A disappointing trip to Iowa.

Well, the inevitable happened in Iowa - we lost our engine. Not that we've misplaced and it hasn't turned up but rather, it let go and we have no powerplant for the remainder of the season at this point.

We were having a rather good day in that Jimmy had found a good set up for the shocks and springs and had the car settled in where he wanted it. He was enjoying running the high banks of Iowa and was able to run on the high side or the down on the apron. It was shaping up to be a good night and we were looking forward to a good run. The qualifying run was so-so but Jimmy thought that the car had potential and was ready to give it a go.

Jimmy qualified the car in 14th but was able to secure a higher starting position due to some issues with two other competitors. He rolled off in 13th starting position and was holding his won through the first 10 - 15 laps. He had passed a couple of cars and we had started to feel good about what the night might bring. A steady run and a good finish were looking like distinct possibilities.

A caution came out on Lap 21 shortly after Jimmy had been lapped but he was still staying strong and was looking good. A flat left rear tire, though, was about to change things.

We called Jimmy in and changed the tire while still under caution and were ready to push him back out when he called over the radio that the engine was not feeling right. As we listened for a moment, we could hear that it was running rough and did not sound good. Jimmy reported that the temp was running high again and was asking if we should proceed. The call was made to give it a go and see if running through the night air would bring the temp down a bit.

Jimmy rolled down the pit lane, completed another lap and as he dove into Turn 1 while still under caution and a puff of white smoke emanated from under the hood of the car. "The engine just died and I'm bringing it in on the back stretch" was the last we heard for the night.

Upon pushing the car in and removing the hood, we found a puddle of oil under the left front corner of the block and oil seeming to seep from between cylinders 4 and 6. The initial thoughts would have to be researched more after we got back to the shop as it was now after dark and tough to see what the real issue may have been.

Upon pulling the hood off in Brownsburg, we discovered that there was an issue with a spark plug. It almost appeared to have been nicked by something and therefore had no doubt misfired and caused the engine to stop running properly. While we still have some work to do, it does not appear that our engine is a total loss and may be recoverable. However, we still need to decided what we're doing for the remainder of the season and whether or not to pull this one and work on it later while we convert another powerplant.

We'd still like to consider ORP at the end of July but we'll see what happens. There are many decisions to be made and all of them are, as I like to say in the military, "above my paygrade."

So, as it stands right now, we're remaining hopeful that we may be running at ORP and the remainder of the schedule but it's way up-in-the-air. As soon as we know something, we'll be sure to report and make sure our fans know too.

In the meantime, keep cool and we'll see you at a racetrack somewhere...



- Gar

Getting ready for the pavement stretch.

We have removed the engine from the dirt car and are getting ready to put it back into the pavement car. After having a rather dismal night at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, we've been able to troubleshoot our firing issue and think that we have it pinned down.

It seemed as though there was an issue with the electrical system between the mag and the spark plugs. Anyone who was at the Hoosier 100, no doubt, heard the engine off a little bit as Jimmy was coming down the front stretch on several occasions. This was the root of that issue.

We're happy to have discovered that for a couple of reasons. The first being that it is a simple fix and the second being that it is saving us a trip to the dyno that we were anticipating during this break. Now, we don't have the stress of time-constraints before getting to Iowa nor do we have to shell out the money to get the dyno scheduled.

Beyond that, we're also looking at rigging up an oil cooler in an effort to keep the overheating issue under control. We're happy to know that everyone is dealing with the overheating issues this season as the new ethanol fuel seems to be burning hotter. Reports were that the podium finishers were running temps in the 240-260 bracket and we were pegged at 240 during both races. With any kind of luck, the oil cooler will keep temps somewhere between 220 and 240 throughout the race and allow us to finish the event. Right now, that is our single goal for the next few races.

Tomorrow, we drop the engine in the pavement car and then we start to do the small things to get ready for our next race which is only 16 days away.


- Gar

The dirt car is on-track and sounding good!

Tonight is Jimmy's first time in a dirt Silver Crown car in over 10 years and we're excited to see him in it. The nengine appears to be running better than what we had last week (which we swapped out of the pavement car last Sun evening) and that has been a positive development.

