After a disastrous year personally in 2004, things have started to improve this year. My house and its wonderful garage are gone, but I've managed to get space in a closed hangar at a small grass airport in Vermont. This is where I'm keeping the Cobra for now.
Also, Michael Fridmann has a wonderful new shop and has allowed me to work on the Cobra there, to prepare it for events this year. He also supplied fluids for coolant, brake fluid, and engine oil changes, and he even mounted my new race tires for me! Thank you, Michael!
Michael had gotten the new intercooler, chip, and front and rear anti-roll bars into his Lotus Esprit (see 2004 for details) but unfortunately the Lotus engine had a rod bearing go bad, apparently due to an broken bolt on the oil pickup tube which caused an interruption of oil flow.
So we decided to take the "spare car", the Cobra. I bought a new set of Kumhos (the tires on the Cobra were two and three years old!) and Michael helped me prep the car for the event at his gorgeous new shop in Lexington.
It was my first time on the track in over six months, so I was tentative at first, but started getting in the groove by the end of the first day. I got within 6 tenths of my personal best, with a 1:19.6 on the chicane-chicane configuration.
Had I been able to reproduce that in the time trial, I'd have won the SPA class, but unfortunately I was still not entirely comfortable on the track and managed only a 1:20.4 in the time trial. I wound up second to a Pontiac Trans Am, but still beat five other drivers.
We took the Lotus to Mosport, which is one of my favorite tracks. The car was awesome on the straight, with what felt like rocket boosters, and it cornered a lot flatter and felt very comfortable.
However, on the morning of the second day, while Michael was going up the straight, there was a puff of smoke and the engine quit.
Turned out that the suspect rod bearing (which Michael had replaced) had let go and the piston went into the head and disintigrated. Bits went into the intake and then into the cylinder next to it, which also disintegrated. Both cylinder liners were broken as well. The inside of the engine looked like shrapnel.
We were left without a car for one of the best events of the season, but Mark Swinehart very kindly allowed us to run his Nissan, which was a blast. I only got few laps of practice before the time trial, but it was great! For the first time, I felt comfortable enough in turn 2 to really attack it, and what a blast!
In the time trial, I wound up only 6 tenths off Mark's time (he kept telling me, "don't beat my time!", so I didn't!) Great fun! Thanks, Mark!
With the Lotus laid up waiting for a new engine, we took the "spare car" to the Glen. What a blast! The Cobra ran perfectly and was handling like mad. My goal was to beat my previous best, a 2:18.9, and in practice on the first day, I managed a low 18, which was great!
On the second day, after my second practice session, I went to visit a nearby company called Force Dynamics, which is making a hydraulically operated racing simulation cockpit that replicates the motions and G-forces of real world cars when you are driving a sim. It was fantastic! (Thanks to my good friend Steve Smith for arranging this, and to David Wiernicki for making it happen!)
I did a bunch of laps at a simulated Watkins Glen in a simulated Gillet Vertigo (a small two-seater similar in size and weight to my Cobra, but with more power, slicks, and some downforce). This was almost eerie, as I drove the sim car on a sim track that was nearly identical to the real-world track I'd driven on only an hour before!
I think it may have been useful, too. I kind of choked in the time trial, unable to get comfortable in only three laps, and wound up with a 2:19 which put me third in SPA out of about 8 drivers. But in open practice at the end of the day, I cracked off two 2:17.3's, which clobbered my personal best by over a second and a half!
Those last few laps felt fantastic, as I got into the rhythm and tossed the Cobra at the Glen's rapid-fire sequence of moderately fast, flowing corners. What a blast!
At the end of July, I ran at NHIS with the BMW club. I had a great day on Saturday. However, some on-track indiscretions on my part (a short trip through the grass after braking late for turn 1, then a slow trip around the oval after locking a wheel going into turn 1, then, finally, a spin exiting 11; more details below) led the cops, er, the "control" officials, to kick me out for the rest of the weekend.
Here's an excerpt from an email to a friend:
When they kicked me out, I was pissed, but really it was the best thing. The club runs an intense schedule, with no lunch break. I had three students but fortunately one was licensed and I didn't have to go out with him. Still, I was on track for much of the day and was exhausted by midafternoon. If I'd done another day like that I'd be really destroyed today, and would probably take days to recover, time which I don't have.
I've got to do a thorough nut and bolt check (especially considering I went through the bumpy grass outside of the short straight between 11 and the oval) and load back up in time to leave Wednesday for Mont Tremblant.
