|
Sunday June 10, 2007
Hi All,
Another successful weekend at El Mirage for the Hondata Team.
L to R: David Kirsch, Joe McCarthy, Miriam Macmillan, Doug
Macmillan
We were 15th on the grid after last month's successes and were lucky enough to
run in the cool of the morning (8:09am). Doug ran in the G/GALT (2 Lt gas
altered coupe) class this weekend and achieved a record of 157.162mph, up 10mph
from the previous record of 147mph set in 1986.
Everyone checking out the car on the startline.
Ah... and I had the car clean too. The dust however was good
for spotting the high and low pressure areas.
The run went flawlessly (no high speed slides this time), but we had a few
anxious moments on the start line when the car failed to start. After inspecting
the plugs and finding them covered with soot Dave and Joe removed them all and
cleaned them. In the meantime we had to let another car in ahead of us while we
got our lives sorted out. We were all very relieved when the car burst into life
and no more problems ensued.
Getting us to El Mirage however was not without its challenges. Thursday night,
while tuning the nitrous setup we severely damaged and melted all the sparkplugs
(oops! - the language Doug used was a little stronger). On closer inspection the
next day - Friday - with the engine in bits over Kevin's workshop floor (Epic
Motoring), it was discovered that we got off rather lightly. There were bits of
iridium sparkplug embedded in one cylinder head and one valve had to be replaced
due to a graze on the seat area. At that point Doug decided to run naturally
aspirated (which was going to happen in the July 15 event anyway) and shelve the
nitrous till we had more time to work out what had gone wrong. 10:30pm Friday
night, the car was tuned, on the trailer and ready for the trip to El Mirage.
Joe attempting to pull a piece of iridium sparkplug from the
head.
Kevin and Doug changing the gear box from the damaged engine.
A big thank you goes out to:
Joe McCarthy who built the engine, was there to put it back together after the
little problem, and spent the weekend with us helping out and giving guidance.
Kevin from Epic Motoring who responded to our pleas for help on Friday morning.
Kevin is known for his lightning engine swaps.
Brian from Afterhours Automotive who continues to do a great job on the
fabricating of all our custom bits.
David Kirsh - general all around knight in shining amour who appears when needed
most and continues to train the crew, in the hopes that someday we can do it
without him. He is also teaching Miriam to drink beer, and how put on Doug's
harness etc at the start line.
Many thanks to all our sponsors. Without you we would not have achieved anything
much to date. We are still on target for Bonneville!!!
Regards
Miriam
Back to main page | 