Story's from the other solo National's

[CM/FFdriver]

So how has a good story from their time at the Solo National's from break downs, to just losing, to your best win, maybe some mechanical issues story's.

Mine is a mechanical, Had this little plastic hose connector that I had run for 2 years even the National's before this decided to melt on my first run, came in popped the hood and right in front of me it melted, had a spare one in the truck and in 15 mins my co-driver didn't lose his runs. That was 2010 and yes I finish 5th but it felt like a win.

Ben

[mwizard]

Jacked my car up and set it on the stands. Took off the wheels and delivered them to Hoosier for new tires. While waiting, I checked out the car and found that the right rear upright had about 2 in upward travel while the L was only about 1/2 in. Found that the upper R shock mount was broken in several places. It did not show when the wheel was on the ground as under load it fit perfectly. I rolled my car over to Jeff Kiesels trailer and he welded it back together. I tool the mount off and he finished the welding job the next day. Thanks Jeff.
Mark

[ChristopherBernard]

2000 Nationals D modified.
About a week before leaving to drive to Kansas I notice oil on outside of rear left damper.
Closer investigation reveals no resistance to movement for most of stroke.
I remove and find some resistance when inverted so I grind some clearance releifs and mount both rear dampers upside down.
In Kansas there is much talk in the class about new dampers in many of my competitors cars and I figure" my ass is grass". I too enquirer about new dampers for the future figuring at least I can resolve it for future events.
When the dust settled after the last runs I was national champion. Go figure?

[dfauth]

In 2003 at Forbes Field, final run on 2nd day in my DSP 2005 BMW 325 and I'm down by a couple tenths to Derek Butts' IS300 (and Ben's not far behind me in his Capri). Finish section consists of downhill big braking zone into a mid-speed 90deg left turn followed by a high-speed ~3 cone slalom to the lights.

My final run is going really well but when I hit the brakes for that final 90deg, the pedal is super hard and the car doesn't slow *nearly* as quickly as needed. I trail-brake into the corner as best I can, missing the apex by a car width or so but I get back on the gas hoping to salvage the run by carrying more speed. Unfortunately, the engine is stumbling and a little down on power all the way through the finish, but I was carrying enough speed that the car was still working hard.

Despite the issues, I dropped over 0.5s on that run, enough to take the win by 0.1s. Btw, the culprit was a vacuum hose popping off the brake booster...no power brakes and a vacuum leak stumble!

David

[CM/FFdriver]

In 2003 at Forbes Field, final run on 2nd day in my DSP 2005 BMW 325 and I'm down by a couple tenths to Derek Butts' IS300 (and Ben's not far behind me in his Capri). Finish section consists of downhill big braking zone into a mid-speed 90deg left turn followed by a high-speed ~3 cone slalom to the lights.

My final run is going really well but when I hit the brakes for that final 90deg, the pedal is super hard and the car doesn't slow *nearly* as quickly as needed. I trail-brake into the corner as best I can, missing the apex by a car width or so but I get back on the gas hoping to salvage the run by carrying more speed. Unfortunately, the engine is stumbling and a little down on power all the way through the finish, but I was carrying enough speed that the car was still working hard.

Despite the issues, I dropped over 0.5s on that run, enough to take the win by 0.1s. Btw, the culprit was a vacuum hose popping off the brake booster...no power brakes and a vacuum leak stumble!

David

Yes I remember that David very cool little down hill braking zone, had to give that up a little bit more then maybe you ABS cars, thanks for the Memories.

Ben

[Jim Garry]

My most difficult Nationals was 1985 (my fourth time). I finished second but there's so much more to the story. Please forgive the long tale that follows.

I was the returning National Champion in C Stock. On day one I took first place on my first run, then hit a cone on the second run and fell well back as others improved. Didn't let it bother me and ended the day back in first, up by well over a second on the second place driver.

For the second day it had been raining but during the heat conditions went from wet to damp to almost dry. On my first run I hit a cone. But it was a weird cone hit. I hit it right smack in the middle of the front bumper. I remember being quite bewildered about it. After the first runs were over I still held first even with the cone penalty. It remains one of the highlights of my Nationals experiences.

For my second run I decided to be conservative and get a clean run. Wrong strategy! Don't ever do that. It was clean but very, very slow. But I still held first by a couple of tenths due to my first day's lead.

For my last run I clearly remember thinking that I had driven really quickly on my last run on the first day by just ignoring the cone situation, concentrating, and going for it. So that's what I decided to do.

About half way thru the course there was this Chicago Box with a fast entry. Due to the wet and then damp conditions, I had never approached it really quickly because of the low grip heading out of the prior corner. But with the course almost dry, the car was flying as I approached the box this time.