I was wiped out yesterday after unloading, jacking up the car, and taking off the wheels. I feel good now, but I know I'm pushing it. I hope I hold up well enough to get the N&B check done today and hopefully clean the wheels and reload. That will give me a day to rest tomorrow.
But I felt great about what I did with the car, despite the spin and getting kicked out. I haven't felt totally comfortable on the track this year, to the point where I felt I was reaching the car's limits, except maybe in a couple of sessions. I had been disappointed in May, where I managed only a 1:19.6 in practice and a 1:20 something in the time trial.
I felt much better during the final session at the Glen (unfortunately after the time trial was over) but still felt I might have been leaving something on the table.
But the three laps before I spun in the final session at NHIS on Saturday I did 1:19.6, 1:19.4, and 1:19.3. It felt great! I felt great, felt that I was getting very close to the limit but was still relaxed and very comfortable.
The lap that I spun felt like it might have been even better, but I got greedy on the last corner and rotated just a bit too hard while carrying a lot of speed. You've gotta rotate hard there under trail braking to kill the understeer, but I overdid it a bit. I caught the curb, and the car snapped sideways into a reeeeally lurid slide. I gave it opposite lock but I was sure it was going to spin.
But it didn't; suddenly it hooked up and snapped around so fast I had no time to react. Probably I should have just nailed either the brakes or the throttle instead of trying to catch it. Fortunately, there is nothing but grass there so I just spun off.
No visible damage, not even grass between the tires and the rim from sliding sideways into the green stuff, although a blade broke off of the fan (must have gotten jiggled when I bounced across the turf). I fixed that while the control weenies were determining my fate.
Unfortunately I didn't write this up at the time, so pretty much all I have is COM's record of my lap times. To the best of my recollection, the Cobra ran well and I had a good time, as usual at Mont Tremblant.
In the COM time trial my best time was a 1:56.653. The winner, Mario Bonacorsi, did a 1:55.014 in his 944 Turbo, and David Goodman did a 1:55.197 in his Porsche 930 turbo. There were seven competitors in SPA in total, including our beloved Lou Ulm, driving his Contemporary Cobra in one of his last events.
I went back for a 3 day BMWCCA event a few days later, and had another great time. By the end of the third day, however, I'd toasted my front tires. Too much understeer in Mont Tremblant's long, fast corners overheated my nearly new Kumho 700's and left them blue and hard as a rock. I should have adjusted the rear anti-roll bar to a stiffer setting, to dial out the understeer.
This 8 days was a high point of the season; my health seemed to be improving, and I was able to sustain a relatively high level of activity for most of that period.
Between Mont Tremblant in August and Lime Rock in September, a disaster occurred. I'd been keeping the Cobra and my tools and equipment, along with my van and trailer, in a hangar at a small airport in Vermont.
Something in the hangar had been triggering my chemical sensitivity symptoms, but it was relatively mild until, after I got home from Mont Tremblant, I swept the hangar floor.
And the dust on the floor of the hangar destroyed my life.
I still don't know what it was, but by the time I'd finished sweeping I was sick as a dog. And the symptoms didn't go away. Apparently I inadvertently brought it home with me to the place where I was living, because the symptoms got worse and worse.
I struggled through getting the Cobra ready for COM's next event at Loudon, and it seemed to be working well. But it rained, and the hardened Kumhos were just terrible. I wound up third out of five in the class, with a 1:35.969 to Mario Bonacorsi's 1:32.065. I think both he and Tom Cannon, who took second, had some sort of rain tires, or at least something better than my dreadful Kumhos.
The second Loudon event that fall was one of the best events I've ever had. I've written about it in detail here.
From an email to a friend after the final event of the season:
Lime Rock was...interesting.
The Cobra was truly evil. Every time I turned the wheel the slightest bit, it tried to take off for the guardrail. Especially to the right, and especially after a few laps when everything got "warm" (at 32 degrees ambient, the term "warm" is relative).
Going up No Name Straight, the car felt like it had a magnetic attraction for the guardrail on the left or the earth bank on the right - whichever was closer. Every bump flung it in a different direction. A couple laps I was lucky not to drop a wheel off the left on entry to the uphill, despite trying to leave an adequate margin.
It really felt like something was broken - I thought the left rear suspension had to have a lose or busted rod end or something. Or maybe the frame was cracked somewhere. But I kept jacking it up after every session and I could not find anything wrong. Even took out a rear suspension link to replace what I thought might be a loose rod end, but it was fine.
