Alex and Ron left the TDI Club dyno-day early Saturday afternoon to head up to New Hampshire Motor Speedway. COM Sports Car Club was hosting the October NHMS Time Trial, the second to last of the season.

Alex went out in the first run-group, excited to feel the changes to the suspension that were the result of DSGs’ Scot corner weighting the car prior to the event. Unfortunately only a few laps were made before the water pump belt was shredded.

Luckily Bill, Nick, Matt and Scot had planned to come up to spectate at the event, so were able to buy a belt on the way up. Alex made quick progress and fixed the problem.

Ron had to make it thought tech-inspection in between the drivers meeting and the first run group. It was a rushed operation, and the time-trial days typically don’t have a tech on duty for the morning. The car passed tech, and Ron headed out to the pit lane. Ron was excited to see if the new fuel tank changes they made prior to the event would stop any of the fuel starvation issues he was seeing at VIR.

During the warm-up lap, in the first corner after turn 6-”The Bowl”, Rons hood flipped up, smashing the windshield, breaking the support lattice under the hood, and denting the roof.

“Luckily it happened in the warm-up lap, in a place where I was able to take the car off-line safely and correct the problem. I think in my rush to get out in the beginning of the first session, I failed to double-check the hoodpins after the tech-inspection. I assumed the hood pins were secured. It a hard lesson to show how important preparation and focus is not-only on the track, but in the pits as well.”

said Ron about the incident.

Tech inspectors deemed the winshield damage too severe, and the car wasn’t allowed back on the track.

Alex headed out during his second session, having fixed the water pump belt problem. At this point the track surface was drying up and conditions were good. The first few laps were fairly solid, with a 4-wheel drift on cold tires into a damp corner #3, but he manage to save it. A few laps later however, 4th gear gave way, forcing Alex to quickly pit in. The tranny was useless.

According to Alex:

“The day was a mixed success. Obviously breaking a brand new gearbox wasn’t in my plan but experiences like this show the observer a few things. One, the car has to be balanced. No amount of power is going to win an event. The rest of the car has to be developed properly. In this case, we knew the course of action but money was the obstacle for equipping the car with a proper racing gearbox after we broke the 500whp mark. We’ll work on that. Second, you can never be too ready. Preparation, as I’ve found will only increase your luck, because in the end you have to be lucky in motorsports.”

Ron on his thoughts on the weekend:

“Overall I’m pretty disappointed, If i had gotten some hot laps I would’ve been less-so. Its not the repair costs or the wasted money for the weekend that pissed me off as much as that I didn’t get a single competitive lap in. On the bright side, I learned a useful lesson, and got it on video, so a few people have said that they got some lolz out of it. It could’ve been worse.”

Gallery

Video

NHMS Time Trial Practice COM Club 2008 October from Alexander Grabau on Vimeo.

Forgetting is expensive from Ron Adams on Vimeo.