The specific dates and tracks are available from the ITFAIS Racing Schedule page.

NASA Northeast’s 2nd session at Pocono International Raceway ran the 2.5 mile double infield course for both Saturday and Sunday races.  The repaired motor arrived a week before the race, and the car was prepared on time.  After the past 2 seasons of “bad luck” at almost every event, I was frankly just looking for a couple of solid days with good speed and no issues.

We indeed had a couple of good days.  The car ran well, and we continued to slowly dial-in the setup. In the end, we were on the pole both days, won in class and overall both days, and set a track record lap-time.

The Saturday event went without a hitch.  We continued to dial-in the handling of the car — battling a persistent understeer condition through the corners.  We qualified on pole, and stayed in the lead flag to flag to win the race overall and in class.  I lapped every car except 2nd place overall.  Fast lap was a 1:32.585, which at the time was a track record.

The Sunday event also went well.  We only had a combined qualification and practice just after lunch where I ran only 2 laps, and busted out a qualifying lap in the 1:30’s.  We were on old tires, but John had changed gears, and made a few adjustments based on the day before.  The race ended up shortened by a long red flag event due to a major incident in the tunnel turn, but again we started on pole and lead flag to flag.  Fast race lap was a 1:30.873 — a track record.

Video of the Saturday event is located here.

Next event will be the season finale at New Jersey Motorsports Park’s Thunderbolt circuit.

Photo by Andrew Henderson.

My sophomore slump continued during our recent visit to the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course with NASA Great Lakes.  Engine failure caused by the timing belt coming off or breaking during the second Friday practice session caused us to pack-up and head back to New York.

The motor is back at the shop in Maine.  We won’t be ready to run the August Mid-Ohio event either, so I won’t have enough points / races to qualify for NASA Nationals nor will have any practice time.  Seems unlikely I will run at Nationals given the time and expense — if we run its for the win!

The 18 degree motor will either get repaired or we will install the lower power 23 degree motor and run a couple regional events for the rest of 2011.  Probably NASA Northeast’s Pocono event in September and the NJMP Thunderbolt event in late October.

Racing at NJMP, April 2011. Photo by Andrew Henderson.

After a pretty good run at NASA Northeast’s New Jersey Motorsports Park opener in April, we take a long break before the next event.  NASA Nationals are at Mid Ohio this year, so our next 3 events will be there including nationals!

Mid Ohio is my favorite track, but is a long journey from New York City, and logistics are slightly more complex than a local event.  In addition, securing hotel rooms, rental cars, and flights for Nationals can also provide challenges as there are so many people who attend.  Anyway, all of that is now setup so I’m looking forward to the July and August events with NASA Great Lakes and then NASA Nationals with September.

No major changes were made to the car over the winter.  We decided to keep as much the same as possible after learning our lesson last year (everything that changed broke over the course of the season).  This strategy already started paying dividends as the car performed well during the first event and we had mostly minor mechanical issues to work through.

The weather for Saturday’s raceday was horrible, with cold temperatures and wind accompanying on-and-off rain for most of the day.  Given we’re not running for a points championship in NASA Northeast this year, we decided to skip practice.  Qualifying was went, so we decided to start at the back of the field.  As we were staging for the race, it started raining, and we decided to skip the race.  That was that.

Sunday was a much better day weather wise.  We went out for a combined practice / qualify session and took the poll with a fast lap of 1:06.607.  The race started off well, and I was opening a gap to second place by 3 seconds a lap (!!!), then a problem struck.  The power steering starting going in and out on the 5th lap and was getting worse.  By the 7th lap, I had lost all power steering making the car almost impossible to steer (rack&pinion steering with no servo and 28″ of rubber on the front tires will do that!).  A broken power steering fitting and loss of all power steering fluid was the cause of the issue.

I nursed the car to a 1st place finish in class and 4th place overall, thanks to the huge lead I had during the early part of the race.  Before the problem, I set a personal best laptime of 1:06.323.  Even with the problem, not a bad result.

Next event will be at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course as we start to prepare for NASA Nationals!

Front

The ITFAIS Racing schedule is set for the 2011 season.  This year, we are concentrating on winning the National Championship in the Super Unlimited class.  NASA Nationals are held at the Mid Ohio Sports Car Course this year, so we’ve scheduled several events with NASA Great Lakes to test the car and prepare for the intense competition.

We’re also running a few NASA Northeast events when not preparing for Nationals.  The full schedule is available here.

Every August we skip the NASA Northeast event at Lime Rock Park (because the car cannot pass the sound restrictions) and head to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course to run with NASA Great Lakes during their August event.  Due to our poor performance this year, I was reluctant to go due to the cost and time commitment.  However, Mid-Ohio is my favorite track and we wanted to do testing for our trip to NASA Nationals which return to Mid-Ohio next year.

Unknown to me, this event was also billed as the NASA Great Lakes Super Touring Spectacular.  It drew the largest field of Super Touring 1 / 2 and Super Unlimited entries in NASA Great Lakes history.  The event had a typical 3 day format with 1 day of testing and 2 days of practice / qualify / racing.  We used the “club” course configuration for Friday and Saturday (it has a chicane before the keyhole turn) and the “pro” course for Sunday.

We continued to struggle with the handling of the car on Friday.  We made a number of changes and finally got it much better.  At dinner that night, we decided to take another big swing at the car for Saturday’s race.

