The third SM race of the season, and it left me with plenty to chew on. There was a fair bit of scrambling. Two weeks ago we were on the dyno at AJ-Tech, and there we found the converter was slipping so badly that it needed a bit of work. We stopped right there, car home and converter in hand.
The next morning, off toward Turku, to Tapio Haakis at TH Matic. He worked his own magic on the converter. Because of Pauli's schedule we only got the car onto the dyno on Wednesday, just before the race.
Off to Kauhava
The dyno ran so late that the next day was left full of all kinds of jobs, and the caravan only got into shape to leave by early evening. The clock was far enough along that we decided to leave in the morning at six.
We got to Kauhava Airfield, to the SPTR Summer Nationals SM 3, in good time and had camp up right away. Scrutineering passed nicely, and then it was just prepping for the track. FHRA also caught the scrutineering in an official video. Everything went great, right up to the line.
To the line
I was a bit nervous. Or rather, nervous as hell. It had been over a year since I last drove. Burnout done and I settled into the staging lights. This is where the drama started.
The seat was so far back that I couldn't reach the throttle properly, I could only press the pedal with the touch of a toe. Lights change and the brake comes up. The car leaps off the line and my foot lifts off the throttle. I try to get back on it, but everything happens so fast, and smoke starts coming off the right side, so I back off the throttle even more. I rolled past the finish and parked on the return strip. The time slip still read 7.834 at 269.85 km/h, with a 1.476 sixty foot - a decent number even on a lifted pass.
I gathered the chutes and restarted the car. It didn't run quite right. The temperature started climbing, up to 104 C, so I shut the engine down and called the team to come get me.
What we found in the pits
While waiting for the tow crew, I already spotted that the water pump wasn't turning. Ok, I thought, we're getting off light. A moment later, though, I noticed a fair amount of oil had come out from somewhere, because there was some inside too, on top of the tunnel over the pan.
In the pits we dug into it. We found the intake manifold gasket had popped out from between the block and the manifold at the rear of the engine, and from there it sprayed oil onto the transmission and in through it.
Plugs out first, and the cylinder 8 plug was toast, burned right up. So on to a leakdown test: 100 % leak in the cylinder, and the leak was into the crankcase. Meaning a broken piston. It started to piss me off a little, to put it plainly.
Game over for this round
With the team we decided to swap the piston, since we had them in stock. I fetched a piston from the home shop, but once I got back we found the connecting rod had melted so badly it would have needed replacing too. And we didn't have a single spare rod stashed away. That's where the race ended for this round.
As of this writing, an inquiry has already gone to the factory about how fast we can get new rods. The Motopark SM 4 race is six weeks away. The future will tell whether we make it there.
