The Bartelt Belt

Soon I will need to say good-bye (maybe only temporarily) to the Bartelt Belt.

Informally known as the "Club Ford Federation World Heavyweight Championship Belt," it was designed by Jack Bartelt to honor the Midwestern Council Club Formula Ford class champions. It's an impressive piece of leather, with engraved metal plaques bearing the names of all the champions. The center logo is a larger plaque depicting Jack's Lola T-540 surrounded by the legend "Midwestern Council - Club Formula Ford Champion." On each side of the center logo is a Midwestern Council logo.

The "tongue" (not the buckle) end has one plaque:
Past CFF Champions:
1987 Mike Mudjer
1988 Steve Stadel
1989 Pete Wood
1990 Jeff Jagusch
1991 Mike Wood
1992 Pete Wood

The buckle side has individual plaques, added as each championship is won:
1st Annual Winner of the "Bartelt Belt": 1993 Pete Mike Wood
1994 Marc Blanc
1995 Jack Bartelt
1996 Jack Bartelt
1997 Mike Schindlbeck
1998 Dean Elston
1999 and 2000 Millenium Champion Joe Christenbury
2001 Jack Bartelt
2002 Pete Wood
2003 Scott Reif
2004 Scott Reif
2005 John Haydon

In case anyone's counting, that's 2 championships for Scott Reif, 2 for Joe Christenbury, 3 for Jack Bartelt, and 4 for Pete Wood. Pete will get his name on the belt for a fifth fourth time in 2006. (Three champions won their titles in my car -- Dean Elston in 1998, Pete Wood in 2002, and me in 2005.)

Speaking of my car, the engine block is being checked for cracks right now. I need to test the oil pressure gauge and tear open a few oil pumps to try to build one good pump. I'm hopeful that if I keep working through the winter, I may be able to get the car together in time to run a very early 2007 race somewhere in the south.

Wish me luck!

Not necessarily news

Not much to report today, so instead here's a little racing humor.

YOU MIGHT BE A RACER IF...

Your email address refers to your race car rather than to you.

When someone asks where you went to school, you reply, "Skip Barber".

You always late apex the intersection and try to pass a few cars coming out.

You hate your one-hour commute but love the 600 mile tow to the race track.

You walk “the line” through the grocery store. Bonus points if you oversteer the cart.

“Overcooked it” doesn’t refer to food.

Your garage holds more cars than your house has bedrooms.

You have Lindstrand Motorsports on speed dial.

You save broken car parts as souvenirs.

You have car parts in your cubicle at work.

People know your class, car number, and car color, but not your name or face.

You bought a race car before buying a house.

You bought a trailer before buying furniture for the new house.

You're shopping for a new tow vehicle and still haven't bought furniture!

The garage floor is cleaner then your kitchen floor.

Eight socket wrenches… one spatula.

You have a separate drawer for 'garage clothes'.

Your first date involves her crewing for you.

You plan your wedding around the race schedule.

You're registered for wedding gifts at Pegasus.

Your Christmas list begins with a set of R60s and Forged Pistons.

Your family knows what R60s and Forged Pistons are.

105 degrees and sunny is a perfect day to wear a 3 layer suit and long underwear.

Your bathroom reading material consists of auto parts and racing supply catalogs, several books written by famous drivers, every book Carroll Smith has ever written.... and 400 car magazines, none of which have centerfolds.

A neighbor asks if you have any oil, to which you ask, "Synthetic or dinosaur?" and they reply, "Vegetable or corn."

You refer to the corner at the end of your street as "Turn One."

You've found your lawn mower runs pretty good on AVGas and even better on Sunoco Blue.

You spend more time polishing your A-Arms than you do on your hair.

Your wallet contains pictures of your racecar but no family members.

When someone refers to "The Good Book", you think of How to Build Competitive (Yet Legal) Formula Ford Engines.

Your winter long underwear is made of Nomex or CarbonX.

You tell your wife where you'd like to go on your vacation and she asks: "Why... is there a race there?"

Bad News

Very bad news.

All classes at the Runoffs had a fourth qualifying session today. SCCA has a really cool internetwebby connection thing that allows you to watch the timing and scoring results in almost real time (updated every 10 seconds) while the cars are on the track.

I made the mistake of watching the Formula Ford session today.

Most cars got about 6 laps, but I noticed that after Lynn's second lap, there was nothing from her for the rest of the session. I was a little concerned, so I left a message on her cell phone to ask what was up. An hour or two later, I got a return message.

I still don't have all the details, but the phrases "10 feet in the air," "landed on my head," and "half the car is gone" were all in her message. It seems that on her third lap, another driver tried a dive-bomb pass (a very ill-advised move, according to witnesses) and tangled with her, sending her flipping through the air. She landed upside-down.

Lynn was very lucky to have escaped injury, but she got her bell rung, she's out of the event, and her car is destroyed. I'm sick that her first trip to the Big Show ended like this. The event stewards are going to take disciplinary action against the other driver because multiple witnesses agree that he was entirely to blame for the incident.

I hope someone else had a good day today.

Runoffs

What was I thinking? I completely forgot to tell you the big news. Two of my racing buddies, Lynn Serra and Bruce Lindstrand, are going to the SCCA National Championship Races, AKA the Runoffs!

I'm jealous. The Runoffs was my goal this year, but I couldn't keep the car together. Bruce and Lynn both drove their hearts out all season and earned their invitations. Lynn will be driving the oldest car in the field, but don't count her out. Bruce's car isn't the latest either, but he was fast enough to lap me in the rain at Blackhawk with a broken steering column.

My car is Bruce's old car, and Lynn was a student at one of the first driver's schools that I taught, so I feel almost like my dad and daughter are out there. I'm so proud.

Oops. Bruce will probably kill me for calling him my dad. It's not like he's a really old guy or anything.

Progress Report

Well, if you can call it progress. The crankshaft is back from the machine shop. Woo hoo. It is now sitting on a shelf with a clean bill of health, waiting patiently for me to set up a new garage space.

Yes, there you have it, the reason I've been too busy to turn a wrench lately is that I am moving. On the plus side, the new abode has a basement. On the minus... the garage is detached, unheated, uninsulated, and currently occupied by a couple of little furry things. But I think evicting them is going to be the easy part. A little steel wool, a little expanding foam, and their little portals should be plugged. (I heard somewhere that mice don't like to chew steel wool. Is that just an old wives' tale?)

My mission, and I have decided to accept it, is to take an unsuspecting 2-car garage with bare stud walls and a single light bulb (with the light switch on the opposite side of the garage from the door, brilliant) and transform it into a race shop, while still leaving enough room for my girlfriend to park her car inside. Oh, and my budget is approximately zero. My head will self-destruct in ten seconds.

So here's my plan. Seal up every crack and hole I can find. The bare rafters should get at least a few planks across them so we can store things in the "attic", but I'm thinking something resembling an actual floor and even some insulation would be worthwhile. Some insulation between the wall studs covered with either pegboard or slat walls will keep the heat in and the tools off the floor. (One entire wall is already covered in pegboard, and I have two industrial shelving units for the heavy stuff.) Finally, paint every surface white to reflect the light from a pair of 48" twin-tube fluorescent lights.

Any other suggestions? I'd love to move the light switch next to the door, but I'm no electrician. If I were, I'd also convert to higher amperage (or whatever you do) to keep the air compressor from blowing a fuse, and I'd add an outlet about every foot.

What would you do to set up a new shop on a shoestring?