After the really good run on the previous day and with the added benefit of being second in line on the next morning we were really bouyant as we headed onto the salt as the sun came up.
This was going to be particularly special run, not just because we hoped to see the car behaving itself better but far more importantly dearly departed friend of the project Hank Hayes was coming along for the ride.
Old ‘Smilin’ Hank was one of the first people to greet us when we first went to the bend in the road and was a mine of helpful information. Many teams racing on the salt today owed Hank a debt in some form, either for advice and help or for driving his push truck. He was regarded as the best push truck driver in the world and to be asked by his wife Sue to take his ashes for a ride was a huge honour.
Alas when the time came the ride did not go perfectly as something in the car felt a little ‘off’. Ian couldn’t put his finger on exactly what the problem was, but he was not as comfortable as he had hoped.
After a brief service at both launch and recovery in Hank’s honour, we rejoined the queue for another run.
The second run of the day could really only be described as a disaster. At around 160 mph the entire back of the car started jumping around, accompanied by some very strange noises. This did not stop Ian keeping his foot in, but made for a really uncomfortable ride in the last mile.
Far more worrying however was after the parachute was pulled and Ian let off the throttle the car lurched violently to one side. This was very new and really disturbing. We had never experineced any issues at slow down before and Ian was genuinely scared for possibly the first time.
We were convinced that a crucial part of the rear suspension had worked loose or broken, so we headed back to our pit area with very low faces.
Upon inspection it turned out that the differential gears in the rear axle were at fault. After finding nothing else amiss in any way or form we stripped the rear diff out for a post mortem.
Surprisingly there was no ‘smoking gun’ of broken parts or mismatched gears, so after a lot of head scratching we decided to replace the rear diff with a solid unit to provide maximum traction to both wheels with no extra components to get in the way.
The next day dawned dry and bright and saw Ian and crew chief Andy Best heading off to Salt Lake City to meet Dave from Kaysville. He had the parts we needed and was happy to help us install the bearings so we could simply roll back to the pits and refit the new parts.
This was nowhere near as simple as we’ve made it sound and once again we find ourselves indebted to Rich Stratford for his enthusiasm and work ethic. As we write this it’s 7.20 pm and we’ve just got the car back together ready for some runs tomorrow.
The big saving grace is, we have watched many teams leave for the year, either they have reached their own particular goals or have destroyed their machines and have gone home to recover and rebuild. The upshot of this is, provided we have fixed the problems we should be able to get a good number of runs in.
