Vince's Stuff: First proper track session of the year

Although I have been quite busy with the country house, work and the classes I'm teaching, I finally managed to finish getting the Civic ready for the track season (later than planned...). Last week I left the car with Pat so he could figure out how to stop the massive oil leaks that would occur whenever I drove on track. Pat was confident that the leak issue would be resolved by changing a couple of axle seals. He also discovered that the oil pan was not properly tightened. When he finished this work, he power washed the engine and there seemed to be no leaks. I immediately delivered the car to Dave Gosselin so he could weld me up a 4-point roll bar. Dave had this done in one weekend and I had the car back at home before the end of that weekend.

I'm quite happy with the way the roll bar came out:

New roll bar

The car would have been ready for Monday night lapping at St-Eustache, but I simply had too much work on my plate to take that many hours off on Monday (1 class to teach Monday, 2 on Wednesday). Also, someone hit my car on Sunday night while it was parked on the street, leaving a nasty dent and scratch. Fortunately, the responsible driver left a note and the car should be repaired by my insurance. I also needed an alignment since Pat had changed a tie rod end, so I took care of this on Monday afternoon with no issues.

New dent and scratch

My plan therefore was to head to ICAR for Wednesday night lapping, which would allow me to leave home at 6:00 pm and prepare dinner for the family (instead of leaving at 3:45 for St-Eustache). Pat planned to meet me there and maybe go out for a few laps.

On Tuesday night, I installed my old OMP harness (from the 2005 race season), checked the tire pressures and filled up with gas. I checked the oil, and the level was well over the full mark. On Wednesday, I left home at 6:00 and hit a bit of traffic on the drive North. I arrived at the track at about 7:00 pm, which did not leave me much day light, but it was the best I could do. I could see on the session timer that I had 8 minutes to empty the car, buy my lap tickets and get to the grid. Luckily I had checked things over in advance! I didn't have time to set up the camera (now mounted on the roll bar) but I did get the lap timer set up.

I headed out with a bunch of other cars and tried to get into a rhythm, remembering what I had learned last fall, but after only a few laps I was black flagged... I came in and was told my car was smoking like crazy. I told the official that it was simply burning oil and that there were no leaks, but he would not let me back out on track until I "checked the car". I went through the motions, opening the hood, looking for leaks (there were none). Pat showed up with his dad and looked over the car. He said he had seen me on track and that I was smoking a lot, but from the exhaust. I suspected it was because there was too much oil in the engine. He said "too bad, looks like the engine is working well apart from the smoke". The official said I could go back out, but there were only 4 minutes left in the session, so I decided to wait 24 minutes for the next sesssion. I offered Pat a chance to go out, but he preferred to let me have the last session in daylight.

I went out in the second session and things started to come together. My lap times began to drop. I was mostly being passed, but I passed a couple of cars. I learned a few more tricks to achieving a better lap time. I enjoyed being strapped in with a harness, but I think I wasn't exploiting this advantage enough, since I was still bracing myself with my foot too much and maybe not feeling the car as I should be. I managed to finish the session with no black flag and my best lap was only 0.6 seconds slower than last October (1:57.43), despite the fact that one of my front tires was completely finished and the fact that I did not use the "cheater" line in the long circular curves. I was happy with this, and even happier when Pat told me the car was barely smoking anymore on track. He figured whatever had been causing the smoke must have finally burned off, while I suspected the high oil level was the culprit.

Either way, for now, it seems the Civic is reliable, doesn't leak much, and offers a safer setup for the driver. All I need to do is change the front tires and hopefully I can hit the track again next week.