Gratten FF1600 results

[Tim FF19]

So what happened? Was there a race? Was a winner declared? Inquiring minds want to know.

[ccambern]

FF Results:

Cambern
Roberts
Dietz
Hallman
Wagner
Jones
Davison
Ruedisueli


Russ turned in a great qualifying effort and was on the pole by over a second. Mark qualified second, Jim R. third, and I was fourth.

Mark, Russ and I broke away early and had a great race for five or six laps. Then Russ had some sort of electrical problem and pulled off heading up to 11. Mark and I swapped the lead a couple more times before he lost OP and pulled in. Great race- a little chilly, but no snow...

-Clark

[Craig Jones]

Either Hallman or Wagner went off track at turn 11/12 the last time by before the checker. It was a yellow Van Diemen. It came in on a hook. Does anyone know what happened there?

I was fighting a sticking throttle from about lap 5 on. It wouldn't go back to idle, which made each downshift an adventure.

Congrats to Clark!

[ccambern]

I believe Hallman broke a rear pushrod coming onto the front straight- pretty exciting! John W. also broke one in qualifying...

-Clark

[Jim Hallman]

The right rear pushrod bent in half going into the last turn! It was a good ride. The mazda got further up the hill than I did though. I ended up pointed in the right direction in the grass on the side of the track, some one on pit wall motioned for me to go, so I did. The right rear was going about 200 mph, while the rest of the car was doing maybe 20! Have a melted hunk of rubber for a right rear now.

[ccambern]

Jim- odd failure. Was the pushrod extended too far, or had it been in an accident before?

-Clark

[Craig Jones]

1. Jim is referring to a Pro Mazda in FA that went up the hill in the same place earlier in the day. That was JR Walker in a Pro One car. A broken rear rear upright caused that wild ride. I don't think he hit the guardrail at the top of the hill though.

2. I heard that Mark Davison lengthened the chassis on his DB-1. Does anyone know more about that?

3. Just FYI, I'm now driving an RF98 that I bought from former CenDiv competitor Dane Whaley over the winter. A few people came up and said they thought the car looked familiar. It is still all black.

[Jim Hallman]

Clark, no and no. We had a scrape with the wall at Carolina in Feb. but that whole corner was new, right down to the nuts and bolts. The bend in the pushrod was right about in the centre of the length of it. I or the mechanic did not notice any dents or anything else wrong with the pushrod prior to the race, and we do go over the car between sessions. The pushrod was in two pieces when I got home.
Chalk it up to it could have been worse. By the way, that was my first visit to Grattan. I thought that after driving Mosport, Watkins Glen and Mid Ohio, to name a few, I was past being terrifyied on the track. But with all those off camber and totally blind corners, Wow! And the jump! Something to savour for a while.
Jim

[Stu Pidd]

Jimmy,

The 'hump' is pretty tame compared to pre-paving the track. In my Lotus 7 I was airborne for quite a stretch. After they reduced the hump, it just increased the revs a little bit.

[Joefisherff]

Do you think this could be caused by the increased spring rates that people are running? Do you need to increase the wall thickness of a pushrod if you drastically increase spring rates over stock? I've seen some guys running 1000-1200# springs and I would think the pushrods would bear the brunt of that increase? Any thoughts?