Fart-hinder* Racing: 05/01/2017

Everyone who watches NASCAR, Indycars, IMSA, drag racing, or any professional motorsports is familiar with sponsors. The company names are emblazoned on the fenders, hood, rear of race cars. Pro teams can't survive without them.

The Fart-hinder Racing Saab 9-3 parked where
people can get up close and ask questions.

Amateur teams, on the other hand, are funded almost completely by the drivers themselves. If you're lucky, you can talk a small business into spending a bit of their advertising budget in your direction, in exchange for their name on your car. Often, that sponsorship consists of a trade for parts, tires, or labor.

Here is the one thing that many of those amateurs seeking sponsorship forget. Sponsorship is advertising. What the business wants is to have their name displayed to potential customers. If the race car is hidden away in a garage all week long, only to appear at a race where there are no spectators, the sponsor isn't getting their money's worth.

Instead of promising to show up at a certain number of races, the team should promise a certain number of events. Events include car shows where people walking by can see the sponsor/advertiser names up close, the team can answer questions, maybe even hand out flyers about their race events, their car, their drivers... and their sponsors.

Fart-hinder Racing does attempt to attend such events to promote the team and its sponsors. Our most recent was the Intermarque Spring Kick Off in Osseo, Minnesota. It is a celebration of getting vintage import cars out of winter hibernation for a day of display and driving. It's also a chance to visit with old friends who share an interest in the automotive hobby.

The FHR Saab race car parked among other Saabs, and a few Rolls-Royces, on the main street in downtown Osseo.

Just one week after the Road America race, the 9-3 was hauled down to Osseo, with the rubber marks from a brief encounter with a tire wall still marring the paint.

One of our sponsors, Hanover European Auto Parts, is located not far from Osseo, so we felt it would be a good place to promote that business, as well as our other sponsors, eEuroparts.com and Lake Superior Brewing Company.

The race car didn't win any prizes, but Ben Wedge and Tim Winker took Ben's recently purchased 1989 Saab SPG on the short time-speed-distance rally. The rally gives owners of the cars on display a chance to get out and drive them in competition on the back roads near Osseo. Ben and Tim finished first overall on the rally.

Exiting Turn 14, heading up the hill on the main straightaway.
Photo by John Kehoe.

Fart-hinder Racing began in 2010 when the ChumpCar World Series made its way to Brainerd in our home state of Minnesota. That makes 2017 our 8th year of competition in amateur endurance racing and the 4^th season for the Fart-Kontroll 1999 Saab 9-3.

Turn 5, about to get passed by
a pair of cars in higher classes.
Photo by Tim Kruse.

We started off 2017 with a pair of eight-hour races at Road America, sanctioned by World Racing League. This was the first time WRL had secured a date at the fabled 4-mile long track nestled in the Kettle Moraine region of Wisconsin.

Fart-Hinder has been to Road America several times before with the ChumpCar World Series, but WRL had arranged to run the traditional road course including The Kink. CCWS has always used the motorcycle Bend between the Carousel and Kettle Bottoms to keep speeds down on the most difficult part of the track.

But WRL isn’t just any amateur series. In line with allowing faster cars to race, founder Joey Todd has required wheel-to-wheel racing experience from the competitors. This licensure, as well as Joey’s reputation for running a clean series, convinced Road America that we could handle the fast track.

But could we handle it?

There was even time to wash the Saab!

First we had to get the car ready. It finished the last race of 2016 at Road America without any major issues, so we weren’t worried about doing too much. When Mike came home from Florida, he and his wife invited the whole team up to their home on Burntside Lake near Ely, MN for a weekend of wrenching (and beer drinking, eating, and toasting our weary selves in their lakeside sauna).

Between home brews, we looked the car over, replaced all the fluids, swapped the brakes, made a few minor changes, and called the car ready.

Blue silicone do88 hoses on our dirty stock engine.

Thanks to a sale at eEuroparts.com, we decided to upgrade the intake hoses with shiny blue silicone hoses from do88. The new hoses probably don't offer much of a performance advantage, but they replace the OE rubber hoses that have been on the car since it left the factory in Trollhattan, Sweden.

