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Car Maintenance and Woodburn Raceways
By Emily | July 16, 2008
Now that Chris and I have actually been able to spend some time with the car, it needs some regular maintenance. This is something Chris and I (okay, mostly Chris) have been not really looking forward to. Chris wanted to make sure he remembered every little item on the to-do list and got everything safely put back together at the end of the day. I watched for moral support… from the living room.
The car needed an oil change, tires rotated, valves lashed and a fix for a minor transmission leak. Chris set out to take care of all of these and in keeping with the spirit of automotive maintenance, our previously competent tools conveniently broke. Chris went to jack the car up with the floor jack and it seemed to refuse to lift anything — or more accurately, anything that it lifted didn’t stay lifted. Our defiant jack sent Chris to Google to find out what problems could arise with a jack and found that this particular floor jack has a tendency to spontaneously break the valve inside and will only become more defiant with each attempt to fix. Apparently we are purchasing a new jack. However, when is this maintenance getting done? We found a neighbor with a floor jack, a snazzy one at that, and Chris was able to get all of the work done. Soon after, we got the same jack. Nothing is ever easy in this sport.
This week the graphics will be done for the car. We will give it a ginger sponge bath before the Chris dives into that project. Check back soon for pictures of the final makeover of the car! It’s going to look great.
This past week Chris came up with this great idea of heading to Woodburn, Oregon (just south of Portland) to watch the divisional race of the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series. This would be the series that we would be racing in the future. We thought it would be a great opportunity to check out the competition and how these divisional races work. We want to make sure we have all the bases covered before we enter our first race. And this seemed like a great step!
Sunday morning we headed out bright and early for the three-plus hour drive to Woodburn. We arrived just in time to see the first round of the alcohol classes. Woodburn is a great track (with some amazing food!) and a perfect ice-breaker for us — so to speak, it was over 95 degrees. We thoroughly enjoyed watching the cars run and paid close attention to those running in Super Comp. We soon realized that we could do it and only boosted our confidence. After the first round, we trolled the pits and observed the Super Comp operations. It was quite interesting to see.
We returned to the stands to watch the rest of the race. Sadly, in the final round of alcohol funny car Jason Rupert and Brian Hough were racing for the win and Rupert took a hard turn to the right. He crashed the car head on into the guard race about 100 yards from our seats. The body tore off and ended up on the return road while the chassis bounced around on the top end of the track. Luckily Rupert made it out of the car safely and on his own. Here is a link to a series of photos taken of the crash. It is fascinating to see the progression and to realize how luckily he was to be properly secured in the car. The most interesting part is the shot where you see a 16 second time in Rupert’s lane. The time was stopped by the safety crew crossing the finish line from the other end. It is amazing that it took less than 15 seconds for the crew to make it to Rupert after the crash. If you are someone who is interested in a more “high action” view, here is the link to a video on YouTube. However, I must post a warning that videos like this aren’t easy to watch. Although accidents like Scott Kalitta’s are absolutely heartbreaking, it’s situations like these that hit home for me. The pro classes are so far removed from the sportsman classes, that it is hard to relate. Either way, it’s only one more reason to triple check every nut, bolt and buckle before each run. Thanks to all of the safety crew who are out there day in and day out. They really make the difference.
EMDUB
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