No tech inspection I know of would have caught that. You had to remove bodywork
and other pieces to see it, and then it was only by chance it was noticed. On
top of that, many autocrossers are not familiar with Sp2000s and their problems.
I tend to side on the annual tech idea. Many of the incidents where a wheel
comes off due a stud failure, or a clutch explodes are caused by a failure that
tech would not catch. For example, I'm sure both the Lotus Elan at last year's
nationals or Tommy Saunder's FF at the Texas Tour, went through tech inspection
at those events, yet wheels came off. Tech did not prevent it from happening.
--Pat Kelly
Hottvr@aol.com wrote:
> Before today I might have been in favor of the "Annual Tech Inspection" Idea.
> Not
> now though!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Today we pulled the bodywork off the the March
> S2000. The car
> had taken some real pounding last weekend at a local event. The surface was
> less than ideal to say the least(It sucks) I won't be running there again! I
> had
> bottomed very violently on my second run and called it a day. At the end of
> the event
> I knew that I had cracked one of the sidepods on the left side. We pulled it
> apart
> today to repair the fiberglass damage. One of my Senior Engineers was helping
> with the teardown. We fixed the glass and at about the same time noticed a
> small
> crack in the left rear bearing carrier. We removed the suspension from the
> left rear
> of the March. We then pressed out the bearings, sanded the paint away and
> "Heli-Arc welded the crack. When I got home tonight I went down to the
> basement and went through my spares boxes. There I found a spare rear bearing
> carrier and two
> front spindles. They will be with me in the trailer from now on! I guess the
> point Im trying to make here is that even when you do a really good job of
> maintaining a car, sometimes the stresses of AutoXing catch up with it
> quickly.
>
> What do you guys think of this one?
>
> Mike B. TLS#1
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