Frustrations & Attitudes

To say this last weekends racing was frustrating is putting it mildly. All weather station predictions were that rain was on the cards for Friday and for whatever reason it never once even looked like rain at all. To some degree even that was frustrating as one now wondered if the predicted clear for Saturday would perhaps now have rain. Anyway at least that was something of which we had no control of and never would either.

As a precaution the rings on the Datti were replaced after the last race and needed bedding in and as such my first session was purely a test session. Everything seemed OK, oil pressures and water temps all fine the only exception being a lack of braking ability. I kept it under 6000 RPM and on my last test lap I stomped on the 'loud peddle' between T3 and T4. Coming out of T4 I noticed no oil pressure and pulled to the right hand side of the track. In hind sight it was not a good idea and I should have stopped completely even though there was no sign of engine noise or any laboring of the engine. Seeing the oil gauge on zero pressure dropped my spirits and emotions and increased my frustrations even more and I sort of resigned myself to the fact that my weekends racing had already come to an end as I would not consider redoing an engine this late in the day. I cruised at idle speed all the way back to my pit not realizing what had actually gone wrong. Upon my return we discovered that the oil cooler adapter had come off from the engine block (with the piping and oil filter still neatly intact and secured) due to the thread having been stripped which essentially meant I was now also guilty of dumping my sump all down the back straight. I duly went to the marshals offices out of my own accord and guilt, owned up and apologized for the mishap. We removed the oil cooler and the adapter and just screwed the filter straight on and bypassed any cooling. I expected the worst and even wondered if filling up with oil was even worth it but without doing so we would not know for sure the extent of any damage. We started up and to everyone's dismay and belief the oil pressure was up at 5 bar pressure and no sign of any engine or bearing failure. I did the last session for the day at 15h15 and everything was perfect other than I still battled to stop. Upon my return to my pit and a debriefing ceremony I again reiterated that the brakes were not up to scratch as per the norm. I was duly informed that oil would take a while to burn off and was likely the cause. In the interim a thorough check was again done and the tappets sounded a little noisy. The tappet cover was removed upon which we discovered a rocker shaft pedestal bolt had stripped in the head. So off to the workshop I went to get heli-coils and whatever else was required to repair the job. In the interim while waiting, the front brakes were checked only to discover there were no brakes left and that being after only 2 races. That was duly replaced with a new set of pads while waiting for me to return to the track. After having then fixed the head gear everything was now ready for qualifying the next morning with a set of brake pads that still needed bedding in. A couple of laps around the pit complex was as best as we could do that evening and I parked the car and went for supper a much happier person for now but still very frustrated at my short sightedness in hindsight.

Saturday mornings qualifying was moved to 07h45 for whatever reason and we were already at the track by 06h15 to do our necessary preparation on both Datsuns. The 140Z was operating like a clock and all that was required was a quick radiator flush and a wipe down of the body. In his qualifying session he posted a brilliant 1:21.9 which gave the 140Z pole position for race 1. The datti on the other hand eventually got down to a qualifying time of 1:28.9 with the brakes still not having been fully bedded as yet but was good enough for the race. I was placed second of the class B cars but with a class C Alfa posting a quicker time than me and thus found myself down in 9th place in the grid out of 27. I had a reasonable start and managed to get ahead of the class C Alfa of Dave Alhadeff from the rolling start but was short of HP on the Scirocco that of Biccari. There was not much pressure on me from behind but that soon changed after lap 6 when I felt I was going slower and slower until I eventually pulled off after lap 7 with a suspected rocker failure. Not wanting to further test fate I duly pulled off onto the Oval between T1 and T2 and secured whatever points I could get having only completed 7 of the 8 laps. In the interim the 140Z ran away from the field and posted his fastest ever time of 1:21.3 and thereby affording him the race win by the proverbial mile. Eventually I was towed to the scrutineers only after the next race upon which it seemed rather odd and soon learned that some very irritated scrutineers were hounding all the clubman cars who had just finished their first race, over the scrutineering bay and were obviously checking each one for any oil leaks. A scrutineer eventually came up to me while I was still parked at the entrance of parc ferme and asked to lift the hood. I duly complied and a small amount of oil was seen on the chassis rail. My issued scrutineered sticker was duly removed and I was told in no uncertain terms 'you can also load your car and go home'. Short and sweet. No option to even repair it for the 2nd heat.

Now even more frustrated I merely complied with such unprofessionalism and neither of the Datsuns along with a few others took any further part (the 140Z also being found guilty of two drops of oil hanging from under the gearbox) of the race event in principal of shoddy attitudes displayed by the scrutineers and on apparent instruction of the C.O.C. of the day.

In the interim I'll consider my further involvement with the club after I have had a good think about who actually pays who to race. (As one clubman competitor said, "in 15 years I've never had to sit out on a race, this is the first time".)

Thanks 'boet' for desperately trying to keep me on the track. In the meantime, PHUKEMALL.