The NARRC Runoffs

[Jeremy Billiel]

Andy - You had a fantastic weekend! The only thing better would be a great finish at the ARRC!

[lateapex911]

Yea, Andy, get that car down to Atlanta! Nick...you know you want to go to georgia in November...right?? Surely you guys can get something worked out! The winter is pretty long, why not shorten it a month??

[Eric Parham]

If that's the blue one, then it's the other way around: the axle broke BECAUSE the wheel left the car. I'm telling you, guys, that right-front suspension was ALL OVER THE PLACE for about 2-3 laps before he didn't re-appear. As he was going through Big Bend and moving the throttle, that tire was bouncing between hitting the front *and* aft edge of the wheel opening. Matt and I could not believe that car was still driveable... - GA
[/b]

Just an observation that Greg was apparently talking about the right-front passenger-side wheel, but it was the left-front driver-side wheel & hub that broke free from Stephen's Audi. Don't know if the observed symptom was related to the failure, or an entirely different problem that would call for a separate resolution (especially before a long tow to the ARRC, if that's in the cards).

[StephenB]

Just an observation that Greg was apparently talking about the right-front passenger-side wheel, but it was the left-front driver-side wheel & hub that broke free from Stephen's Audi. Don't know if the observed symptom was related to the failure, or an entirely different problem that would call for a separate resolution (especially before a long tow to the ARRC, if that's in the cards).
[/b]

Greg,

If you don't mind could you PM me on your observations from the sidelines. I definetly had issues with my car form the start of the race. It just didn't seem right from the get go. I had terrible brakes and had to brake between the 5/4 marker. normally I am braking around the 2 marker. I could see people taking awya gobs of car lengths under braking!


AS far as the failure... The LEFT front wheel decided it wanted to go 6' higher than the fence on noname and into the swamp! I spent 2 HRs out there after the races with my freind in water/muck higher than my waist! And I still left for home without it! ( Brand new brakes, 1 season old caliper, spacer, studs, wheel nuts, brand new 23 laps on a new hoosier, and a wheel that is no longer available... all gone in the marsh!

I Think that the failure has something to do with the possibility that the axle nut was not tight. Why I don't now but the Wheel beering failed around lap 21 in the downhill. Big puff of white smoke and a nasty burning smell. I slowed down watching my gauges and saw no issues. the car didn't change in handling charecteristics and I had just caught a 2002 that was smoking. So I proceeded at a conservative pace. after all in 3 laps I was going to be the NARRC 2006 champ! Well 1 lap later the car started to vibrate terribly and I was thinking wow I got a flat! that's what that smoke was! (In reality I think the bearing was completly gone at this point and the axle was now holding on the entire wheel assembley) I decided to slow way down and nurse it back. Then going into the right hander to head down no-name straight I eased back into the throttle and snap! the RPM's went up as the Axle broke! Now I knew I had an even bigger issue! At the exit of the turn I straightened the wheel and the hub could no longer deal with the pressure and broke... that is when the entire corner decided it was time to jump the fence and leave forever! I scraped along down no-name all the way to the entrance to the uphill where I rested and watched the remaining lap.

Several people in tech made assumptions saying the parts were old/ rusty and fatigued. And one person even said I needed to put greese in the beering. Well just to resolve all of that... The bearings are sealed and pre-greased, the bearings, hubs and axle were all brand new! the brakes, calipers, and carriers were brand new this year. No money or parts were spared in the entire preperation on my car (THE BLUE ONE). Everything is new this year from suspension, to the engine. I do appreciate everyone helping to try and figure out what happened but some people annoyed me as they said I need to buy new parts. Scott Carlson I think may be correct as he stated the axle nut probably wasn't tight resulting in the tire to be wabbly from the start. This created the brakes to heat up and perform poorly. Finally the bearing let go as it couldn't handle the pressure resulting in all the pressure being on the axle, finally that broke puting pressure on the hub which then broke next.


Iw was an expensive year to say the least as maintance on an Audi is expensive let alone a racecar! Not sure exactly what the future holds as my plans and ideas will change weekly

CONGRATS TO TIM you had an awesome year and deserve to be crowned the champion!!!

Stephen

[RSTPerformance]

Ok, as the NARRC Runoffs closes our years goals… here is “the rest of the Blethen story” (and then some…)

Saturday/Sunday:

Got the cars just about fully rebuilt with LOTS of new parts. Special thanks to Brian’s Garage for repairing/building a new transmission for the red/silver Audi.

Monday Night:

Time to finish up the “little stuff” and check the cars one last time. While tightening the Axle bolt on the RF axle of the red/silver car (replaced axle as preventative maintenance) the nut stripped and wouldn’t tighten down. That then turned into a 2 hour repair as we had to chisel off the old Axle nut, take out the new axle and put in the old one. Finally repairs were done and the truck was loaded and ready by 12:30am for the trip on Tuesday to Lime Rock.

