Race Weekend Overheating and Transmission Failure

[Wakesupremo]

Started off Thursday morning loading my race car onto the trailer ready for the 1 1/2 hour trip to Santa Pod raceway. I had already done the loading up of clothes, fuel , food and ,of course, beer.
I left home at 10,30 am thinking that I would get there about midday or so. Within 2 miles of leaving home and, after hitting a dip in the road I got severe steering wobble, no doubt due to the weight on the rear, and had to virtually stop to settle it down. I then carried on. It was 34 degrees C (approx 100 deg f) . I noticed the engine temp rising and, after 40 mins I had to pull over and let it cool down. It was blowing heavy from the header tank breather. This happened from then on , every 10 miles or so eventually splitting the header tank wide open. I suspected head gasket problems but was determined to get to the track.
I eventually got to the track at 4.30 pm!! I settled in and thought 'I'll tackle that tomorrow'.
I went a bought some epoxy glue, radflush, fresh oil etc etc and on friday morning gave it a bit of a going over!!
To my immense surprise, I fired her up and, no damage, no overheating, nothing.
Blew my racecar transmission to bits Friday first qually session. Loaded the car back on the trailer and chilled all weekend until driving home yesterday absolutely problem free. What a weekend!!!

 

[Chuck v]

All of our "hobbies" by definition consume more time, effort and money that we really have at out disposal -- and motorsports seem to be particularly efficient at all of these. Just sit back and learn enough to not repeat individual issues, and declare progress !!

Chuck

 

[Wakesupremo]

Thanks Chuck. I must admit that I normally have relatively problem free race weekends. I think the extreme heat that we had here was a contributing factor.
My race group, UK Nostalgia Superstocks, (All American 60s muscle cars) Normally put 65/70 cars down the track in 15 mins, This weekend wasn't problem free and we had blown engines, blown transmissions and all manner of other issues. It took an hour every time.

 

[Chuck v]

I guess I had not made the connection of your racing hobbies to drag racing rather than track events. Several lifetimes ago I was tangentially involved in the handicap start equipment that allowed small meets to have bracket racing...as I worked as a technician for the original Chrondek company back in the early 1960's prior to my going to college. It was the original shop in La Verne, California and we made the strip timers, the light sensor units, and the 'christmas tree' light stand with the classic half second stepping yellow floods leading up to the green, which were independent for each lane. The original units used stepping relays and were rather crude, but we soon went to solid state switching.

The timer units in the tower had glow transfer counter tubes for fine resolution (.001 and .01 seconds), with a mechanical counter for the tenths and whole seconds -- below is a picture.

Each lane had 1/4 mile elapsed time display plus a "time through the traps" at the end of the quarter -- which was converted to top speed by a look up chart.

Chrondek also made fast draw timers for a completely different type of competition...

Chuck

 

[Wakesupremo]

Wow. Some history there.

 

[proost]

That's great. The guy I just sold my coach to is a motorbike drag racer and the old girl is now doing the circuit on the east coast.