Live Fast, Die Hard

Team Cougar Bait is going to try to make the Sunday race. But rather than swap engines, they are going to swap cars. They are in the process of removing the roof so they can cut out the roll cage. They have access to a well-worn Saab 9-3 and have gone to fetch it. They intend to have the important pieces in the other chassis by Sunday's 8am race start.

Why replace the car instead of just the engine? The team was recently offered a car that had been involved in a deer accident. That car has a 4-cyl engine, whereas the engine in this car was a V6. Completely different systems.

There's hope? Not much.

Greg just came by to let me know the team has made a decision. They are going to remove the top of the racer with a Sawzall, and cut out the roll cage. Then we'll remove the top from my street 900, weld in the cage and drive it topless. (I mean roofless, not bare-chested.)

OK, probably not.

I do have a couple of other 900s at home. There's an 8-valve 4-dr in the driveway that runs pretty well.

Nah.

Tango Uniform early in the race.

Remember the movie The Blues Brothers? The Bluesmobile starts smoking and spewing oil on the windshield. Theres a loud knocking sound and Elwood says, "I think we threw a rod." Jake responds, "Is that serious?"

Yeah, it's serious, Like in the dumper. The Fart-hinder Saab 900 ran fine on the pace laps (see picture at right) but a few laps into the race, it lost power and ran hot. The prognosis is that it dropped a rod. We are out of the race with a bad engine.

At the moment we are discussing whether we should find another engine and make an overnight swap. It would not be easy as the 2.1L engine in our car is a bit different from the plethora of 2.0L engines that we have been offered. We are all pretty worn out from the amount of time spent on the car over the last few weeks, so another night of hard work does not sound like fun.

It began to rain as the cars took to the track for pace laps, so we were thinking we might have a chance against the flock of BMWs here this weekend.

The other Saab in the race, the Team Cougar Bait '94 900, may also be out. They split a lower radiator hose which dumped the coolant out, which caused the engine to overheat, and warped the head. They are dumping in a bottle of head gasket sealant and giving the head bolts a little more torque, but they are not optimistic that it will last.

These guys are serious!

We have spent a bit of time on team strategy. We need to be conservative, but not so conservative that we lose places. The weekend consists of two 7-hour endurance races; that's 14 hours of racing.

Still, the team drivers are competitive, and used to running at the front. So we have been watching a video of Greg racing his vintage Mini Cooper S taken from the cockpit of another racer that was following him. That way we get to see his preferred line through the corners. Greg has raced a lot of laps on the new 2.5 mile short course at BIR, so we are relying on his experience to get it right.

Our driving order is: 1) Greg Wold, 2) Darrell Peterson, 3) John Hogdal, 4) Tim Winker. In order for everyone to get equal time behind the wheel each driver would stay on the track for 50-55 minutes and get two shifts per day. We will see how it goes.

I should also point out that Greg John and Darrell have kept their youthful physiques, while too many years of sitting on barstools and eating fast food have put me at a disadvantage to the tune of 100 pounds or more. They are generally smaller, jockey types, while I lean toward my big-boned German ancestors. Greg runs marathons. Most of my exercise comes from running off at the mouth and jumping to conclusions. The driver's seat is quite wide, and there is plenty of room for my ample derrière, so the other guys have to add lots of padding.