FINALLY! What to say. Its been a crazy two weeks of back to back racing. Finished Round 2 top drift with a 2nd place qualifying and 1st place finish. Then going straight to Vegas drift round 4 where I did not qualify. Life is fantastic in its diversity of highs and lows.... but in the end .... high and low are only based in perspectives. I choose to have my lows become building blocks to even greater highs! it aint about how hard you hit. Its about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. Thats how winning is done! Quick recap. I made some changes in the rear suspension geometry of the car going into Round 2 topdrift. After my 2nd place finished in top drift round 1 battling with Alex, I realized how slow my car was despite the 500HP under the hood. I did some research and asked around and I now feel that the car is FINALLY 100%. Some drop knuckles in the rear end with a new more aggressive rear end alignment sent my car OFF THE HOOK with grip. Before where the car spun tires relentlessly, now it grips and accelerates. It is a completely different animal. Harder to drive... but substantially on point given the correct driver feedback. I feel, I need to once again to become a better driver to extract the most of of this car. With more grip... comes more problems. I been going through axles at the rate of about 15-20 laps from brand new axles to .... substantial play in the joints and reliability becomes an issue. Besides the increase in traction, the car also got brand new front end, sides skirts and a carbon fiber wrap to give it a more uni-colored look. I feel that i can now take care of my car and the body kit with out crashing out every event :) so its time to update the look. topdrift round 2. Started out great. Got to the track Friday night, hanged out with some friends, kicked back and just relaxed before the event. Saturday was laid back. Everyone took it easy. I took the car out for 4 laps. Spotted the initiation point and figured out the line. Ready for qualifying on Sunday. There was a little bit of hesitation in the car and the air to fuel ratio was progressively getting leaner and leaner. I have been trying to figure out the issue over the last 2 month by progressively adjusting tune and timing figuring it was a lean spot in my tune.. however, everything looked great on the fuel and timing map. I changed out the fuel pump and cleaned the fuel filters on Saturday night as a preventive step. Some how I ended up pulling an injector and to my surprise, the tip was coated with a thick layer of black GUNK!.... It had the consistency of tar and the nozzles where completely muddled up. Spray patters must have been abysmal. Went straight to Google to find that apparently it is very common for E85 cars to have the magic goo build up after a while of driving.... well.... i havent cleaned the injectors since July of 2013 :) Went to autozone, got some seafoam. Between swigs of Angry Orchid, procrastination and friendly conversations, the injector was cleaned. WOW! what a difference. No more lumpy idle, on throttle hesitation was X-ed out. Qualifying was straight forward. Two solid runs, hit all the zones and make out 2nd for qualifying. Top16 was a blur. I drove my best. Moved on to top 8, top4, then finally 1st place. I dont remember much of the battles but I do recall having a great time doing it. Came out 1st that day and smiles all around. I did leave the track with a dark cloud. After the event, I wanted my friend Matt Dale to drive my car. As we go to fire it up, there was a very loud piston slaping noise. With vegasdrift just 1 week away, a motor rebuild would have been a disaster. Coming home to what was suppose to be a relaxed week of car prep has immediately turned into crisis management. Started trouble shooting as soon as I touched home base sunday night. Monday, pulled the top end apart, ran a compression test, bore scoped the cylinders. When everything looked just fine. I suspected a bottom end issue and starting pulling the car apart in preparation for a rebuild. Tuesday, as im getting to the very last step of taking off the exhaust manifold and dropping the motor i find two loose manifold bolts on cylinder 1. :) ah ha! problem solved. Wednesday consisted of race prep and putting the car back together. Thursday finally finished with the car and loaded the trailer. Come Friday morning... as im loading the car into the trailer... the clutch just goes to the floor. This is my worst nightmare. The dog box went in on Thursday night a little bit stiff. It ended up being misaligned and pulling it in with the bolts where a bad idea. I knew better but figured no biggy. The throwout bearing is a special application and after calling around no on had one on hand. At this point this weekend was not looking good. My only option was to put back the T56. In a last ditch effort to fix the issue, I ended up taking the throw out bearing a apart and to my surprise an o-ring was broken to which i had an exact fix! Threw everything back together, loaded up and off the vegas I went. Spent the night at Matts house and was treated to a wonderful swordfish diner and desert. Went to bed around 2:30am. Saturday race day started out really good. Up at 6am, left for the track at 7:30am. 1st run. scope out the track. 2nd run.... just awesome. On point with all the clip and hitting the zones. Car was feeling amazing. Went for about 5 laps in the first session, felt good, shut her down and waited for qualifying. The second practices session comes buy.... I went out for 3 more laps. Instead of picking out an initiation point or isolating tire pressure. I was just having fun and as i pull back to the pits. I hear the dreaded clicking of my axles. Ended up changing axles in the mid day sun right before qualifying. At that point, not having eaten anything for breakfast and being dehydrated, the conditions where getting the upper hand. I was extremely sluggish and could not focus a solid thought in my head. Came qualifying, the first run was a 0. I hesitated on initiation, didnt hold the ebrake long enough and ended up straightening out on the first turn. Second run was the same situation. Since I didnt pick a reference point to initiate from, i went in to the first zone unsure of where i should be. Dropped one wheel off in the dirt for a 10 point deduction on a weak run. At the drivers meeting. I knew that if I wasnt called in 15 or 16th qualifying position, my date was done. Didnt deserve to qualify that day. Ran pretty horrible lines and was not on point as i usually am. By the time the competition came by and i was helping Matt change tires, I recoved my sharpness and was no longer fatigued. It was too late. I ended up helping Matt Dale with his car and gave him a couple of tips for top 16 and top8. I got to play the role of a spotter and see the process behind the scene. It was much needed insight as to what Mattt needed and also what I will need in the future. I feel a crew chief/spotter needs to be someone who can make changes behind the scene, give the driver tailored driving strategy for each battling opponent and also have the ability to lie to the driver to save them from themselves Matt was running 50 psi on his tires all day and that was his comfort zone. On his runs with Moore, i dropped his tire pressure to 45 psi to compensate for the speed and hp of the opposing car. Gave matt a couple quick tandem game plan, a thumbs up and finally 50 psi, ready to go . Just something small as this allows the driver to keep focus on the battle at hand and not get distracted by the numbers I knew matts car/driving technique as well as moores driving ability and car setup to make that judgement call. I knew at that point the adjustment is exactly what he needed. I learned a lot and realized that being a spotter, it takes more than just telling it like it is. To be effective, the spotter or person in charge needs to be able to talk to the driver on a level that connects with them and also omit information which can be a distraction. The ability to give advice and battle strategy comes directly from seat time and driver experience. The weekend ended with new perspective and a much needed month off from drifting. A little R&R and Ill be back ready for round 3 top drift and round 5 vegas drift. Big thanks for my media partners, #mangusonsuperchargers #deatschwerks #achillesradial #batterversion #inlandempiredrivelineservice #windinghighwaystudios #adamsmotorsportspark There is no success with out failure. Should lessons be learned through failure, i see that as success. Adjustments have been made going forward to ensure optimal peak performance on track. Lets do this. As always, I know you all live busy lives. I appreciate your time. Spike Chen
Posted on: Mon, 02 Jun 2014 20:35:05 +0000
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