Our next race is in Shelton, WA at Ridge Motorsports Park. Even though I've been here for three different events, I still feel like I'm trying to find the best line through corners. We arrive on Friday to get in some practice runs and feel out the car. Since Randy Pobst is going to be here tomorrow, I want to make sure everything is as good as we can get it.
Since we have only run aero during races, we haven't done much experimenting. Since it's a practice day, the first thing I wanted to do was get a comparison of straightline speed with and without aero on the car. The splitter comes off to go in the trailer, so this was just a matter of taking off the four bolts that hold on the rear wing.
We did the morning sessions with no wing or splitter, then the afternoon with the wing cranked to maximum angle. We normally run around 7 degrees for the center part of the wing, this was cranked all the way up to 12-13 to see a big difference in drag. In the morning my fastest lap time is a 2:02.1.
Here's some data showing just the straight-line acceleration portion. The blue line is with the wing cranked way up and you can see that it definitely creates drag. However it's only 0.12 seconds slower down the entire straight, and the largest gap in speed was 1.7 mph. For a track with such a long straight, this isn't that big of a difference. My guess is that having a splitter up front actually cuts the amount of air going underneath the car enough that it counteracts some of the drag of the rear wing.
For this section here, a medium speed sweeper, the difference with no aero to wing at maximum is 1.16 seconds. Now keep in mind I'm still learning at this track and not the most consistent, but that's a big difference.
You can see the lateral Gs are consistently higher with a 11% higher peak of 1.279G (aero) versus 1.157G (non-aero) in turn 6.
It's late in the afternoon and I hear our run group called to grid, so I jump in the car, start it up and start to roll forward. CREAAK.. CREAAK.. POP-POP-POP-POP.. There is some kind of strange noise as I turn the corner. My first thought is maybe a wheel is loose, so I immediately back up and ask for a torque check on the wheels. Everything checks out, so I say "It might just be the spring I guess.." The noise is again very loud and it makes a pop just turning left and right on the wheel. While driving straight it quiets down, but still making some kind of noise. I take off from the pits, and while accelerating I hear nothing. As I get into the first corner, the squealing/groaning sound intensifies. Well clearly whatever this is, it has to be fixed before tomorrow.
We jack up the left side of the car and feel the front left wheel bearing, and it spins freely with no noise. There doesn't seem to be any extra play. We inspect brakes/springs/etc and can't see anything obvious. We jack up the right and do the same. Again there's nothing obvious. With the weight back on the front end, we try pushing the car forward/backward with the wheel turned.. and "POP...POP..POP..". It seems like it might be the wheel bearing, but at the same time I have never heard this kind of a sound from a wheel bearing. How could it be a wheel bearing already? Our last set of Timkens with Redline grease had lasted 89 hours of racing before we had an issue. These were brand new Timkens regreased the same as last time, with only one very wet weekend on them. Since it was wet, they should have been loaded even less.
This is my sad and perplexed face. I need this fixed to try get Randy in our car.
And here is my biggest problem. Not only do I not know for sure it's a bearing, and I also don't have a new wheel bearing. So question #1: How do I verify it's definitely a wheel bearing? And question #2: If it is a wheel bearing, how am I going to get one? It's late Friday afternoon, and even if I can find a bearing I then also need a press to get it into the hub. My drift car uses S14 hubs, which don't fit. Nathan Feigion's drift car is hours away and he is in California. I call him to ask him if I can steal a hub from his car. He gives me permission, but his car is also hours away in a trailer so it would be a big pain. We call around trying to find a bearing, but nobody has one in the area.
Suddenly I remember that when we got our conversion hubs, I pushed out the Chinese no-name bearings and put them in a drawer. My wife is going to be driving up soon, so I ask her to grab the two bearings and bring them with her. Our next problem is a press. We can't find anyone in the pits that has a press and I don't know anyone in the area that would. My dad calls Harbor Freight and they have a press, so he heads off to make the 40 minute drive. I get to work trying to verify that a wheel bearing will truly fix it. I swap hubs left/right after swapping the sound is definitely coming from the other side. Ok, well now I have my answer, and I just need to wait for the press and bearing.
By the time we have the press and the bearing, it's now dark. And of course the press is in a box in pieces, and we need to assemble it. Kyle arrived with my wife and the bearing, so the three of us get to work assembling the press.
We get it assembled around 10pm, then press in the bearing and reinstall the hub. We roll the car back and forth by hand.. and it's silent. It's 11pm and time to get some sleep before the race tomorrow, hopefully this no-name bearing holds up!