Four of the usual suspects signed on for this event: Captain Tim Winker, Mike Mandy, Travis McCormick and Mark Fitzpatrick. Tim, Mike and Mark would travel the 400 miles from Fart-hinder Central in Tim's recently acquired 2003 Ford E250 conversion van. It replaces the funky-cool 1973 Dodge Sportsman van that was a bit too noisy with no sound deadening, and didn't have A/C nor a functioning heater valve. With the rear bench seat removed, the Ford holds all of our tools, spares and personal gear, plus is comfortable with reclining captains chairs. We're still working on a name for the new tow vehicle. Travis made the trip from his home in Iowa aboard his Rat Rod Chevy pickup.

The"new" tow vehicle, a Ford conversion van.

Race weekend arrived and we started the weekend pleasantly surprised there was no line for tech. Fifteen minutes later, we were in the pits, making final checks of everything to make certain the Saab was ready for 16 hours of high speed racing.

Race morning dawned cool, but dry and sunny. Perfect racing weather. Mike took the double-wide rolling start, and raced off to turn one at over 120 MPH. Functioning radios meant he could keep us informed of how smoothly the car was running. He said it darted a bit at the top of 4^th gear – about 128 MPH in three different places on track. He stayed out the first two hours, and chipped away at his lap times until he got down to a 2:56 – about 4 seconds faster than the car’s previous fastest lap at Road America running the bend.

Damage from "kissing" the tire wall
amounted primarily to black scuff marks.

Tim took the second stint, and settled right in. In short order he ripped off a 2:55. Shortly thereafter, he got a free tow truck ride. Running fast into turn 14 he had a Spec Boxster filling his mirrors. Next thing he knew, instead of a little trailing throttle oversteer to line up for the long main straight, the Saab did a quick 180 and slid across the gravel trap, sideways into the tire wall with the entire passenger side. The tow truck driver deemed it too damaged to flat tow, and elected to pick up the front end with the wrecker.

Back in the pits, the damage didn’t seem so bad. The front bumper cover had become disconnected from the front fender, but three zip ties solved that. The caved-in side panels all popped right out with a fist to the inside. We jacked the car up, checked for structural and suspension damage, and sent Tim out for the rest of his (fortunately uneventful) run.

Mark went third, and picked off the fastest lap of the weekend – a 2:52.260. He reports a braver driver could have gone faster.

A fractured coolant line ended Saturday's race
about 30 minutes before the checkered flag.

Travis was tasked with bringing the car home, and almost made it. With a half hour left to run, a hard coolant line to the turbo snapped and all the coolant was gone. He shut it down quickly and got back to the pits. With no time to complete repairs before the checkered flag, we just got the car ready for the second day.

A used spark plug boot was re-purposed to connect the broken end of the steel coolant line to the banjo fitting on the engine, and the Saab appeared ready to tackle another eight hours of Road America.

Much less to report for the second day. Travis went out first, and after 5 laps our day was over. The transmission wouldn’t stay in gear. We checked the usual external suspects, but came to the conclusion that it had to be an internal gearbox issue. With about 5,000 race miles on that stock gearbox, we agreed that it was probably time to give it a rest, and maybe a rebuild. Even if we had a spare transmission, it would have taken too much time to change and still have time to race.

So not the outcome we hoped for, but still a great weekend at the track.

Photo by Tim Kruse.

Our 9-3 is fast, very fast, on Road America's three long straights. At times we were able to power away from most of the BMWs and the Honda that finished 2^nd overall on Saturday. Unfortunately, the cornering on the Saab is still in need of work, costing a few tenths of a second at each turn. On the 4-mile, 14-turn road course, that adds up to as much as ten seconds a lap. There isn't much available off-the-shelf like there is for other marques, and what there is is illegal under some sanctioning body rulebooks.

Experiencing Road America the way the pros run it was worth the trip by itself. The first time you come out of the Carousel and look ahead to the Kink you realize it’s closer, and much sharper than expected. (Not to mention that the concrete on both sides makes it very narrow and hard to see around.) It takes nerves and practice to build up speed through there.

We look forward to some more practice next time!