Right now, we have had an issue with the brakes develop and the team is swarming over the car right now in an effort to figure out the problem. We hav eno doubts that it is something that can be fixed, we just have to be patient and get it done the right way.

                                         The dirt car is ready to go before hot laps begin.

We've gotten the brake issue figured out and things appear to be going smoothly again. We hope to get Jimmy on-track again soon before the end of the hot lap session. Follow us on Facebook and we'll keep regular updates coming throughout the evening.


- Gar

 

From our public relations man, Steve Zautke:

For Immediate Release

Media Contact: Steve Zautke

Eddie Sachs Racing

Shop: 586-292-6415

Cell: 414-588-3821

E-mail: szautke@gmail.com

EDDIE SACHS RACING

USAC TRAXXAS USAC SILVER CROWN SERIES

Race Preview - Hoosier 100 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds

 May 23^rd, 2012 - The Traxxas United States Auto Club (USAC) Silver Crown Championship Series along with Eddie Sachs Racing (ESR) and their driver Jimmy Kite have a quick turnaround as they return to action Friday, May 25th at the Indiana State Fairgrounds for the historic Hoosier 100.

The ESR team came home in 15th place in the USAC Hall of Fame Classic at Lucas Oil Raceway on Saturday night.  Kite and the ESR crew struggled initially with injection system issues which they were able to overcome.  After qualifying 17th, Kite was able to get the car comfortable and was ready to make his move when tire pressure issues caused the handling to go away. Eventually overheating issues caused the Indy Line Stripe / Brownsburg Signs Beast-Chevy No. 25 to retire after 3/4 mark. Kite remarked afterwards, “We were making progress on the guys in front when we had some tire pressure issues that caused the car to get looser than we wanted.  Then the water temp kept rising, so I brought it in rather than damage the engine.” Kite, a native of Stockbridge, GA is keyed up for his first race on the dirt in several years, “I’m excited driving in the Hoosier 100, to be part of an event with such a storied history is pretty special.  I’ve driven some dirt races over the last several years, but this is my first Silver Crown race on the dirt since 1997.  We learned a lot last week and look forward to putting on a great show for the fans Friday evening.”

ESR is proud to announce that Indy Line Stripe, Brownsburg Signs and Landrum Performance Springs are proud supporters of Eddie Sachs Racing. 

• Indy Line Stripe - With over 15 years in the pavement maintenance industry, Indy Line Stripe services the needs of commercial, industrial, and municipal institutions. Indy Line Stripe is an owner supervised, family orientated business that services the smallest of jobs, to the largest of municipal, and commercial projects.
• Brownsburg Signs – ESR is also supported by Brownsburg Signs.  For over ten years, Brownsburg Signs has been offering top quality custom signs, banners, and more, at highly competitive pricing using the latest in industry leading technology.
• Landrum Performance Springs – Landrum Performance Springs can and does provide all the springs you need to compete and win on every track from a Saturday night bullring to Super Speedways and Drag Strips.

Eddie Sachs Racing - Started in 2007 ESR presents a professional image for their supporters while campaigning on the USAC Traxxas Silver Crown Championship Series. Owner, Eddie Sachs, Jr. has spent a lifetime in and around motorsports. His commitment to excellence comes from his lineage as well as his exposure to the many giants of auto racing such as Parnelli Jones and Roger Penske.  In 2011, Eddie Sachs Racing (ESR) teamed up with USAC and IZOD IndyCar Series veteran Jimmy Kite to challenge top-quality teams and drivers of the USAC Traxxas Silver Crown Championship Series.

Indiana State Fairgrounds, Indianapolis, IN – Auto racing at the one-mile dirt oval dates back to 1903. The fairgrounds have been home to AAA and later USAC racing since 1953 when Jo Quinn and Roger Wolcott promoted the first Hoosier 100.  Legendary drivers such as Bob Sweikert, Eddie Sachs, A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Mario Andretti are just a few of the drivers to appear in victory lane.
For sponsorship inquiries please contact Ted Sachs at e-mail: foursachs@yahoo.com, PH: 847-687-2554
For more information on the Traxxas USAC Silver Crown Series please visit, www.usacracing.com/pitpass

Eddie Sachs Racing •PO Box 46482 Mt. Clemens, MI. 48046 • Contact: esrmarketing25@gmail.com • www.eddiesachsracing.net

We'll have a new update posted within the next 24 hours with pictures and a status on how things are progressing on the dirt car. Stay tuned!

