Hot laps update

It never ceases to amaze me how a car can sit and run for a couple of hours and never have a single leak. But, put it on the track...........

Our first run on the track was just to get some laps on the motor and see if everything was working like it should. I wasn't turning hard laps just around 4,000 RPM's by the end of the straights and cruising through the corners. Well, I noticed a nice trail of smoke. Nothing new for us, so I really didn't think much about it. I dropped into the infield for Photo's and the car filled with smoke. I am sure it will be in the picture's. Probably looks like something out of a Cheech and Chong movie. LOL! So, we get the leak fixed and get back on the track. They stopped me in 4 and said we were still leaking to get off the track. Well, we weren't leaking. Just burning oil off the header.

The 3rd time out was pretty much uneventful. I just ran medium laps not really pushing anything. We finish that session with no problems and no leaks. Up to this point we have been running with both tires toed out and the same air pressure in all the tires. So, no real setup of any kind.

I adjusted the air pressure's and Bruce and dad adjusted the tow and the sway bar so we can see what we have. I fired up the car in staging to move up and something didn't sound right. But, when I raised the RPM's it smoothed out and sounded fine and I really didn't worry about it. I was lucky enough to run 10 laps by myself and quickly realized I had a dog. Our fast lap was a 15.6 about 7 to 8 10ths off of last year.

Back in the pits we took the temp gun to the headers and found one cylinder about 200 degrees lower then the rest and one that was just dead. We soon found that we had snapped a rocker arm stud on the dead cylinder and just put the car back together and headed home. Considering the above, 15.6 wasn't that bad.