Tuesday Testing:

We came down for the test day and Stephen was able to turn 1:19’s and 1:20’s consistently on the cold open wet track, so we new that he would do well in the rain. I had a slipping clutch due to what we thought was a bad rear main seal (I tried fixing oil leaks and apparently got more). I was still able to turn consistent 1:22’s without using 4th gear at all, so we also new that with a fixed car I should be able to get into the 1:19’s along with Stephen. During testing we also tested several setups and found out some interesting stuff… New Hoosier rains were about 1 second a lap faster than Dirt Stockers with better grip under braking and acceleration, however the Dirt Stockers were more comfortable with better grip in the actual turns. Also changing camber settings really had no effect on how the car handled or felt nor did it change what we were able to get for tire temperatures/pressures.

After testing was done we went down to “B” paddock and parked the rig and secured it for the week so we would not have to make the tow home with it. We borrowed Brian Megliolas open trailer (HUGE THANK YOU TO BRIAN) to take my car and a few parts home to try and fix it. The next couple days we were going to attempt to get a new clutch, and replace the rear main seal or whatever else was leaking. This isn’t an easy job as we all have full time jobs and to do this you need to pull out the entire tranny, 2-3 hour job for us each way with at least 3 people.

Tuesday Night:

We got home around 10:30 from Lime Rock and my friend Justin met up with me. We took the car to my friend Tims house whom garage and tools we borrowed. By 12:30pm Justin and I had most of the work done to drop the transmission.

Wednesday Night:

My friend Tim and My dad helped me finish pulling out the transmission and we were able to confirm that the rear main seal was leaking. Now it was time to wait for the Clutch replace the rear main seal and put everything back together.

Thursday:

I waited all day at Force 5 Automotive helping run errands waiting for the clutch that was overnighted, but never made in. We found out that it was in Tennessee, not feasible to drive and get it so we decided to go out to the scrap pile at my dad’s old house and look through. We found an engine/tranny still bolted together and decided that since they are still bolted, their must be a clutch plate in their!!! We took it out and it looked rough but still had some meat on it and it was a better option than the oil soaked one that was sitting next to the car. After getting that we headed up to Tims house and started to put everything back together. Special thanks to Tim, Randy, Justin, and my dad for helping me get it all back together and the car loaded by 11:00pm. We were then off to Lime Rock with high hopes that all would be fixed.

Friday:

We got to the track at 3:30am and finally got some sleep. We woke to a super day of rain racing!!! We were all prepared and excited for the rain. (Despite how bad our dancing is, it worked).

In the first qualifying session Stephen put the car on off-pole and everything looked good for him. For me it was a bit more fustrating. The linkage broke on I think the second lap and I went down the escape road. I was able to force it into some gears and continued but was unable to shift. While driving it was apparent that the clutch was still slipping despite all our hard work. To make matters worse the car also had a skip and was running like crap. I did however manage to find myself 2nd in ITB and 4th overall with my 1st lap, lap time. Certainly encouraging!!!

When I pulled in we determined that the skip was the “exspensive plug wires” arcing with all the water. When looking at the car after the session things didn’t look so good. Oil was apparent on the flywheel, and the linkage actual broke the casting off of the transmission. The plug wires were a somewhat easy fix. We found that guy who drives around offering welding services but he didn’t seem interested in sitting in the water under the car welding Aluminum, and said that it could not be done without damaging the gaskets in the transmission. We decided to make a “one of a kind” custom linkage that could attach to a different point on the transmission. With some welding help once again from Bob Smart (Smarty) of Northeast Racing we had a new linkage that worked!!! For the Oil on the clutch we tried a few different things, and hoped it may help solve the issue. As the wind storms hit the clouds opened up and sunlight came through, and I got a bit sad, but then the rain came back!!!

The second qualifying was amazingly slippery. The track seemed to have a glaze of ice/oil on it. Anyone in the group would argue that it was the slipperiest it has ever been at Lime Rock. I ran around the track passing 5-6 people a lap having an absolute blast. Because the track was very slippery I figured the lap times would suck, but hey the clutch is still slipping so this will probably be the most fun I will have all weekend. Well at the end of the session everyone said I must be lying, there is no way you can be over 2 seconds faster than everyone else on the track with a slipping clutch… I was in shock and asked again what my lap times were… A 1:19… holly $!++. When the final results came out with combined times I was on poll over 2 seconds ahead of the second place car of Wilson Wright (ITS RX-7) and third place car (my brother). After that excitement it was off to an excellent dinner and beer with the workers. It was a bit to cold to get a good buzz, so we piled 10 people into the trailer, turned on the space heater, drank hot coco and watched a movie on the projection screen…

Saturday:

In the morning it was sunny but biter cold. It was time for morning warm-ups. As we went out onto the track my car refused to start in grid. The fuel pump wasn’t turning on. Quickly we pushed the car back to the pits and went to work. Stephen had an uneventful warm-up session as he scrubbed in his 4 new Hoosier tires that he hoped would win him the championship. We were able to get the car running for the next warm-up session, only to have the car sputter and break up all the way around. End result was actually a lack of fuel… errrrrrrr. After being pushed in by the Lime Rock truck we once again went to work as the session did confirm that the clutch was slipping. More things were tried and we once again got our hopes up that the clutch would be fixed.