- Gar

Qualifying is over and we're in the show, starting 17th. We were hoping for a better run but it appears that the engine is not doing what we anticipated. We don't have baseline numbers to work off of and that is going to hamper our efforts until we can come up with our own set. In the meantime, Jimmy says that the car is settling, going into the turns but just not wanting to follow-through. He's "diamonding" the turns in an effort to get through them better. There are 18 starters tonight and we'll run a steady race and do our best to stay out of trouble and hope for a good run.

                                    The crew is ready for the events of the night to begin!




- Gar

Race day is here!

We've unloaded the car and set everything up. Jimmy is making final preparations on the car and things are looking good. Ambient air temperature is 84 and track temp is well into the 120s. We're not expecting any rain in central Indiana until sometime tomorrow night and this bodes well for our race tonight.

Jimmy's feeling good about the car and the rest of us are confident that we'll have a successful evening. We'll be updating again later this evening after we run the race. Wish us luck for a good run tonight!


- Gar

Let the season begin!

Well, here we are. Tomorrow night, we begin our 2012 Traxxas Silver Crown season at Lucas Oil Raceway in Clermont, IN. The car is ready, Jimmy feels good and we're excited to get going.

There were very few adjustments made after the test session run at LOR a few weeks ago. Jimmy has settled on what he wants to do with the shock and spring set ups and knows where he stands with the tires.

We still feel very positive about the speeds that we were putting in during the test and have deduced that we're running very well in comparison to some of the other teams. We'd like to think that we'll be, at least, mid-pack or better. A top-10 finish may not be out of the question but we'll take anything better than 15th. Taht would be a marked improvement from last season overall and especially, the July race at LOR.

We encourage everyone to come out and see us. Here's the schedule of events as it stands right now:

4:00 PM Spectator Gates

5:15 PM Modified Practice and Qualifying

6:05 PM Silver Crown Practice

7:00 PM Heat Laps

7:25 PM Opening Ceremonies

7:30 PM Widow Wax Modified Feature

8:15 PM Driver Introduction

8:30 PM Silver Crown Feature (100 Laps)

Tickets are $20 for general admission, children 12 and under free with paid adult.

There is no rain in the forecast through the weekend so we expect to have a good night of racing and we are ready to kick off the season!

- Gar

We've got a race car!

After many arduous months, we have a Silver Crown car that saw time on a race track today for a few hours as USAC hosted an open test for all Silver Crown teams at Lucas Oil Raceway in Clermont, IN. There was a turnout of 12 or 13 and we found ourselves running decent laps that put us right in the middle of where everyone was. We were able to do it on older tires and we're hoping that with new, sticker tires, we'll be able to put down faster laps. This bodes well for the race at LOR on 19 May.

We spent a fair amount of the day with the weather radar in one hand and stop watches in the other as we were sure that we were about to be rained out of our test session. The sky and radar looked very imposing throughout the majority of the day and we figured that we better get moving and get in as much testing as possible before we had to pack up and head home.  Luckily, the rain held off and we were able to spend a few good hours on track, testing different ideas.

Jimmy was impressed that the car was a marked improvement over what we were running last season and he felt that several of the changes that we made over the winter have really paid off. We spent a lot of time working on shock and stagger set ups and there may still be some additional work to do. However, last season when we ran LOR, we spent the entire day running horribly loose and today, Jimmy noted that the car was much tighter and it was evident, watching him come out of Turn 4. As anyone who attended last year's race, a few times it looked as though Jimmy was running the Indiana Fairgrounds and not LOR! Not so, today.

