What a great weekend. This was the first outing for both the 120 and me, I
call it a success as we finished both races and did not break anything.
Drivers school on Thursday eve. and Friday was very well done and well run -
got a lot of much needed track time and some great advice and pointers.
Saturday practice and qualifying I was the slowest in group 2 - if I don't
get some suspension mods done before Gratton they will start calling me the
"White Chicane" ;-) Can't seem to get the power down coming out of the
corners, a lot of lift and wheel spin.
The weather was great Friday and Saturday, overcast on Sunday and it rained
after the group 2 race, not long, but hard! That thinned out the pack for
the later races, one of the last went off with only three starters.
I was down on power in the handicap race - 3,500 rpm was all I could pull in
third gear on the front straight. When I came in we found that the throttle
linkage was slipping, I was only getting 50 to 75% of max! Fixed that and I
took 8 seconds off my best lap time in the group 2 race (I will refrain from
mentioning the time to prevent embarrassment - to me!). The good news is
that although I was two laps down and the last car running - I was running :-)
By the way - for those of you who were there, that big yellow biplane is
1944 Stearman. It belongs to Ed Midgely (Formula Atlantic Lola - early
eighties). He also owns the trailer I was using and helped keep the car
running all weekend. In spite of the weather he got out OK Sunday evening -
out of the false grid onto the front straight, backwards though 7 and 6a,
onto the airstrip at 6 and straight into the air from there.
Now, bigger sway bar, new front shocks, panhard rod,........
Dennis Murphy
Geneva, IL
1952 XK120
1990 XJ-S
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