately the rev-limiter only works when the engine is accelerating, not when the driver makes inappropriate down-shifts. Why don't we have slipper clutches?) Some three minutes later it began to overheat, big time. And driver number four kept his foot in it, with predictable results; engine seizure. We spent a couple of hours making sure we had no further options, and then began packing it in. And thus ended the Autometrics effort at the 2006 Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona; and maybe the rest of the season as well. I figure this weekend cost Patrick and his co-drivers somewhere in excess of $250,000. And to show for it they've got a wrecked (probably beyond repair) car, an engine that has been trashed, an engine that needs a rebuild and a 1995 Porshe 996 GT3 cup car that's in pretty good condition. All in all, they would have been better off to invest in internet stocks.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow.

George

[arkline]

The onliest consolation I can offer, George, is that at least it wasn't raining.

You'll get 'em next time.