That Loooong Race

As I mentioned last time, the final race of the season in this area is "That Loooong Race" at Blackhawk, put on (this year for the 35th time!) by the Chicagoland Sports Car Club. I had invited Bruce Lindstrand to co-drive the 100 mile race with me waaay back when I didn't know what kind of season I'd have and what condition the car would be in by now. I was eager to see him drive the car again, and he was excited to drive his old car again.

The car seemed to need little preparation after the Regional the week before, so I loaded it up and headed to the track. Our group was scheduled to run only on Sunday (20 minute practice, 25 minute qualifying, and 100 lap race), which was a VERY tough schedule. There was very little time between sessions to deal with the inevitable things that crop up on a race day. When you're running a race more than twice as long as you're used to, small problems become big problems.

I ran the practice session because Bruce ran that session in the other car he was co-driving: Allen Wheatcroft's 1998 Van Diemen FF. Bruce was going to have a very busy day. We determined that he would start the race in Allen's car and I would start in my car. Bruce would pull into the pits around lap 25, Allen would get in his car, I would come in on lap 30, and Bruce would take over in my car. The practice session went well, and I turned a few 1:22 laps.

The qualifying session was a little surreal. Seeing my own car being driven by someone else gave me an odd feeling of pride mixed with jealousy -- the car looked and sounded great, but someone else was driving my car! Bruce was kind to me and to the car. He immediately cranked out a string of 1:23.7 laps. He was so consistent that we thought there was something wrong with our timing equipment, because the numbers never changed. Then the worry set in. The second-last lap, as he was passing the pit lane, the car popped out of gear. That was very strange, because that had never happened to me with that car. The next lap, he pulled in and explained that the car wouldn't stay in 4th gear and was getting generally hard to shift. Smoke was coming off the gearbox -- never a good sign.

We let the gearbox cool a bit, to the point where our gloves wouldn't burst into flames as soon as we touched it. We took the rear cover off, expecting some gear lube to come out. All that came out was a little smoke. Bad sign.

We took the bearing carrier off and pulled the gear stacks out. Again, no oil -- only smoke. Very bad sign. There should have been at least a quart of gear lube inside. All of the internal parts were a disgusting shade of brown, evidence that the residual oil had been baked onto them. A couple of parts (the 4th gear set) had turned blue from the abuse.

We cleaned and re-oiled everything and replaced the 4th gear set with a new set. When I went to reassemble the gear stacks, something clearly didn't line up. Nicole Temple, Lindstrand Motorsports' gearbox specialist, spotted the problem immediately. The extreme heat had allowed a bearing to back out of the bearing carrier, changing all of the clearances. Fortunately, it was a thirty-seconds-with-a-mallet job for Bruce, and we went back to reassembling -- and refilling -- the gearbox. But where had the gear lube gone? That was a question that we should have asked and answered before the race, but we were pretty much fried from thrashing to get it back together. We had no idea how long it would last or if it would even work to begin with.

I started the race behind Paul Schindlbeck, the CFF polesitter. I managed to outbrake him going into corner 3 and set about building up a lead. Meanwhile, Pete Wood started from the pit lane. His strategy was to conserve fuel and try to run without stopping for fuel. I hoped he had miscalculated, but the season was basically over, so I wasn't hoping too hard. It was a gutsy strategy. It would be fun to see it work.

Somewhere around lap 20, I got the bad news. Coming down the front straight, the transmission popped out of 4th gear. I was completely unprepared for it, and immediately jammed it in 3rd gear, doing the engine no good at all. As soon as I recovered my wits, I realized that I would just have to hold the shift lever when the car was in 4th gear and drive with one hand. Sounds a lot easier than it is. The next lap, it popped out of 3rd. Yikes. Those are two important gears around Blackhawk, and 3rd gear is used in two sweeping turns. It's pretty tough to hold your line while sliding with only one hand on the wheel! A lap or two later, it popped out of 1st. Very very bad. At no time during the next few laps could I take my hand off the shift lever. I managed to pass Pete, but as I stumbled past, he could clearly smell blood, and he stuck behind me for the rest of that lap.