The car looks very good too as the new decals really stand out and make the car much easier to see. A couple of us stood on top of the Geoff's trailer (which he graciously lent us for the test today) and watched Jimmy turn some laps. The new Indy Line Stripe logo on the side of the hood has added a bit extra which really makes this look like a good race car and helps a bit more in making it stand out from the rest of the pack. We think that Dan Berg, Jimmy's longtime spotter, will really appreciate the new paint scheme!

After running several laps and playing around with shock, spring and stagger configurations, Jimmy said after the test that he's got a few things to think about and consider before we head back out again in May. We have just under three weeks until we get back out on-track and with new tires and a better set-up with the shocks and springs, we should be able to run fairly well.


- Gar

We have an engine!

It's been a few weeks since I posted an update but that's been due to waiting for an engine to arrive so I could have something to talk about and the engine arriving and then being frustrated with trying to fit it into the car. Things don't always go the way we like them to but eventually, they do and we win!

Our engine arrived from Chicago Friday evening, 30 Mar. The following Monday, Jimmy and I figured that we could spend the morning hooking everything up and getting it to slide into the engine compartment and be done by mid-afternoon.

Upon lowering the engine into the car, yours truly underestimated the amount of force that the engine would exert on the hoist and allowed it to... "settle with force" into the car. This caused a few moments of panic as we wondered just what had been damaged, if anything and where did we go from there. Upon quick evaluation, we found that nothing had been significantly upset and we would be able to continue. So, while continuing to operate the hoist (under great supervision from Jimmy!), we were able to lower it into the car in a more reasonable manner the second time around.

As we began to line the block up to the firewall, we realized that something was preventing it from fitting snugly up against the wall. We tried to tighten bolts, hoping they would draw the block in but that seemed to have no effect. We also loosened the bell housing in an attempt to make that fit easier but that was beginning to create problems of its own too.

Long story, really short - we realized that the brake mount screw was extending through the firewall too far and that was causing the engine block to hang up. We also figured out that the floorpan in the cockpit was preventing a smooth fit between the clutch and the engine as well. Engine installation, Day 1 ended with a great amount of frustration and lots of awfully colorful vernacular.

So, we went home early that afternoon and came back the next day to try again. That's always the best approach.

Day 2 of the engine installation went much more smoothly as Jimmy was able to grind down the bolt from the brake mount that was causing the block to hang up. We also went through the trouble to disengage the driveshaft and pull the rear end of the car out to work on the clutch. While it was a pain-in-the-ass, we figured that now was the time to do it right and make sure everything worked the right way instead of half-assing it and hoping for the best in the middle of the season.

After fighting with the clutch and figuring out that not only was the floorpan preventing a proper fit but Jimmy also realized that some of the bolts were not screwing in properly either. So, he cleaned out and reworked some of the bolt holes to make them fit.

Upon getting the engine to finally fit the way it should, we got all of the lines attached and things all hooked up and then decided to see how it looked underneath. That's when we saw that the oil pan was going to have to be changed.

The pan was too deep for the pavement car by almost an inch! So, we did what any self-respecting race team would do when confronted with such information after placing the engine in the car... we used more of that vernacular!

Another hour of double-checking that everything fit so that we only had to take the engine out once to do anything to it and then out it came. It, now, sits in the shop on the engine stand with a new oil pan about to be attached. We are awaiting a new gasket and with any kind of luck, it should be in the car by the beginning of next week.

We hope to get a bit of fuel to get it fired up to check it and make sure everything is running smoothly. After that, panels can be attached, wheels can be put on and we'll have a legitimate race car! I'll make sure to shoot some video of the engine running and get it posted here. I would also like to take some good pictures in the next couple of weeks and get them posted as well.

On a side note, I'd like to take a quick minute and wish Geoff Dodge luck as he begins his sprint car season tomorrow night, 13 Apr. He'll be racing in the World of Outlaws events in Paducah, KY and Pevely, MO on Sat night. Geoff fired up his car yesterday in the garage and ran it around the parking lot a bit to make sure everything was looking good and it sounded great! Jimmy and I are ready to hear the Silver Crown car fired up next and in the meantime, we hope Geoff goes out there and shows the Outlaws how it's done!

