MARRS #6 at Summit Point June 9 & 10

[cbuczesk]

MARRS is at Summit Point this weekend. Our ITS class is in Group 7. 5 Z-cars and a 240SX are signed up so far for ITS. If anyone here is coming to the race stop by and say hi. Look for the group of Z cars parked just before the entrance of pit road.

http://www.dlbracing.com/Clubs/clubdrivers.aspx?EventID=5004&LMID=72

http://wdcr-scca.org/ClubRacing/MARRS/tabid/71/Default.aspx

Chuck

1975 Datsun 280Z #0

[cbuczesk]

I'm headed down to Summmit Point now. I'm starting 5th in qualifying. I'm anxious to see how the car runs after all the "upgrades" since the last race.

Chuck

[cbuczesk]

It was a crazy weekend. I showed up at 5pm on Friday and found Jeff helping work on his son's Miata. Nate went there early Friday to spend the day testing and to make sure the trans was in good shape. On his 3rd lap he blew a shift and bent all the valves. A Miata guy there owns a local machine shop and rebuild the head in just a few hours. When I pulled up they were getting ready to start it. Cylinder #3 was dead. Ed York came over and in less than a minute determined that he had a pumped up lifter. It fixed itself and engine was good.

In qualifying Saturday Nate was doing well until he put a hole in the side of the block. Can his weekend get any worse??? Jeff and I went out in the next session. Jeff's 240Z was fast as usual and qualified with the fastest time. My car started out ok an then got slower and slower. On my 6th lap the car got very weak, wouldn't rev past 5k and started to smoke. I pulled into my paddock spot and could hear a tapping in the engine. Cylinder #3 had low compression. Nate and I were done for the day. I still qualified 11th out of 15 cars in ITS. Jeff won Saturday's ITS race in his 240Z!

Nate and I loaded up our cars and headed home early Saturday. He and John Legg had a spare engine and went to work installing it. The only possible spare I had was an L28 that broke a cam at Summit Point years ago. I worked on removing the bad engine and prepping the "new" one till 10:30pm. The cam, rockers, lash pads, Datsun Comp oil pan, etc. were transferred over. At 6:30am Sunday I was back at it. Jeff and Denise came over at 7:30 and pitched in. They left at 10:30 so they would have time to prep Jeff's car for Sunday's 20-lap race. Jamie and I finished bolting everything on and it fired up. Yay! We quickly loaded it onto the trailer and headed down to the track.

Nate and his Miata were there and ready to go. Jeff needed some brake pads. Good thing I had a new set of Carbotech XP12s with me. I had time to warm up the engine and check the timing. It sounded good...or at least good enough. Nate had to drop out early because of transmission problem. It was a really bad weekend for him. I started 9th and Jeff was on the pole. My yellow 280Z was strong at the start. I got by the E30 325i but he soon passed me back. On the 4th lap I got into the gas too hard coming out of turn 5 and went into the dirt. The BMW got big gap but I slowly gained on him for 3 more laps. Then he was gone. My car seemed to lose some power. A couple laps later the track became slick. After a couple more laps my brakes were overheating. I was just hanging on and trying to finish while weaving through the ITB cars. It seemed like the race would never end!

Jeff won and I finished 9th. The best part was that I successfully completed my 2nd race and was able to remove my 3 novice stripes!

Chuck

[cbuczesk]

Here are some pictures of Sunday's race. No more novice stripes!

Chuck

[240260280z]

Nice report and photos. I wish it was this weekend.

[72 OJ]

Congrats on the jump from novice to PRO........................... and best of luck on your future races

[cbuczesk]

Thanks, guys! I'll post official results as soon as I get them.

Chuck

[Zedyone_kenobi]

Great weekend and awesome perseverance. One day I would love to get back into racing for fun and for points, but not for money. It is a great hobby, and I dearly miss it.

[cbuczesk]

Results have been posted:

Car# Name Laps Diff Best Lap Car

1 00 Jeffrey Lucas 20 1:26.853 240Z

2 4 Alexander Schefer 20 1.780 1:27.257 RX-7

3 10 Darin Treakle 20 15.322 1:27.164 Integra

4 8 Alan Himes 20 15.516 1:26.799 Miata

5 41 Jim Slechta 20 25.586 1:28.384 300ZX

6 12 Michael Lamaina 20 25.800 1:28.128 Miata

7 05 Benjamin Slechta 20 25.833 1:27.283 300ZX

8 54 Daniel Miller 20 48.165 1:29.241 325i

9 0 Chuck Buczeskie 20 1:06.81 1:29.914 280Z

10 19 Bert Struble 19 1 Lap 1:30.852 240SX

11 50 Carl Fosler 19 19.503 1:31.996 190E

12 45 Richard Afflerbach 19 21.230 1:32.666 Integra