The Race:

I held a quick pace knowing that the clutch was slipping and hoping that it would help keep me up front for at least the first turn. I was a bit concerned of the mayhem that was about to happen in turn 1 with all the faster ITS cars coming through in the dry conditions. Someone jumped the already fast start and we got a waive off. The second start was a bit better and once again I prepped for something to happen in turn 1. I missed my shift from 2nd to 3rd and found myself completely surrounded by cars!!! Yikes, turn 1 here we come. I have no idea how many wide we were but I saw a hole at the apex and just scooted in. Nothing happened (from what I know of) and the entire field was through the first lap without incident!!! As the laps ticked away though my car got slower and slower as the clutch got warmer and warmer. Some major packs of cars with good battles worked their way past… then Tim Mullen was in my mirrors with at least 9 laps still to go. I knew it was over and my only hope now was to look for my brother to come up lapping me. With about 3 laps to go he did just that, but it seemed to take forever for him to pass me. He was going at an alarmingly slow pace. When he passed I stayed with him and noticed the left front wheel was smoking and wobbling all over the place. With 1.5 laps to go I watched and wished he would pull over because I knew it was going to break, just where was my question. While envisioning him going down the downhill and loosing the wheel, it fell off. Thankfully we were going onto no-name straight. When I came around and saw the 1 lap to go sign I was sooooo angry that that it fell off. I knew all he needed was that one last lap and he would have won the NARRC Championship, our team goal. After looking at what happened it is the same as the past. The wheel bearing/hub failed and the LF corner ripped off taking with it the brakes. The real kicker is all the parts that failed were new parts that we replaced as preventive maintenance measure. When the race was all said and done, I had beaten my brother by one position (gained my lap back!!!) We placed so far back that neither of us got points and tied for 2nd in the season end championship. Because I have more wins, I ended up beating him in the tie breaker.

We searched in the swamps for 2 hours looking for the wheel/tire/brakes/studs, etc. and came up empty handed. Dave Gran returned Stephens open trailer to him (despite the fact we forgot his dolly), which actually worked out well as the flat toe was able to drop off the car right onto the trailer.

We left Lime Rock at about 7:30 pm, and headed off to Great Barrington to get some dinner and a few drinks with friends/family and celebrate an exciting year of racing that brought several wins for the team, including my first ever wins, which were all hard fought great races with this seasons new rival, Tim Mullen. Looking back we spent a lot of time and money trying to do things right. The first half of the season was great but Dave you might be right, maybe that trailer is cursed; ever since we got that trailer we have not had a single good finish.

Sunday:

Unfortunately the expenses and time it will take to actually fix both cars right (new motor/tranny in my car, and a new LF corner on Stephens car) hinder us from going to the ARRC. It is possible to make one car out of the two, but the towing expense for one car just doesn’t make sense for us right now. With that VERY HARD decision made late Saturday night and on Sunday morning over breakfast we decided to spend the day winterizing the trailer and putting it in its final resting place till April/May 07. Yes the cars are still in it, and we will be taking a break from them for the winter. We started discussions on what to do next year and in the spring you may see a new car in a new class to be shared by the Blethen brothers, and no it probably wont be any foreign (to Germany) cars, but it could be something totally different.

As a team we all would like to congratulate Tim on his first wins, as well as his first Championship wins in both the NERRC and NARRC championship battle in 2006. I think that everyone here who knows Tim or has raced with Tim would agree that he is the guy we all would root for to win (if not rooting for ourselves) as he is probably one of the most honest, cleanest, and most respectful drivers in the Northeast. Congrats again Tim to a well deserved championship!!!

Thank you to everyone who has helped us in the 2006 season;

Raymond & Stephen Blethen
RST Performance Racing
www.rstperformance.com

[BobsAuto]

I want to say a few things about the NARRC runoffs. First of all, congrats to Tim Mullen for his winning the Championship. You are a great competitor and surely gave the boys a run for it. And your sportsmanship on and off the track is remarkable.
To the NARRC registration people, many of whom I know follow this forum, a heartfelt thank you for your teaching, your guidance and the fun I had at registration. I really enjoyed working with all of you.
And to the many competitors from this forum that I was finally able to meet....it was great to finally put faces to the names. You all made me feel welcome and being back in SCCA has been a wonderful experience.
Finally, to the crew and drivers of RST. THANK YOU!!! Your encouragement to get involved again in racing has been wonderful. I am truly enjoying being part of a team (be it behind the scenes) and working with you all. I only wish I could be more of a help, but then again, I'm OLD!!! But, just being around the people and the racing has really given me something to look forward to. So, simply said, thanks.

May all of the wonderful people I have met this summer have a wonderful, safe winter and I promise, I WILL see you all again in the spring!

[RSTPerformance]

I would also like to add my congradulations to Tim Mullen for a great, competitive, & classy season!

Also thanks & congradulations to Raymond & Steven for a great season.
You guys (& us crew ) all gave their best. OK we came up a little short, but that is racing.
I was pleased to see your happiness for Tim exceed your disappointment.
Let's do it again next year!!
Tom Gray
crew cheif