<VV> ULTRA Monza definition #3

[J R Read_HML]

OK...  I'm going to make this the final installment even though there are 
plenty of other stories on this car.

First of all, I did mention that I have a partner on this car but did not 
mention his name.  Dominic Perino is known to many of you and we own this 
car together.  Dom worked for lclc for a number of years and is quite handy 
around Corvairs.  I've learn a lot from him over the past several years.

Another clarification..  Those who saw the picture at Rich's (spyder62) 
website need to know that the wheels on the car in those shots are 
"loaners".  They are worth 2 to 3 times what we have into the car.  We 
normally run 14" steel wheels and non-studded tires on the ice.

This has to do with the Chicago convention and the Blackhawk farms event the 
day before - Tuesday was it?  Anyway, icemoblie normally is tucked away in 
the summer months (outside).  We put a tarp on it this past summer - one of 
our many upgrades!  So, with the convention in Chicago and an actual road 
race (summertime stuff) so near by, I simply could not resist.  We got the 
car out about 10 days or so before the event and started looking things 
over.  Not too much was needed, but I DID want to be sure I could stop it if 
need be.  So, it got (can I say this) new, stock brake lining.  It also got 
a new RF brake line, but we did not want to go through the effort to drop 
the tank, so that was run through the passenger compartment.  The system was 
basically cleaned out and fresh fluid inserted.  I KNEW I could stop and 
that made me happy.

We (Dom and I) arrived at the track just as tech was finishing and we had 
made a mistake on the way there.  Since the car had been parked for about 4 
months, it seemed like a good idea to have fresh gas in it when we arrived 
at the track.  So, we waited until we were nearly there to fill up with 93 
just a few miles from the track.  The idea was to get as much FRESH gas into 
it as we could.

When we arrived at tech, gas was dripping from the filler neck.  This caused 
closer inspection (face it, it looked like a rattle trap - but we knew 
everything was JF).  So, the inspector decides one of the front wheel 
bearings is too loose and FLUNKS the car.  Now what?  Well, we hurry up and 
tighten the bearing and make an appeal on the inspection.  The head guy 
(race director? - I don't recall the title), finally agrees after much 
pleading to allow the car to run on a "conditional" basis.  The conditions 
were that we burn enough gas out by leaving the car idle so that it won't 
leak AND that if he sees ANYTHING that he does not like on our first run, we 
will be DQd for the day.  We took that deal - it was the only one available 
and we felt lucky to get it.

It is about this point that I found out Dom was not going to run, anyway. 
He had never registered even though we had agreed to share the car that day. 
So, it is up to me to look really good (which I did) and not make any 
mistakes or spill any fluids on that "inspection" run.  Got past that OK.

So, the car is running really well and it has fresh brakes.  Tires are 
pretty good too, they were new when we bought it and it normally is run with 
snow tires, so the "street" tires had not seen much street time..  They were 
only two ply (cheap tires), but that is what we had and what we ran on.  On 
each run, I wait longer and longer before hitting the brakes at the turns. 
This is working well and I'm getting faster and faster.  I'm not going to 
tell you here, JUST where I was applying the brakes by the last couple of 
runs, but there was not much space left and I had to get on them hard. 
Stock brakes, remember!

Well, by the end of the day I had WON MY CLASS and used up 1/2 of the fresh 
shoes.  Had the drums pretty much glowing after each of those later runs, 
but never experienced any significant fade.  What a great day - and the last 
story on this car - at least for a while.  The car that "flunked" tech - won 
the class!  Oh, had we BOTH been driving the car that day, there is no way I 
could have gotten away with that kind of vehicle abuse.

Attachments (if any) are scanned with anti-virus software.

Later, JR
'61 Rampside Standard 4/110
'65 Monza Convertible 4/140
'66 beater Coupe - icemobile 4/140