Nationals.  Four days of racing.  Four days of early mornings and late nights.  This year, the NASA National Championship race was held at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah, and what a crazy week it was.

The week started off on Wednesday for testing.  Qualifying races were on Thursday and Friday, and the big race on Saturday.  Your grid position for the Championship race was determined by your results from the qualifying races on Thursday and Friday.

Wednesday

Today is the day for Hartanto to get re-acquainted with the track, and it was also a shakedown for the car as it was the first time back on track ever since the crash at Infineon back in June.   Hartanto is quick to form, posting a competitive lap times and reporting car is behaving great after the first session.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go smoothly as in the middle of the 2^nd session, Hartanto was reporting a slipping clutch, and ended the test day early.

In our hasty diagnosis of the problem, taking into account previous circumstances, we ruled out the clutch slave cylinder because we had just put on a brand new one.  When we put the car back together after the crash, we noticed transmission fluid was leaking from the clutch side of the transmission due to a cracked case, so we thought the clutch was slipping due to transmission fluid on the clutch disc.  To cover all our bases, we decided to switch out the current transmission for the spare one.

We swapped the transmissions, put a new clutch on, bled the clutch, re-aligned the car, and crossed our fingers and hoped for the best for Thursday, the first official day.

Thursday

Morning warm up went without a hitch.  Car was performing fine for the moment, however, Hartanto was slower than the previous day.  At the briefing, he mentioned he liked the previous transmission better.  We debated to put the other transmission back, but finally decided to stick with it to make sure we didn’t rush or miss qualifying session.

Qualifying session end up to be a non session.  When a car caught fire in the first lap and took a while to get it cleaned up.  The qualifying session was cancelled and the qualifying race will be gridded based on the morning warm up.

Bad luck striked again during the qualifying race.  After 2 laps, Hartanto reported a clutch problem again.  Similar what he experienced yesterday.  He tried to kept going but a lap later, he reported a complete lost of drive.  The car can’t accelerate even when the foot off the clutch pedal and the transmission in gear.  He was able to cruise it into the pit and ended his race early.  This is a big blow on the first official day.  As we will be qualified as DFL, and will hurt our grid position on the final race.

After the transmission and clutch swap with brand new units, we still have the same problem.  The only logical solution is either the master cylinder or slave cylinder.  Upon close inspection, we found out the slave cylinder does not retract after a prolong usage, thus rendering clutch being depressed all the time.   We missed diagnosed the first time due to the part being a brand new unit and we didn’t suspect, it was the issue.   We were lucky that it is a simple problem.  However, it is still hardwork for the team as we decided to put the original transmission back since Hartanto prefer that transmission.

Friday

Fingers crossed, we went out for morning warm up on Friday.  After qualifying, it seemed like we had all the bugs with the car figured out, but were seeing really high intake air temperatures from the data.  Hartanto was able to record a blistering pace with 2:11.740.  A time that will hold as the fastest time for the week.

We decided to remove the driver-side headlight to get some airflow straight to the airbox for the qualifying race.  This worked at the start, until Hartanto was ‘meatball’ flagged near the end of the race.  All the turbulent air had wiggled and broken the bumper mounting tabs loose, and ruin the bumper and splitter in the process.

Hartanto finished off the qualifying race with a win despite the bumper almost falling off.  We spent the rest of the day fabricating extra brackets and support to hold the bumper and front splitter in place, as well as put the front headlight back on.  This boost our starting position for the final race and it felt great to be back on top.

Our grid spot for the big race: 7^th.  But it sure does beat having to start in last place.

Saturday

Today is the big day.  The car was still working fine after morning warmup, so that was good news.  Starting 7^th on the grid meant that Hartanto had a lot of ground to make up.

After a great start, Hartanto was able to make it up to 2^nd for a brief moment behind Downey, before overtaken by Kraus and dropped to 3^rd again.

Downey and Kraus were pulling away battling for 1^st, while Hartanto and Shanfeld were battling for 3^rd.  A safety car brought out due to a bumper falling off in the middle of the track brought the pack all back together again.

On the restart, Hartanto had a great running charge, and was able to make it up to 1^st by the final corner, but lost position to Downey.  Hartanto was able to stay in 2^nd for a bit, then Kraus crept back up to reclaim his position.

The high intake air temperatures we were experiencing made our car low on power as the race drew on.  Hartanto let Shanfeld by hoping to be pulled along so that they could both catch up to Downey and Kraus in the lead.

Unfortunately, this plan didn’t work out and we ended up finishing in 4^th.

After a long, demanding week, we couldn’t have asked for more.

Thank you Honda Performance Development for all the support and the hospitality during the week.

Thanks to all our sponsors, none of this would be possible without any of you!

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