Campaign’s End

The last few days have gone by in a bit of a blur, so we apologise for any mistakes or missed items.

We will be writing a full and proper write up, once we return to the UK and the dust (or salt) has settled.

Day 5 started early with a short line to the start and our first run was still with a low sun.

Once again the car felt good and stable, but just before the 2 mile line Ian reported that it felt like something stopped working and the engine was not behaving as usual.

After the run we pounced on the car eager to see where the fault was. This time it turned out to be the alternator. The alternator on our car is crucial as with all fuel injected machines in keeping up the battery voltage across the various systems.

As soon as the voltage drops then all of the sensors become unreliable and the ECU can do some very strange things.

Fortunately, there is a relatively well equipped motor factors in the local town and after some fiddling and faffing we got a replacement unit fitted and we were soon in the line for another run.

The car immediately felt better and we once again had all our power back.

For probably the fifth time however we ‘topped out’ at 173 mph. This was all starting to get a bit confusing as we seemed to have reached some sort of a wall that the car was unwilling to go above?

So, we sat down and watched the in car video to see whether we could determine what was happening. The cause came to light when one of the team noticed what appeared to be white smoke coming from the front drivers side corner of the car.

The massive downforce created by the aerodynamic systems in the car was forcing the front of the car to touch the ground over 170 mph. We have very little ground clearance at the front but we had never managed to actually get the front splitter to touch the ground before. This highlighted quite how much force was really going on at this point.

By now, time was running short the last day was looming which meant an early finish. The only option was to be a bit radical and remove the flat floor entirely. This was a bold move as not only is the floor an aerodynamic aid it also adds a significant amount of stabilising ballast.

The final day dawned majestically and we once again found ourselves at the start line watching the sunrise, Ian set off as early as possible for a test run to ensure that removing the floor hadn’t scuppered our chances completely.

He reported back after the run that the car unsurprisingly felt ‘lighter’ and was moving around quite a bit more, but was in no way uncontrollable and he was ready for another run.

This time however instead of pulling out at the three mile line he was going to go down to the four mile marker and try and get this 175 mph nonsense behind us.

He leapt off the line and sailed through the 2 1/4 line at 175.207 mph and continued down to a maximum of 184.065 mph. It was important that we exceeded 175 at the 2 1/4 as this qualifies the car for long course running and now means that completely within the rules we have the full five miles of the course if we so desire.

We desired! We rushed back to the start line, repacked the parachute stuffed Ian back in the car and was ready for another run. We were going the full course.

Our late spurt of performance came at a cost, by this time people had been driving on the long course for a whole week and unbeknownst to us there were mutterings that the course was not great and particularly the last mile was a bit soft.

This led to a rather hair raising ride for Ian which resulted in a rather dissapointingly slow run.

In our haste to get back to the start line for one final ‘fun run’ of the event, our tow truck driver was a little over keen on the loud pedal on the way to collect Ian. We were stopped by the organisers and given a stiff reprimand and banned from the rest of the event. All 20 minutes of it!
With our tail between our legs we went back to the pits and began the tedious job of tidying up and preparing everything for the journey home.

Once everything was loaded and our pit area was clear we headed back to the bend in the road to sort out the motorhome and headed back towards California.

Once again we stopped off in Ely NV, where we spent the night and once again rose early with the prospect of the 13 hour drive first to the workshop in Pinion Hills and then down to San Diego.

All was going well and we seemed to be making really good time. But, as we approached a fuel stop just before Las Vegas we were all shocked to see a wheel bouncing across the carriageway!

Our trailer had decided that the car was too heavy and the constant high speed driving was too much for it’s poor little bearings.

We limped the car and trailer to the fuel stop, but it was immediately obvious that the trailer was not going to manage the remaining 260 miles of the journey.

One of our team was a member of AAA (the American AA) so we contacted them to see whether they could load the whole lot onto a flat bed or something. Alas this was not covered by his policy.

After much discussion Ian Glover came up with the suggestion of calling Alan from the Bend in the Road gang. He has a place in Las Vegas and may know of a tow company.

Way more by luck than judgement, Alan was actually in Las Vegas preparing his late mothers house for sale. In the spirit of the Bend in the Road Gang which we have come to know and love he offered to store the car and trailer until we could get the parts to fix it and return it to the workshop.

In the very first instance this has saved us a very large box of money paying for a recovery vehicle and also it put us back on schedule for the return home.

Once we had dropped the trailer off at Alan’s mum’s beautiful home we then completed the rest of the journey without incident.