Our goal is to have the pavement car ready for the USAC test on 29 Apr. We invite anyone to come out and see us run around and knock the construction dust off the car. We have a garage-full of race cars and it's time to start getting them out to the track and we can't wait!

We are expecting quite a few more updates in the coming weeks so please check back often. Also take the time to check out our website at  http://eddiesachsracing.net/ and like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Eddie-Sachs-Racing/122289531187434 so that you don't miss out on any of the action once the season gets underway!

- Gar

There is something exciting that we're going to try this season! Check this out: 

http://www.ustream.tv/broadcaster/10671568


After some discussion with Jimmy and my own, personal experience with doing live-stream broadcasting, we've decided that we're going to get a UStream account and stream our team activities. Of course, we'll just have the happenings in the shop for the time-being but we also hope to take this capability to the track throughout the season so our fans can watch us live as we get the cars ready to race. USAC has streaming of the events themselves available and we'll get this worked out with them so that way we don't step on any toes with copyright issues.

What we may end up doing is broadcasting our activities in the pits as we run hot laps, qualifying and general preparations throughout the day. Once it's time to line the cars up and go racing, we'll defer to USAC so as not to over-lap with their live timing and scoring which will be available through www.usacracing.com.

We may try to keep the audio on at our events. However, we may require some feedback (polite, please!) that if the sound quality is no good with other cars running, we can turn off the audio and just stream the video portion of the broadcast. We 

So, as we make an attempt to enter the 21st Century and do something bold and exciting, we invite our fans and sponsors along for the ride. We hope that you'll enjoy it and maybe, it will add something to your experience.

In the meantime, I only made it to the shop a couple of times this week as I had other commitments to address. I hope to get out there at least three days this week so I can try to keep up with Jimmy!

Mindy from Brownsburg Signs has been spending about as much time with our cars as we have and we appreciate the way that they're looking. She was able to get us some black vinyl wrap with which to cover the dirt car and it is really starting to look good:

This is how some of the panels look right now and Jimmy's been cutting and heat-shrinking vinyl all week. Very soon, we're going to have a complete dirt car. Note that there is a new spud in the frame. Jimmy drilled that out and our welder, Danny, came out last weekend and among other spots on the car, was able to weld that in there and give us a new mounting point for the rocker arm.

We're also in the process of putting the pavement car all together as the decals have been finished on that. We hope to do a little photo shoot with Jimmy and the cars before the middle of April and we'll be sure to post pictures as soon as we can.

In the meantime, we'll be back at it this week and we'll have another update out to you soon!


- Gar

We have two cars and they're getting us excited to get to the track!

Last weekend, Eddie made it down to pick up our engine to take it to the shop in Chicago to begin the re-work process for the new ethanol conversion. We're expecting to have it back by the end of the month and as soon as we get it, we'll be able to drop it into the car and have a complete sled. Jimmy and I are rarin' to see this on the track.

We're also getting excited because some of the decals are beginning to be placed on the car and it looks tons better than it did last year. It will be brighter and easier to see at the track and that will be huge for fans, sponsors and Jimmy's spotter! It's going to get noticed and maybe, talked about... Here's a sneak-peak of what the new decals look like:

C'mon, now; we can't show more than that or no one will want to come out and see us. Safe to say, there is still more to go on the car and it will look good when it's ready. I'd like to take a minute and send a HUGE "Thank you" out to Mindy from Brownsburg Signs on behalf of the team! She has really been working hard in-between her other projects to help us get the car ready and she's done a great job getting these decals ready for us.

While that's been going on, Jimmy has been working hard, getting the dirt car ready too. What started out as nothing more than a chassis in the middle of February has become a recognizable piece of racing equipment.

After assessing what the team had in the way of available chassis and parts over the winter, Jimmy stripped down the two dirt chassis that we had and has done a great job himself of putting together a good, solid dirt car. He took the best frame that was on-hand, has fabricated some new parts and along with a little help from yours truly, stripped down a fuel tank to make it ready for the eventual placement on the car.

