Yea... not good news at all. But alas... let's start at the last update.
Car was running well and all looked good prior to departure. "New" engine was running a lot smoother then the old motor and seemed to have a bit more power. We loaded up and headed out on our 8+ hour drive.
We arrived Thursday evening and got the track with our other te
am (Team ClubGP). Rented an RV spot so we had power and water, etc. and enough room for both our teams to park our trailers, the cars, etc (thanks Adam). We unloaded everything Friday morning and got setup for the test day (also tech day).Brick and I did a few laps each in the car, and everything felt pretty good (although I still had some issues shifting into 4th w/ the trans linkage... but Brick didn't have any problems). We went through tech and made it through with out too much hastle (being through it before helped alot!).
Matt and Al showed up and did a few laps each as well. Then Brick took it back out for a few more laps, and after only a couple, came back into the pit with a bad sounding rattle coming from under the hood.
We pulled the valve cover, nothing obvious. Pulled the plugs... all looks fine (probably
running just a little lean). So, decided to drop the lower cross supports and the oil pan. Well... there is our problem. Seems we lost a bearing with all those bits in there :(So... here we are, the night before the 2 day race starts... done. No luck on finding and swapping another motor in time, so we ended up packing up Saturday morning, watching our other friends in Team ClubGP for a bit, and limping home to lick our wounds (and lighter wallets).
Good news for Team ClubGP... they not only finished the race (after using JB Weld to fix their motor!), they ended up with 5th place, and a $1K prize from the judges.
I have pictures here and here.