Played with tire pressures, then finally backed off on the rear ARB in desperation, but nothing helped. With less rear bar it understeered massively, but still got viciously unstable after a couple of laps.
In the midst of all this, I managed a couple of 1:04's, only a second off my previous best, set two years ago during my championship season. I felt pretty good about that, and about being there at all with all the shit going on in my so-called life.
In the time trial the car made a major twitch in the downhill on my third timed lap, and by the time I'd caught it I'd used up too much road, so the car understeered out to the edge of the track and I couldn't get on the throttle until the track-out point. Wound up with a 1:06.3, but it was the best I could do with that piece of crap.
On the way home I thought about the rear brakes, and how the pistons had been very stiff in the calipers when I'd had to push them back when replacing the pads last summer. Maybe they were sticking and hanging up the rear wheels? That would make the car unstable, especially on turn-in.
When I unloaded the car at the storage unit (where I'd moved it after the hangar disaster), I jacked up the rear to check this out. The brakes were fine, but something in the diff is seized up. The left rear axle is so tight (inside the diff) that even with all my strength I can barely turn it. Probably gets worse when everything gets warm.
So I've got a new project to occupy me, if/when I ever get a stable and healthy living situation sorted out.
Also got to drive a student's '97 Corvette, which was great. Massive power (440 hp at the flywheel!) and excellent handling. Brakes not so hot though. First time down the main straight at full throttle after working through traffic, I had to take the escape road.
The weather warmed up nicely on the second day, too; I think it hit 55 degrees mid-day. Glad I went.
Despite missing Summit Point and Mosport, I finished third in the championship to Mario Bonacorsi and Scott Rosnick. Scott won with 57 points; Mario had 56, and I had 42.
If I had elected to place my run in Scott Swinehart's Nissan at Mosport in SPA rather than STGT, I'd have placed third, beating Mario back to 4th and getting another 7 points while taking 2 away from Mario. This would have given me 49 points to Mario's 54.
Had I gone to Summit Point I would have gotten just two points for showing up, giving me 51. Of all the people who ran SPA in 2005, only Mario and Scott went to Summit Point. Beating Mario at Summit would have given me 7 points and taken 2 from him, putting me into second in the championship. Beating Scott as well would have given me the championship.
It rained at Summit, but I bought new Kumhos at the start of the season. These work fairly well in the rain, but there's no way of knowing if I could have beaten either of those guys; they are good!
Nevertheless, this analysis suggests that I was still competitive in the Cobra despite a dreadful year in terms of my personal life and health.
Eventually, unable to work on the car myself because of both the toxicity problem and the lack of a workshop, I took it to a local repair shop, which determined that the problem was not, as I'd thought, a bad diff, but rather that both rear wheel bearings were bad. A legacy of buying used Thunderbird spindles, I guess.
I had them replace the wheel bearings, but there was a series of - I'm not sure exactly what - misunderstandings? ineptitude? lack of, ah, motivation?
Anyway, ultimately replacing the rear wheel bearings cost me more than a thousand dollars - more than what it would have cost to buy a new diff! I was stunned. If I'd still had my own home with shop/garage, I'd have replaced the wheel bearings myself for about $200, just the cost of the bearings plus having them pressed into the spindles.
This episode made me realize that, whatever happened with the toxicity issue, I can't keep running the Cobra unless I can do the work on it myself.
Through the fall I attempted to recover from the disastrous toxicity in the hangar and its contamination of everything in it, along with my living space.
Conversations with a consultant suggested that the toxin was probably some sort of rodenticide. More research, comparing my symptoms to those caused by the active ingredients in various pesticides, suggested arsenic, but because - on the advice of the consultant - I didn't do any testing or keep any samples, I'll never know for sure.
I rented a storage unit, took the Cobra to a detailer to get it cleaned, and stuck it in the storage unit. Over the next several months I removed everything from the hangar and either disposed of it or moved it to various storage units. I also moved to a different living situation, renting a couple of rooms in a house.
The cleaning of the Cobra by the detailer failed, and I inadvertently contaminated my new living space as well. By the end of the year I was very ill, and all of my dreams and ambitions were in tatters. Everything I owned was gone or so contaminated as to be unusable to me. I even had to buy new clothes.
I don't know if this was the end of my Cobra dream, but barring a miracle, it's hard to see how I can possibly recover.