Well, another race in the books for Motorkars Race team. This last weekend we headed
to Gingerman Raceway in South Haven _ichagan for the Cookie Cutter Classic 8+7, our second ChampCar Endurance Series race of the season. Saturday the race started out great, the car and engine felt great. About 15 minutes in, the petcock on the lower radiator hose decided it was done and let go, spilling the contents of the cooling system which wet the rear tires mid turn. The car spun which caught the following Supra off guard making contact, right front corner to right front corner. The contact bent the strut and control arm, and broke the top portion of the splitter, crunched the fender, and tore the bumper (in the video below). Luckily nothing vital was damaged and after an hour in the paddock replacing the damaged components we were back on track racing again. All was going well until about 3 hours later, when we suddenly lost 3rd and 4th gears. We pulled back into the paddock to assess the damage and determined the transmission was not salvageable to continue, but we were determined. A couple quick searches and we located a good used transmission from a fellow VW enthusiast in Chicago, who was kind enough to meet us halfway (about 1 hour) with it.
Transmission picked up and installed later that evening, we were back in business.
Sunday’s race was a blast, the good used transmission proved to hold up to the stress. The car performed fantastically for the entire 7 hours without a hic-up to a 13th overall and 6th in class finish out of 46 and 18 respectively.
As always, the good people at Champcar put on a great event and we will be back at it again in October for Pittsburgh ... See more