So I came into the box really fast and knew I was in trouble. I gave my best effort to mitigate the late braking but I gently tipped over the center cone. Being only 28 years old I was devastated. The second place driver was yet to run and I remember getting out of my car and sitting on the ground with my back against the rear bumper, looking away from the course.

About 5 minutes later his time was announced, he clipped me by a couple of tenths overall.

Months later, that cone I hit on the first run continued to bother me once in awhile. It is probably obvious to most of you reading this now what happened but it didn't dawn on me until the winter. In January I woke up in the middle of the night with a thought: "It must have been the guy in front of me who hit that cone and then the course workers couldn't find the chalk marks for the cone location due to the rain and so just dropped it in the middle of the course as I approached". This was before the cone marks were painted for Nationals.

I got out of bed, dug through the paperwork for Nationals, found the class run order and noted who ran in front of me. Then in the results I saw he had hit a cone on that run. Went back to bed and the next morning I called him. Yup, he said he hit a cone on the first run of the second day and it was right where I hit mine.

So at least I was able to figure out how the hell I hit the cone. Not stopping for it was a serious error on my part but back in those days I didn't concentrate at all on looking ahead. Thus the out-of-place cone just suddenly popped into my view too late for me to think or get out of the way. And later, for whatever reason, I simply didn't figure it out.

Lessons learned: Look ahead, don't go conservative on a run, be better aware of changing conditions. Use carpenter's crayon to mark cones. And when I served as course chief at Nationals a few times, I used a shortened version of this story to get across the importance of being a course worker. Oh, and if you are ever a course worker and can't find the correct location for a cone, please don't drop it anywhere. Hang onto it as you run away from the next car.

[Lynn]

It was ( I think ) the first year Nationals were at HPT. I was co-driving a friends under prepared Subaru in STU. He had a penchant for changing the setup without telling me. I spent the entire season trying to convince him the car was best with 36 psi in the front and 32 psi in the rear.

The course started with three large offsets. At the first one the car started getting tail happy, and by the third, I spun. The car was almost terrible. I got back to the grid and asked what the hell he did to the car. His response was he went up and down the grid and asked what everyone was using for tire pressures and on guy said to put 50 psi in the rears. So, if 50 was good 55 would be better, and that is what he did.

[captain_pants]

2008 Nationals, my first visit. I was in A-Stock with a Honda S2000, along with 60-ish other people in S2000s. Well, it wasn't all S2000s, there was also one Pontiac Solstice and one Subaru STI. We were pitted right beside the guys in the STI.

They had 6 Hoosiers on wheels in their grid spot - they overheated the fronts terribly in only one run so after every run they would remove, spray, and place the fronts in grid to cool. Then the rears went to the fronts and the cool(er) tires that haven't been driven on for a run got installed on the rear. Every driver change was a flurry of activity! Their car started throwing CELs and running badly on day 2. They decided it was done, so they were going to sacrifice their last runs. All of a sudden they had 10+ S2000 keys offered up to them. Awesome! That's the spirit of Nationals!

Driver 1 leaves grid. The wagering immediately started as to how far he'd make it before he spun. Keep in mind that we couldn't see the course at HPT from grid, so it seemed like he was gone forever. He comes back, and you couldn't hide that smile even with a full-face helmet! The group asks him how far he made it before spinning.

His response? He holds up 3 fingers, which makes us all laugh at spinning after 3 cones. He then clarifies that he spun 3 times!

Driver 2 only spun once on his run. From the discussions afterwards, I assume the STI was replaced rather quickly.

[mwizard]

It was ( I think ) the first year Nationals were at HPT. I was co-driving a friends under prepared Subaru in STU. He had a penchant for changing the setup without telling me. I spent the entire season trying to convince him the car was best with 36 psi in the front and 32 psi in the rear.

The course started with three large offsets. At the first one the car started getting tail happy, and by the third, I spun. The car was almost terrible. I got back to the grid and asked what the hell he did to the car. His response was he went up and down the grid and asked what everyone was using for tire pressures and on guy said to put 50 psi in the rears. So, if 50 was good 55 would be better, and that is what he did.

Ouch.
Great stories. I may need to get back to Nationals before I get old and give it all up.
Mark

[CM/FFdriver]

To Add on the to this tread. I went to a test and tune last week and wonder what that noise was, usually with this car any noise is a bad noise and this one was bad. So on my 4th run I hear this rattling noise coming from the back, it didn't make it in gear so I change tires and did another run the noise is still there, well I couldn't find neutral, I jiggled so that I could move the car but what a PITA got it home and found out I couldn't move at all (that was fun) so I found out the shift rods weren't moving car was suck in gear WTF, Taylor said I was missing the thrush washer and was amazed the Mk9 was working at all, I'm so happy this happen before the National's

On a side note also found a melted wire that went though the frame all clean up and can't wait to drive my CM car with a shifter like butter.

Ben