<VV> Track & Convention - Part One

[Sethracer at aol.com]

Well the last awards are given out, a 65 Monza was auctioned off, an 
invitation to gather again in  Jacksonville, FL in 2009 was issued. The 2008 Corsa  
Convention is done. The stories will be in the Communique shortly, probably with 
 plenty of photos. Since I don’t do “blogs”, I thought I would, instead, 
give a  short narrative of my week in Southern  California.  
This is part one: "Willow Springs" 
Last week I had gathered up all of Silicone Wires “stuff”, including  
everything from Steering wheel hubs to Steering boxes, billet distributors to –  
surprise – ignition wire sets, filling most of the back of my Avalanche. The  
rest of the space was dedicated to carrying all of the service stuff and  
wheels/tires/etc for the “Stinger” race car - which I was flat-towing behind -  and 
our personal gear for a week at the Corsa convention. The car was just  
completed, at least completed enough to take the trip and I was as done working  on 
it as I could be. We were packed up and headed out to Willow Springs raceway  
in Rosamond, CA on last Saturday morning. Heading down I5,  keeping a low 
profile 60 mph, everything just hummed along. Climbing the  grapevine in 100 
degree ambient temps lifted the truck’s temp a bit, but was not  a concern. We 
headed East on CA 128, tracing most of the route we use for the  Fan Belt Toss in 
Palm Springs each year. The outside temps kept climbing and as  we turned off 
onto some small roads to stop at the racetrack, it hit 110 degrees  F. And it 
didn’t go down soon either! There were no other Corvairs hanging out  at the 
track, so we drove on into Rosamond and found the motel. Several Corvair  folks 
were there, including Jack Pinard, the organizer, and Warren LeVeque, who  
had towed a bit further than I – from Indiana.  Others drifted in, Jonnie 
Berkman and Rod  Bean among them. As more folks arrived we started a tech inspection 
on the  available cars. One result of that was the finding of a massive oil 
leak out of  the pan gasket on Ken Burton’s car. (massive like a big puddle) 
Now what to do,  on a Saturday evening in a hot small town. Nobody had an extra 
pan gasket, so he  bought some “Gasket-in-a-can” and a few quarts of oil. The 
car got jacked-up,  the rest of the oil drained, and the pan was pulled. Ken 
cleaned everything off  and glued everything together and waited for the 
morning. He poured in the oil  and the goop sealed fine and he ran that day on the 
track. (He also ran the  Convention autocross on Friday. Still holding!) The 
track was cooler the next  day – but not much! 107F was the eventual temp on  
my truck’s thermometer. We got to the  track a bit after 7AM and I set about 
changing over from the tow tires to the  race tires – Old Toyo RA1s. (Hey, these 
worked fine at Portland in 2005!) The new  organization, CAR, is not as 
organized as the NECC track folks, and it showed.  Fortunately, the laid-back 
California attitude prevailed and everyone got  pretty much as much track running 
as they wanted. The high temps acted as a  restrictor on many of the cars – and 
the drivers. The three groups were  generally broken out by experience and 
performance potential. Warren LeVeque,  Mark Wright and Ray Deegan – in his V8, 
were the quickest out of the gate – No  surprises there!  After a few laps  my 
Gen-Fan light popped on and I tip-toed around to the pits with a broken  
(brand new!!!) fan belt. Like any good Corvair guy, I had a few (5!) spares,  just 
in case. Since I had anticipated high heat, I was running a good Synthetic  
Racing oil (Red Line brand) and no damage seems to have resulted. My car has 
the  LeVair half-speed fan kit, but I must have not adjusted the belt correctly. 
 After replacement, the new-new belt was fine and remained so throughout the 
rest  of the week. My car had other problems, the engine sounded more like a 
threshing  machine than a Corvair. But most of the sub-systems worked fine. The 
ducted and  fan-assisted front mounted cooler worked fine, the all-new 
4-wheel disks were  excellent, even my “iffy” new clutch worked well. The valve 
train, kind of  experimental on my part, was noisy though and I will have to tear 
it down and  find out why. The car handled well on the course. The heavy 
around town steering  lightened up at track speeds and the Toyos, once warmed up, 
allowed placement of  the car wherever I wanted. I played with the pressures a 
little bit, but it was  too hot to do much more. The car can probably use 
even stiffer sway bars. I went  out in the later session and turned my fastest 
laps in that session (still  nothing very quick) and I took Rod Bean for a few 
laps. He has hundreds (maybe  thousands) of miles on that track and gave me 
several tips. As I pushed harder,  the head temps started creeping up, along with 
the oil temps. As I crossed 400F  head temp and 240 oil temp, I decided to 
bring it in and save some motor for the  convention autocross, since it was 
still sounding terrible. I talked Rod into  driving me around for a few laps in 
his 2004 Z06 Corvette. He is a good driver  and showed me the limits of his 
Vette. I wasn’t quite able to talk him into  letting me drive him around in it. 
(You can’t win them all!) As we finished up  our time at the track, people 
departed for the convention. Mark Wright and I  planned two different routes to 
Ventura, trying to determine the shortest  route. I filled the Avalanche up in 
Filmore, CA,  setting a new personal record in dollars per fill up, $122. I was 
averaging 17.2  MPG in the Avalanche, while flat-towing. Not too bad.  
Next time, Part Two – arrival in Ventura.  
- Seth Emerson




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