Yup. I got the Radical put back together at the last minute on Saturday
and did a late entry for Sunday's race. I had to stick in a new
engine--one rod is probably stretched a bit in the Kawasaki motor, there
was a clean spot in the carbon on head of the number 1 cylinder so I
couldn't just hone the stuck cylinder (#3) and replace the piston. I
would have torn the motor down and checked/replaced the rods, but the rod
bolts are stretch-to-yield and no one in town had any. Fortunately the
guys I bought the car from had a new engine available straight from
Kawasaki. Unfortunately I had to do a lot of work to make it race-ready
(remove the balancer system, install the dry sump system, replumb the
cooling system, etc.) plus the head was stock and the Radicals use a
flowed head, so I pulled the head off the old engine and replaced the
valves. By then it was Saturday afternoon, so I missed practice and the
first qualifier.
Fortunately they let me late enter. I broke the engine in during
qualifying and put the car on the pole with my last lap.
This was an ICSSC race, so the categories for sports racer are different
than SCCA, and they lump a lot of car types into one race group. My
Radical runs as FSR which is 1000 cc or less. The run all the way to ASR
which I think is 2 liters. And they toss in a bunch of open wheel cars,
including F500 and Formula Atlantics.
Very long race, I was running out of steam by the end because there was no
room to rest--I had a bunch of CSR, DSR and ASR sports racers, a couple of
FAs and a REALLY fast F500 (damned snowmobiles) on my ass the entire race,
but I managed to keep them there and won overall.
In between the qualifier and the main I ran back to the trailer, changed
into Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes and went to a charity brunch with my
wife who's on the board. Barely made it back in time to get to the grid.
Pretty frantic weekend. I spent Sunday night laying in the hot tub trying
to figure out why I work so hard to have fun. But I did.
-----Original Message-----
From: Catpusher@aol.com [mailto:Catpusher@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 10:36 AM
To: Bill Babcock
Subject: Resolved UPS Issue
Bill,
I just resolved the UPS issue,
and I should get the package with $22.13 customs due shortly.
Tracking 1Z8W16166688923760 sent to me from CM.
Did you race last weekend?
TR Regards,
Hardy
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