That was an event in itself as we discovered the joys of using aircraft paint stripper (which states, rather clearly on the back of the can, "Not to be used on airplanes"... ummm, okay). Jimmy was prepared to bang away at the tank with a rubber mallet and use the power-washer when one of our shop neighbors offered us this stuff. Jimmy and I had a good time, enjoying the end-of-February 70 degree afternoon, watching this stuff corrode the paint.

In the course of about 5 and a half hours, Jimmy and I were able to scrape an entire fuel tank and prepare it for its new paint scheme:

The remover at work:

While it was corroding the paint, we thought that it sounded like a bowl of Rice Krispies!

The end result:

Now, we have a tank ready to be painted. Jimmy has decided that flat black will be the look for the dirt car. We'll have the same decals on it as we have on the pavement car. We're thinking that the decals will stand out very well once we get them applied to the black surface. It should be a really good-looking race car.

Here is some of the progress that has been made on the dirt car to this point:

At this point, the floor pan has been painted flat black and I'll have a picture of that coming up. The yellow nose piece will be painted black and the white visor piece will also be black. Here's what the floor pan looks like, now:

The entire car will have this look. Jimmy's painted the inside of all of the body panels and the outside will be vinyl-wrapped which will stand up to the beating on the dirt tracks better than paint. It's been good to see the black panels around the shop as they're giving us the feeling of real progress being made.

Jimmy has also spent some time getting some spots ready to have new pop-screw tabs or Zeus-fastener tabs mounted on the frame of the car. While we've been fitting panels and pieces together from two different cars to make one, there have been some adjustments to make along the way. We've got the welder scheduled to come to the shop on Saturday of this week and get all of the tabs welded on to the frame. That way, come Monday, we'll be ready to start affixing things to the frame, permanently. Here is some of the prep work that has gone into preparing the frame:

It may have been necessary to grind off an existing tab and move it an inch or two. After grinding off a tab, one must then grind down the paint to the bare metal in order to make a good weld. If any of the welder's tip gets into the paint, it will ruin the whole process. So, enough space must be made around the area to ensure a good weld. Afterward, we'll spray paint it and it will look like new. A bit of Machine Shop 101 for those of us who never knew how some of this worked.

It's been fun to be in the shop, helping Jimmy and seeing what all goes into preparing a car for the season. For anyone who ever thought that cars just show up at the track and drivers simply get in them and race, they do not know the hours and hours that goes into making sure these cars are ready long before the car sees the race track.

We'll keep the updates coming as interesting progress is made. We hope to get some good pictures of the cars together after they've been put together, painted and decaled. We'll post them when we do. That's still a little while away but it's something to look forward to.


- Gar

There are cars taking shape!

Things are exciting, now, as we have a pavement car ready to go sans engine and fuel tank. It's waiting on placement of graphics  and we expect it to look really sharp this season. Jimmy's been working closely with a contact from a local graphics shop and has come up with some great ideas on a way to make the car stand out and look especially good for the night races. We can't wait to get the vinyl on the car and get some pictures on here. Oh, the suspense is killing us!

We wanted to offer a good compare-and-contrast on the nose of the pavement car. This is what we had configured last year:

This is what it looks like, now:

It's easy to see just how much sleeker the car looks and no doubt, how much more aerodynamic it will be on the race track during the season. We have a couple of configurations that we can run based on track conditions that we didn't have last year. It's nice to be in a position to have options to make ourselves that much more competitive. Jimmy's got a great feeling about how the car will race with these changes made to the front end.

The dirt car is also coming along nicely. We hope to get some pictures posted of that in the next couple of weeks as Jimmy continues to make the necessary modifications to that chassis and gets it ready for the Indiana State Fairgrounds run in May.

Keep checking back as we continue with our weekly updates. In the coming weeks we'll have, not only, the updates about the dirt car but we'll be getting engine modifications done for the ethanol conversion, running them on the dyno and finally, dropping them into the frame and have rolling chassis soon. Things are getting exciting and we're looking forward to a great season!


-Gar

Well, holy cow! We've got a race car, sitting here. For all intents-and-purposes, it's a race car, anyway.

