Speed World Challenge Season Finale
It all came down to this. After two years of absence, the Prima Racing/RedZone Performance team is back at Monterey Raceway Laguna Seca for Speed World Challenge. The majority of the year up to this point was spent running the car and trying to fine tune it for its debut at this very event. But with the past few race weekends full of engine breakdowns, suspension failures, and trouble shooting of one problem after another, it was safe to say that the team wasn’t sure if the car was going to cooperate.
There wasn’t any expected rain during the weekend although the weather jumped from hot and cold sporadically throughout the days as the sun turned off and on like a light switch in a lamp store.
Thursday was a shake down and getting familiar with the track. We spent most of the days just trying to maximize driver-track time and familiarizing with the track.
As the practice session for Touring Cars approached on Friday, there was a build up of nervousness in anticipation for the World Challenge race. It was just around the corner. The first practice session of the day was strictly a test and tune session. The laps turned were not continuous because we had pitted every two laps for various reasons. First was to break in new brake pads to be used throughout the weekend. The crew swapped brake pads in the hot pit during the session, even though the brakes were extremely hot…hot enough to burn holes through our mechanic’s gloves. Second was to take tire pressures and temperatures. This data wasn’t necessarily used for tweaks but it was to show the consistency of heat distribution throughout the tire. This ensured that our camber and toe settings were in spec. The third reason for the pitting was for tweaking suspension settings given Hartanto’s driver input. The rear dampers were adjusted throughout the session to Hartanto’s liking.
Hartanto was making 1:40.xx laps around the track. As he was driving, Hartanto was tweaking break bias during the session. However, towards the end of the session, Hartanto put too much brake bias in the rear causing the car to swing out, sending the car into the dirt. This ended our practice session. We are about 2 seconds off the pace from the front runner, but it was good news that we are making progress as we were in 1:41.xx lap times yesterday.
After a few minor repairs to the suspension and a swap out of the damaged front splitter for a new one, the car was ready to go on its last practice session. With the car set-up close to where Hartanto felt he could pull quicker lap times, we were all confident that, finally, we had the car in check…….until the eighth lap. Hartanto radioed in that the car’s engine is broken, again. The Laguna Seca Curse wasn’t going to let us go THAT easily. So once again, the car’s brought back to the pits. There we find out that a few valves had broken (read about the first one in our August 26 blog). The tip had completely disconnected from the stem, but luckily it didn’t damage the engine head too much. Still the engine couldn’t be run anymore. So the rest of the day (and night) was spent taking out the old motor and replacing it with the spare. Throughout the swap, frustration fueled with disappointment, exhaustion, and an emptying tank of patience really tested the team’s ability to work together. By focusing on getting the car ready and not dwelling on the small stuff, team Prima Racing were able to get it done in six hours and everyone was back to joking around.
The next day was qualifying day. We were running a new motor and new tires. Two laps into qualifying and the crew’s morale was quickly high again as Hartanto was clocking in consistent 1:39.xx laps, only a second off from where we wanted to be and finishing 13th with a 1:39.164. Now that we knew the car had the potential, we were quick to get it back to the pits and have it on stand-by for tomorrow. Surprise, surprise, when we get there we discover another head-scratcher. The fourth cylinder wasn’t firing, yet we were producing 15 more horsepower. Wayne, Chris and Jimmy tried to figure out what was wrong, but couldn’t finalize on anything. Best the team could do was just get the car prepped, checked, and cleaned for the race.
Race day finally arrived. We’re moved to the back of the grid due to a break in supervision the previous day when one of the officials had to be pulled aside during the troubleshooting work on the engine. Four laps in and Andrie radios to the crew that we may have lost another engine. A few moments later, he realizes the car is still running and notifies that the car engine is fine, but 4th gear is lost. For the rest of the race, he’ll have to try to hang on to his position in the race with the handicap.
There was plenty of action happening throughout the race as well. James Clay in the No. 36 BimmerWorld/GearWrench BMW 328i makes contact with the No. 75 MAZDASPEED/Stoptech/ProParts MAZDA6 of Chip Herr on lap eight at the Andretti hairpin. Scott Webb No. 18 Scion tC/Jackson-Dawson Communications and Andrew Gillis No. 23 Ford Focus L Gillis Motorsports/AIT Racing also make contact with each other, causing Gillis’ rear axle to break and forcing him to retire halfway into the race.
Even though Hartanto wasn’t able to utilize 4th gear, which is especially important as it is used very often, yet he still managed to remain in 13th in front of Sage Marie driving the No. 43 Realtime Acura TSX till the finish with the fastest lap time of 1:39.847.
So after 50 minutes of the Speed World Challenge Touring car race at Monterey Raceway Laguna Seca, the No. 8 Prima Racing/Redzone Performance Acura TSX completed its debut. From technical difficulties, the test of the bonds within the team, and the ability to get back on the track after so many set backs, the weekend was by all means a reflection of the accumulated experiences and hard work gathered from all the previous races. And it all wouldn’t have been possible without the help of the team of Prima Racing, the staff at Redzone Performance, and the support of our sponsors. Please support us by supporting our sponsors. If there are any parts you would like to buy, you can either contact us or contact all our sponsors directly.
You can find pictures from this event here.
See you all next time after we return from our run at Infineon Raceway for NASA’s USTCC series.
