This morning dawned with the traditional beautiful sunrise that is typical of the area at this time of year.
We headed out to the salt full of keen expectation for both the car and the bike.
First was a few quick runs on the short course for Ian G on the bike.
On the first run the bike made an unusal noise about half way up the course.
So, as the song goes, we had a cup of tea, bolted it back on and went back to the start.
On the next run
The opposite exhaust pipe had broken in two!
Fortunately for us we were pitted next to the most well prepared and unluckiest man in salt racing history!
Paul Parenica who has helped and inspired us for many year now is a stickler for detail and knowing that the salt can damage even the most hardened materials, carries tools for almost every eventuality. In this case, this includes an invaluable welder.
Alas in his stock of spare parts was not the correct engine parts that failed on his first and only run!
Paul had done everything correctly, he’d paid to have his engine completely rebuilt, checked out and thoroughly tested by a proffesional engineer only for some thing to cause a catastrophic internal engine fault.
With nothing left to do, he cleared up, completed our welding and left in a very dejected mood.
We’d like to think this will spur him on further and he will come back bigger and faster next year, but, there is only so many knocks a man can take.
Good luck Paul, we’re all behind you.
On a brighter note, whilst we were waiting for the bike to be sorted, we decided it was a nice to day to take the Jensen for a spin.
We lined up on course 1 once again, following the previous day’s accident Ian looked a little more nervous steeping into the car than of late and Andy did his seat belts up just a little tighter.
We gradually made our way to the start line, upon arrival there was a course hold and we all sat on the line with Ian slowly charbroiling in his racing suit for abour an hour whilst some debris was cleared from the track.
Eventually we were given the signal to go and Ian set off in an impressive display of wheel spin and salt dust. Despite the exuberant start the run was not as spectacular as we hoped, for reasons unknown the enigne was lacking power and far more worrying over 140 mph there was an extremely loud banging noise from under the car.
As it turns out the oil from the previous escapade had got into somw of the electrics and appeared to be messing with the quality of the spark. A few leads and plugs should hopefully sort that.
The banging however could only have come from our new redesigned flat floor. This time the floor was made from aluminium which made fitting and shipping a lot easier but obviously was not up to the task.
Harry Smith where are you now that we need you?
The only option was to take it off!
The next day we were back on the salt after a fairly lazy start. No-one seemed to have that pep in thier step you would expect from the event.
One team went off to remove the floor and the other went to run the bike some more, particularly now we had expanded our pre run check list to include all exhaust fittings!
The bike was getting faster and faster, but was still nowhere near the expected performance.
Gear box problems just plagues every run.
Eventually we decided to ask permission for Ian N to have a test drive on the bike under supervision from the officials.
This was going to take a while to get all of the players in the right place, so we decided to run the car again, now fitted with shiny new spark plugs and some unoiled leads.
Andy, as usual was the perfect crew chief and did his best to keep Ian informed and cool at the hottest part of the day as there was another course hold.
The run eventually took place and as he left the line the car sounded fantatsic thorugh the first few gears.
As the speeds started coming in it was obvious that something wasn’t quite right as he was only running around 160mph. Not exceptionally faster, than the day before.
Once the run was over and the ‘post mortem’ started we got the call from the officials and we were once agin off to test Ian G’s bike.
This was carried out away from anyone else with the proviso that should we see any emergency vehicles we stop and stay out of the way of any other traffic.
As it happens it was a comparatively short test before Ian N declared he knew what was required adn we should head back to the pits.
After some subtle modifications we were back up to the start of the short course and Ian G was set off.
At last! the bike was now performing as expected!
With a first ‘proper’ run speed of 89.781 mph. Tomorrow he will have the full three mile course to play with and we expect the magic three figure speed to be easily obtainable.
Well done Ian, we’re now off to a bar to celebrate!