Jimmy's been able to get the cockpit finished up sans seat and all we have left to do is install a fuel tank and drop an engine in and we should be good-to-go!

We're hoping to get an engine out to the engine guys within the next couple of weeks to get the ethanol conversion done. After USAC dropped the bombshell on the teams over the winter, there's been a bit of a scramble to get the engines converted to run ethanol. Everyone's in the same boat as we press ahead on this. If we want to run, this is what we do.

The cockpit on the pavement car looks good. Jimmy was able to shorten some hoses and lines and that should drop us a bit of weight as we won't need to carry the extra weight of liquid for brakes and coolant. Jimmy was also able to mount the oil tank on the inside of the frame to get it out of the slipstream. We haven't mounted the gas tank yet, so we may have to move it yet again but we're hopeful that we may be able to keep it where it is.

Here's the cockpit as it looks, currently:

I have to admit that we're pretty impressed with the way the nose of the car came out after Jimmy was able to glass-coat and refinish it. He primed it earlier in the week and we're just waiting to coordinate with the painter to get it done.

The radiator sits at a much better angle, now and after my first metal-working project, we've got plenty of room for coolant lines and  hope that the additional air will keep this thing running nice-and-cool during the season.


Now, it's time to start working on a dirt car. As i sit here typing this in the shop, Jimmy's busy, working on the bell-housing for the steering and we'll be lifting the rear-end into the frame in a bit.

Another good piece of news has been the graphics that we've got advance copies of to see. These should be good-looking cars this year as there's a more-modern look to the numbers and there are some high-lighted borders added to the numbers to make them stand out better at the track. We'll add pictures when they get on the car.


So as we can continue to make progress while it snows outside, we're excited that things are moving along. However, given the summer temps that we had last year, we'll take the snow while we work on the cars!


- Gar

After an eventful off-season that found me traveling the world on behalf of the United States military, it's time to get back to all things racing and preparing cars and personnel for the upcoming season.

Since the team last raced at Toledo in October, Jimmy and Geoff were busy, building a loft in the Brownsburg facility to create a more ergonomically-friendly work environment. They did a fantastic job of constructing an upstairs level and organizing the things in the shop. Many kudos to them for the hard work they put in.

Jimmy was also able to secure some of the machine-shop items that he had at his former place in Missouri. This will make us a bit more independent when it comes to fabricating parts for the race cars. While we greatly appreciated the assistance and guidance that was provided last year, we felt that we were wearing out our welcome with a few local folks and did not want to spend this year, continuing to beg and borrow. It also helped to save time and resources as we don't have to run all over Central Indiana to get something done!

We've also found out that Geoff may be getting close to having a sprint car commitment that may preclude him from being as involved this season as he was last year. We'll look forward to having Geoff's expertise around when we can get him and we wish him a few wins in the upcoming sprint car season!

The pavement car has begun to take shape and is beginning to look more and more like a race car and less and less like a bare frame. Jimmy had some glass-coating done to the nose piece and has been able to get the radiator to sit at a better angle to allow more air flow into it. We hope that this will alleviate the over-heating issues that we faced at IRP last summer.

I assisted Jimmy with re-attaching the drive shaft to the rear end of the car. After some serious weight-lifting and shimmying, we were able to get everything reconnected smoothly. I don't know about Jimmy but I'm still sore after that episode!

There were also areas that Jimmy was able to tweak and outright remove to save some weight and give us a further advantage over what we had run with last year. It's amazing how the simple removal of some length of hose or using less fasteners here-and-there can really make a significant difference. 


In the coming weeks, we expect to get one or two of the engines out for the ethanol upgrade. If things go as planned, we should be able to have them out before the end of this month and back by the beginning of April. Our first race is scheduled for the 19th of May and that will give us plenty of time to drop it into the frame and even give it a test run if need-be.

So, as winter continues to amble along, so do we. Jimmy and I are feeling very good about the prospects for the upcoming season and we'd like to think that it will go much better than what we had last year. Here's the upcoming season schedule:

2012 Silver Crown schedule


Right now, we're focusing on the Indiana races in May and as things progress, we'll start taking a serious look at what the rest of the year may hold.


- Gar