Chumpcar National Championship

Labor Day Weekend - Newton, Iowa

Drivers: Henry Botkin, Michael Chiappetta, Troy Daniels, Dave LeCren, Bob Lehmann

Based upon our team's successful races at Mexicali and Willow Springs, we received an invitation to the 2011 Chumpcar National Championship, in Newton, Iowa.

The race promised to be "one for the record books", as it comprised a total of 25 1/2 hours of continuous racing, alternating between road course and oval racing.

How did we do? Well, we brought a Pig to Iowa, and it got slaughtered - what could we expect?

The oval-track racing was new to everyone on the team, and one driver had an interesting spin coming out of an oval turn (not to mention a few other off-course / gravel-trap / tire barrier incidents) but the car was not badly damaged by any of it.

Unfortunately, transmission tailshaft problems began early - we destroyed one tailshaft during the Friday practice. No problem - or so we thought - we just installed our spare transmission. Ultimately, the second ("our spare") transmission tailshaft failure meant we were only able to run Saturday, and spent Sunday morning searching Craigslist, RX7Club, eBay and the local junkyards for a replacement, to no avail.

Chumpcar coverage: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=pu.102985012345&type=1

In preparation for the Iowa race, John upgraded our light bar to four HID lamps. When we aligned the lights at the track, we were blown-away by how much light they produce!

Henry and TK working on RF axle and the cool suit connections. (TK is hiding)

Henry, Dave, and Carl at workbench on a car prep day at the Jamul race shop

It was a LOONG tow from San Diego to Iowa. Michael and Bob shared the towing duty. Bob made a friend along the way, which is fitting, since we passed through Sinclair, WY

Dave inspects the body shaping he performed with a tire barrier

Unfortunately, we were in the garage again, with transmission tailshaft problems. This picture borrowed from Alex Bell's posting on the Chumpcar forum.