The first 2 practice sessions went really good with no problems. I got
turns 4 and 5 figured out by using the advice from Tony Drews last year to
throw away turn 3A and just line up for 4 and 5. The car was working
really good through there then. In the qualifying session it was running
really good again but about = way through the session accelerating in 3rd
gear it would come up to 3000 RPM and then just hit a wall and not go any
higher. Not missing, just not accelerating, then after a couple of seconds
it would take off and run right up to 5000 or 5500. A bit later it did the
same thing in 4th, up shift and it would only go so far and hang there and
then after a couple second, take off again. It did this intermittently
around the track. After about 2 laps of this I came in. We found the
alternator was not putting out any voltage and further checking showed our
Optima Red battery was 5-1/2 years old and low on voltage. We charged it
before the sprint race and the car ran well for about 4 laps and then
started the same problem. I came in early again. We did notice that the
battery didnt seem to be charging right.
That was the last session and we went into town and got a
new Optima Red battery. We made sure it was fully charged by putting it on
our charger in the motel room overnight. For the feature race on Sunday the
car ran great, for about 10 or 11 of the 14 laps. Then the problem cropped
up again, but not as bad. I was able to finish the race. We did check the
resistance of the coil (Lucas Sport) just as I came off the track on
Saturday and the primary was a little high, 3.5 ohms instead of the normal
2.9 3.0.
In the feature race, the car was again really working good!
I could really run hard and hold a good line through the corners with a lot
of power. About midway through the tires started to go off (Speedsters) and
it got harder to hold it in the corners and I finally had to back off a
little.
I was getting some wheel spin off of some of the corners
which was a little odd as we have a Detroit Locker. Is there a way to check
out the Locker by manually turning the wheels with the car off of the
ground? And, is there anything to check by taking the cover off of the diff
and looking in?
A great weekend with my partner and son Ryan crewing this
time. What a fantastic way to spend Fathers Day! And, no rain and dry
paddock, a rarity at Blackhawk. My best lap, in the Feature, was a 1.31.2,
2.5 seconds better than my best lap time last year. So it was definitely a
success for me!
Tim Murphy
1961 TR4 #317
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