Pensacola FL Sailing Blog – sailingnightwatch

This past weekend was race weekend, and we did a Chin event at Road Atlanta. They do not race, but do drivers education. My son is an instructor, and the organizers get you more track time then anyone. We use it for testing and fine tuning. It was good that we were not racing because it was one of those weekends that the car wants to sit and not run.

Car came in from a run, got shut down and died. We replaced the starter and still nothing. There is a problem called hydrolock in which a liquid gets into a cylinder and will not compress. An injector can hang open and flood the cylinder, but it should evaporate. Oil can get into the cylinder, and you pull the car backwards about 15-20 feet. That will drain the fluid through the exhaust valve and should clear the problem. Still no start.

That killed Saturday, and Sunday AM we pushed the car off. I rode on the first part of the session and my wife rode a few laps after that. The last half the session my son got to do his thing. When he came in the car shutdown at the end of the cool down lap and coasted to a stop in the cold pits. Towed it back to the trailer and the battery was totally dead. Charged the battery up to 11 volts with the truck and pushed it to start and drove it into the trailer. It then started to rain, and we went home.

The ride was unbelievable. The track has a lot of hills that give you a couple blind corners as one crests hills. The slowest corner is about 55MPH, after which you start down the back straight. It is mostly down hill and that’s where we were running 140+. Never been that fast on land before. At the end of the straight you make a 90 deg left, then sweep right up a hill over a crest and down into a right onto the front straight. As you crest the hill, you are going under a bridge that has different color strips on that the race line is lined up with them. Cool. Best right I ever had.

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