Spitfire Vintage Racing Continued....
Rocky Mountain Vintage Racing, Colorado
Kirk Buecher '63 Triumph Spitfire #189
At the end of driver's school I had two big action items. First, put some
decent tires on the car, second, raise rollbar or lower seat.
I went to work. The tires, pulled the less than year old tires off of my
work car, had them mounted, balanced and put them on the Spitfire. They
are 175 70 13's, SR rated, no-name specials. I would love to buy some new
008RTU's, but want to save what's left in my race fund in case something
like a tranny or rearend breaks. The bottom line was they are softer than
the rocks I had on the car. On to the rollbar. I was only about 1 inch
taller than the rules wanted me to be, so I hoped that I could find that
inch (or more) in the seat. Unbolted both seats, (Fiberglas shells covered
with foam and vinyl), removed the seat adjustment stuff and the square
tubing that it was bolted to, swapped the two buckets for a better fit,
and after a couple of hours trying to find the perfect placement, replaced
passenger seat and then bolted the driver's side seat flat to the floor.
Now I have a good four to five inches between the top of my helmet and the
top of the roll bar, the rules stated I had to have two inches. I also now
have enough room for my legs and feet so that good heel & toe action is
possible. Best of all, it just feels better to be tucked down into the car
a bit more.
One weekend before the first race of the season, our club, RMVR, had
arranged a test and tune day. This was held at Mountain View Raceway,
located about 40 miles north of Denver, it is a 1.7 mile track with
somewhat longer straights, tighter corners with less banking, fewer places
to safely pass, with an overall rougher surface than the Second Creek
track. My main objectives were to try out the new tires, find the right
pressures to run them at, and just get some more seat time in. The car is
running fine, so decided not to fool with the timing or the Weber.
About 35 cars showed up, with many of those being first year drivers like
myself. After a quick re-tech and OK by the same gentleman who caught the
rollbar problem at the drivers school, we then stood around for an hour
waiting for the track manager to get his act together. We finally hit the
track at 10am. We went out in groups of 12 cars at a time and ran for
20min sessions. The first several laps I took pretty easy while learning
the track and warming the Spitfire up. Soon, we were spread around the
track to the point it almost felt like you had the place to yourself. This
is what I needed, a chance to learn the car better and work on my
technique in a low pressure environment. Toward the end of my first
session, I had picked up my pace a good deal and was starting to notice
how the car wanted to both understeer at times and at others try to swing
the rear end around. These odd handling characteristics soon lead to a
minor off-road side trip. Finished the session and dropped my tire
pressure from 32lbs down to 28lbs, all around.
In the second session, the understeer was almost gone but the Spitfire was
still tail happy. This also caused another minor off-track experience when
I was too busy watching the car in front of me take a different line
through a difficult corner. Also in this session I gained an appreciation
of how fast and clean Formula Fords drive and handle, when of group of
three lapped me a couple of times. The only thing that's not clean about
these things is the incredible amount of dirt, sand, small rocks, and tire
bits they throw up in the air and at your car when they pass you. Every
time they went by, I felt like I had been "slimed". Glad we don't normally
run together.
After a hour break for lunch and a quick double check of all fluids as
well as the lug nuts, I was ready for more. I had dropped the rear tire
pressures down to 25lbs and now the Spitfire felt good. The remaining
understeer was controllable with the application of more power. The rest
of the afternoon was close to perfect, as much track time as you could
handle and not many other cars to worry about. For playmates, I had a very
nicely prepared TR-3 that I could keep up with when the wife was driving
but didn't have a chance when the husband took his turn, and a newly
rebuilt Datsun Roadster that was burning enough oil to heat a small house
in upper Minnesota in mid-winter. Every time this Datsun came off the
track, his friends(?) would ask, "Those rings seated yet?", when it was
clearly obvious they hadn't. It didn't take much time behind this "oil
burner" to motivate me to pass and stay in front of this guy. The rest of
the cars there were a good deal faster.
RMVR's only other Spitfire was also in attendance. This is a former SCCA
race car that has been very successfully running Vintage for the last two
years. It had been for sale during the off season for about $8500. The new
owners, a couple in their early fifties, had bought this car so that they
wouldn't have to run their Super Seven any more. I like to see this other
Spitfire as often as I can to give me a goal to shoot for. It is a very
well built and fast car. But on this afternoon I was glad to have my Spit
when they spent close to two hours trying to start it only to find that
the starter had chewed up the aluminum flywheel to the point the pinion
had jammed itself into a particularly bad spot and had locked things up
tight.
The most noteworthy car was a perfectly restored 1958 AC Ace Bristol. It
was mainly olive green with a red nose that narrowed and continued into a
stripe that ran down the center of the car, it looked much better than
this may sound. Wire wheels with knock off's, complete interior with
leather seats, all the gauges and chrome looked like new. Watching the Ace
on the track I was surprised by it's straight-line performance which was
very good and amazed by how well it cornered. It sits up way too high and
was running on skinny old racing Dunlop's but still managed to scoot
around the corners quickly and without fuss. It also made a wonderful
sound that could easily be picked out of the crowd anywhere around the
course. After doing a bit of research I've found that this car was one of
only 468 built and that AC Ace Bristol's were the kings of SCCA E-class
production for many years as well as winning the 2 liter GT class at Le
Mans in '58. Seeing a treasure like this run at speed is what Vintage
racing is all about!
When the afternoon ended at about 4pm, I loaded the Spitfire up on the
trailer feeling very good about the day. My new tires were a big
improvement, I am starting to feel comfortable in the car at speed, heel
& toe downshifts are coming easier, I am thinking and driving smoother,
and other than one series of corners, felt like I have learned the track.
I'm still a long way from calling myself a race car "driver", but this
novice is making progress.
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