That final change improved the car to the point of breaking the track record in final practice.  We qualified on pole and were over 4 seconds / lap faster than the next fastest car.  4 laps into the race, it suddenly started raining hard, and I had to pull off the track.  I ended up finishing 2nd in class, because 1 SU car stayed out in the rain but still broke the track record (since 2006) with a 1:29.413 on the club course.

We qualified on pole for the Sunday race also.  This time it stayed dry, and we went flag to flag for the victory.  No track record this time (although we had the pace) because I flat spotted my right front badly on the second lap and had to limp the car home for the win.  My fastest race lap was still a respectable 1:28.884.

Next event will be NASA Northeast’s Thunder at The Glen from Watkins Glen in October.

NASA Northeast’s Pocono Grand Slam is the annual “long course” race catering to high horsepower cars. By coincidence, it was our first race with the new Butler & MacMaster 421ci 18 degree aluminum SBC race motor, so we were excited to try it out. While we had 1 pole, 1 win, and set a new personal best and (unofficial) track record, the weekend ended on a sour note.

Friday was the traditional test day where we ran multiple practice runs on the North Course.  We worked through a number of small bugs, but the main problem was front-end grip.  The car had a tremendous amount of understeer, and we quickly found a radically different chassis setup was needed due to the motor being significantly lighter affecting nose weight.  We ended the day with some 0:53 second laps – not great but better than we started.

Saturday was the first of two race days.  Saturday’s events used the double infield road course.  We were quick out of the box, and qualified on pole position with a personal best and track record time of 1:32.364 – an average speed of over 128 MPH! We were several seconds faster than anyone else, so I took it easy in the race and took the win.  Click here for the in-car video of the race.

We had high hopes for Sunday’s single infield race.  Over the course of Saturday we continued to get a handle on the setup for the new car, and it was starting to respond.  High-speed grip and balance was good with still a significant amount of low-speed understeer.  Those hopes quickly faded during the first practice.

We discovered an aerodynamic bug during the second lap of the first practice.  We reached a top speed of around 190MPH at the end of the long pond straight when the hook buckled, got air under it, and suddenly it ripped off.  It happened very suddenly (my first thought was the motor exploded) and caused significant body damage to the car.  As the hood came off, it ripped up the cowl, hit the windshield, tore a hole in the roof, broke the rear decklid, and struck the rear wing breaking it. Our day was again done.

The weekend ended on a bad note.  Some progress was made, the new motor is strong, we got a pole, a win, and a track record, but also collected the 5th DNS for this year.

Next event is with the NASA Great Lakes region at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in August.

The 2010 racing season has been rough.  We’ve had 4 DNS results in as many races.  After turning half a lap in practice before loading up and heading home at the New Jersey Motorsports Park event in May, we’re ready for a fresh start.

Some lessons were learned and some things have changed.  We know more about the pitfalls of rebuilding a previously reliable car.  We’ve added new steps to the pre-race checkout procedure to make sure the car is 100% ready to go at the shop.  We’ve also finally received and installed the new motor.

The custom Butler & MacMaster built 421ci V8 motor will make its debut at the NASA Northeast Pocono Grand Slam July 16-18.

This new 18 degree motor produces 700bhp from 6300 thru 7400 RPM and produces more then 590 lb/ft of torque down low due to its large displacement.  While the displacement increased, the motor is in the same SBC form factor as the other motors, and is 80lbs lighter due to its all aluminum construction.  The first 3 columns of the dyno sheet above tell the story.

The new motor hopefully will provide a new start to the season for us.

Lets hope so!  See everyone at Pocono next weekend!

2010 ITFAIS Racing NASA Race Car

The 2010 ITFAIS Racing Dodge Charger Super Unlimited NASA racecar was released today and is ready for the first NASA race at New Jersey Motorsports Park on April 17.

There aren’t major changes for this first 2010 release.  The major change will come mid-season with the installation of a new Butler & MacMaster V8 power plant that will sport significant horsepower and torque improvements.

After the 2009 season, the car needed significant maintenance.  After 3 seasons of running, we decided to do a complete rebuild of the car.  The car was taken apart down to the tube chassis which was then stripped.  John Coy of Mach-1 Performance then made some chassis changes and the frame was inspected and magna-fluxed for defects.  It was then powder coated and the assembly started.

The car was built with all new or rebuilt parts — every bolt, nut, and major component was either replaced or completely rebuilt.  Along the way, some improvements were made:

• 2010 Dodge Charger Body with better front aerodynamics and larger wheel well clearance
• 70″ Grand-Am GT carbon fiber rear wing
• Better front brake ducting / cooling
• Interior refinements to eliminate weight and improve visibility

The major change will come in June and will debut at the July Pocono Long race.  The current 23 degree 358ci V8 motor will be replaced with an 18 degree 421ci all aluminum motor from Butler & MacMaster.  This motor will keep a small block form factor with the extra displacement created by a larger bore and stroke.  The aluminum package will further decrease front nose weight while the 18 degree design will increase power but maintain a 8000 RPM package for longer life and fewer rebuilds.  The design goal of the motor is to produce well over 700bhp with torque numbers in the high-600’s under 8000 RPM while removing 80 lbs of weight.

I can’t wait for the first event at NJMP to test the rebuilt car and start a new season!