My left shoulder was getting really sore when I finally saw the relief: the pit board reading "L30 -- In"! I pulled in the pit lane just after Pete passed me. I coasted to a stop, hopped out, and yelled to Bruce, "It's bad! Popping out of all four now!" I turned my attention to refueling the car as my right leg began to cramp from the exertion of stomping on the throttle. The dull soreness in my shoulder began to focus into sharp pain, and my left calf began to cramp in protest. I threw the empty fuel jug down and turned to Bruce to make sure he had gotten the message about the gearbox.

"It's popping out of all four gears -- you have to hold the lever in gear all the time. The motor sounds pretty bad, too. I must have over-revved it at least a half a dozen times from it popping out!" Bruce nodded, looked at the lap counter, and said, "Okay, I think I know what I need to do to finish." He strapped into the car and headed out.

Because the pit stop took a fairly long time, we lost three laps to Pete. Bruce had re-entered the track just in front of Pete, and Pete knew we were having trouble. He knew that all he had to do was keep the car in sight and he'd have us. He was right. Bruce managed to keep a pretty consistent pace in the 1:24 range, but Pete was on his tail the whole time. Bruce couldn't hope to get the three laps back. I watched the lap counter anxiously: 10 laps to go... 5... 3... then it happened.

Pete came down the front straight alone. As he disappeared into corner 1, we became aware of a blue Tiga proceeding slowly down the front straight, hunting for a gear, any gear. The transmission had given out completely, and Bruce was just coasting towards corner 1. Two laps to go.

Pete took the checkered flag and a victory lap as we watched smoke pour out of the back of my car. Talk about a conflict of emotions. Pete was the underdog, he gambled on a longshot strategy and came from behind to win. He beat me for the first time this year. That was great to see, even from my shoes. But my car sat, mortally wounded and unable to continue. I had let Bruce down -- not just in the immediate sense of not being able to win the race, but in the broader sense of not putting into practice all that he had taught me about car preparation.

In hindsight, it all makes sense. The car was popping out of gear because of the extreme heat. The gearbox is held in gear by spring-loaded plungers that fit into detents in the shift rails. (Stick with me here, it's not really that technical.) Springs do not spring anymore if they get too hot. They just give up and relax. I have a theory about where the oil went. When I replaced the input shaft in August, I had to remove the left side cover to do it. Reinstallation required a certain sealant (which I used) to prevent leaks. But I haven't used that type of sealant before, and I didn't know that the nuts that hold the sideplate on need to be retightened after every session until the sealant is fully cured. That was the critical step. The sealant continues to shrink a bit for weeks. I knew the sideplate leaked a bit -- they all do! -- but I didn't realize it was steadily getting worse. Before October, I was changing gears almost every weekend, so checking the oil level in the gearbox was unneccessary. I just refilled it after each gear change. After Labor Day, I ran Blackhawk three times without opening up the gearbox. There was probably some oil in the gearbox, but when the level got too low, the heat increased and simply burned the remaining oil away.

A post-mortem of the gearbox shows pretty much total damage. The rear bearing that supports the layshaft fell apart, allowing the shaft (and its gears) to fall about 1/2" -- enough so that the gears no longer meshed. The shaft flailed around a bit at first, causing an as-yet undetermined amount of damage to the gears and bearing carrier. At this point, replacement of the entire transmission looks like the most economical solution.

But it looks like I may get off cheap compared to Allen. He said he heard a pop coming through corner 5 about 10 laps into his stint (some 15 laps from the end of the race). Everything seemed fine, so he continued. Nothing changed, and he won the Formula Ford race! When he pulled in, the Lindstrand crew noticed a hole in the engine cover. Something had exited the car through the bodywork. They took off the engine cover and saw that part of the transmission bellhousing had been broken out, and the lower frame rails and floorpan had been sheared in two! Apparently the ring gear had broken off the flywheel and done all that damage. But Allen was still able to turn his fastest race laps to date. Well done!