– By Steve Rixen – The best of the season came at the end. Kim and I loaded up and traveled to Brainerd International Raceway for the Labor Day Weekend event.
We unloaded on Friday afternoon and enjoyed the Friday evening Banquet provided by the Vintage Sports Car Racing group for racers and SCCA event workers. Scott McQueen, the Wetzels, The Stadthers and Jeff and Jessica Johnk were in attendance as well.
Saturday morning Car 55 had the ceremonial removing of the Xs which designated me as a Rookie. Morning Practice and Qualification sessions found me running well and running with a couple of Bugeye Sprites and MGs, lowering my lap times from 2:09 to 2:04 in the sessions.
In the afternoon race and on into Sunday’s practice, qualification and race Car 55 and I became racier running with the Bugeye Sprites of Phil Schafer and Tom Daly with our lap times being within a tenth of a second of each other, running nose to tail and passing where and when the strength of each car or skill of driver came apparent. Lap times posted were in the 2:01 range for all the three of us.
Unfortunately, I brought my GoPro camera but found I had forgotten the required roll bar mount and we have no video footage but only Kim’s distant IPhone pictures to look at.
So, with my racing season over, what do I think about my racing experience?
It is expensive, but much of the expense is in personal and car safety and performance equipment which is one time or occasional in nature. Consumables such as lubricants would be purchased and used in any case, Race tires are expensive, but should last another season. What I have now should get me through at least another season, maybe two.
Entry fees, towing costs and membership in race organizations are the cost of admittance to The Club.
The biggest question for me is how much performance improvement should I consider for the car to remain or become more competitive? Incremental improvement will come with a higher numerical differential, 3.9 rather than the current 3.54 and a stiffer front sway bar for improved corner entry and speeds, both by way of an even swap for other equipment I had on the shelf.
I know I’m not going to go ‘Platinum Card Racing’ with high buck billet crank and rods and 11+ compression ratio pistons and racy cams and aluminum head which equate to $15,000+ investments in parts and machining in a Big Healey engine achieving 220+ horsepower. I can’t justify it to myself at my age and probable continued level of interest.
So, possibly I will invest in a slightly racier “Berry Cam Services” regrind on one of my collection of used spare cams collected over the last 30 years, a set of slightly used competition pistons and polished rods acquired in a similar manner. Mix together with my spare zero-zero original crank and my pocket ported head and maybe a triple 2 inch carb and manifold set-up and $5+K or so for machining and ancillary parts.
Results of the investment would bring me from about 165 to maybe 180 to 190 horsepower and accompanying Healey 6 torque increase which would probably result in my being only 3 to 5 seconds a lap slower than the current hot rod Healeys, rather than the 10 to 15 seconds I am now at BIR.
Racing is expensive. How fast can I afford to go? (Or want to?)
I had a blast running with the Bugeyes Labor Day race weekend, and if I could count on doing so every weekend, I wouldn’t need to think of anything more than incremental performance increase to keep up with them, and look forward to competition each race weekend. Alas, Phil and Tom are improving their cars for next season, so I need to think about doing so as well.
Just to keep up….
That’s Racin’!