PDA

View Full Version : my trip to duel in the desert



alwaysracin
11-17-2014, 11:08 PM
The trip and struggle to make a competitive car for the Duel in the Desert. I am not too great at making a good story but here it is.

Wednesday the 12th. I am a dealership Audi tech and usually start work at 730 am but wanting to get out of the Bay Area before traffic gets bad I start at 6. A real struggle to get out of work because my team leader at work gave me a a/c flap motor 30 minutes before walking out of the door. If you ever have worked on an Audi you understand what this means. Let just say I started and passed the job off to another tech. Sprint out and on the road to Bruce's house in Madera by 3. Slight traffic but ok. Get there, load up and on the road by 6 something. The goal was to make it past LA. Well, i believe we both just wanted to get there and ended up driving non-stop and arriving at 530. Got trailer parking right when they opened at 8am. Hung out all day, had lunch and walked the course before even checking into the hotel.

Skip ahead to Friday 14.
We came to Scottsdale with 2 different sets of tires that required completely different setups for the car. After first runs we realized our new tire test wasn't going really well. The car would not turn and the brakes did not give a confident feeling. We made changes for the 3 test runs before the towel was thrown in. Back to the trusted tires we have been running. Load up the car with tools needed and back to the trailer. We change, all springs, ride heights, front camber, front toe, brake bias,sway bar and shock settings. Make it back to the grid to watch Mike Dusold the guy before me make a run. We end up getting 1 run with the new setup before runs for the day are ended. After getting back to the trailer we double check ride heights and find the front settled and is too low. In the dark with headlights shining on the car we knock off the wheels and reset ride heights. We add another 5 gallons of fuel. All set to roll it out of the trailer and run.

Saturday 15.
House keeping must of had a good idea to change the alarm clock from PM to AM. So we left a little later than planned. Morning runs we make more changes just fine tuning the setup. No big changes. I need to get seat time, learning the car and course. The car gets better every run, I start gaining trust and the times begin to show it (yet still too far off the leaders). During one of my runs the car throws both belts and I loose P/S after the main straight. I still am able to muscle the car around the track and finish with an ok time. We have had this problem in the past but usually when we bounce the limiter and we weren't close. We have spares and install new belts.

I qualify 5th. Nice

Round one goes well and I move into the second round of competition.

Round 2
Closer to my qualifying time I push a little harder and coming across the finish line I heard a bang followed by a thud, thud, thud. Put it in neutral and come to a safe stop. I try to put it back into gear and slowly let out the clutch, thud thud. Ok half shaft is gone. Have help from a great group of guys to help push from the low bumper all the way back into the put spot. Bruce borrows a golf kart and races back to the trailer to get the spare half shaft. Robbie Unser, Mike Dusold and Mike Maier dive under the car and start removing the broken parts. By the time Bruce returns with the parts the car is completely surrounded by people watching the repair. He arrived at the perfect time, the old half shaft was out. The new one starting to go in and everyone now settling into their roles with the repair. I get out to clean my hands and get ready to drive. With about 2 minutes left until completion we are told sorry you are out of time. The crowd let's out a sigh of disappointment after watching the amount of effort that went into the repair and wanting to watch it compete another round.


I can say looking back on it Bruce and I had a great time. We met some really good people and made some friends. I need to say thank you to Mike Dusold, Robbie Unser, Mike Maier and of course Bruce Cambern for giving me the opportunity to drive that amazing Cobra.

Congrats Brian! I hope your drive home was filled with a list of things to change for next year because you can only imagine what we have planned for next year.

See you all at the next event,
Scott Fraser

alwaysracin
11-18-2014, 06:28 AM
I posted 5 videos on my youtube account and will hopefully put up a few of the pictures.


Black box on dash. The right side LEDs are hooked to a TPS sensor and the left 8 for g's. A tattle tale if you are just smoking the tires.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Zoh-MXNMA

Cobra 498
11-18-2014, 06:49 AM
Rear end ratio (3.31) coupled with a 2.2 low gear was killing us in the slow stuff. Cam is 297 D. @ .050 so port velocity is very low at 2000 rpm. That will be fixed next year, we don't need an
88 mph low gear at any Goodguys event!

ohsolow
11-19-2014, 08:16 AM
Scott sorry about the broken shaft I tried to hold off the wolfs as long as I could but you know the rest of that story I wanted a race. As always it's great to have the Cobra at our events thanks for participating

alwaysracin
11-20-2014, 09:04 PM
I know everyone wanted to see a race and we tried to make it happen.

Here is a better video it watch. The other videos are tame and looking for a time. This one I am more going for a show, hung out and sliding around. Good Times!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdAzFgheJBw


Thank You again and next year we are coming better prepared!
Scott Fraser

Bad94
11-24-2014, 07:03 PM
Getting to see a true cobra getting beat on, is priceless.

I had a blast running in Scottsdale. Ton of talent in one place.

Dusold
11-24-2014, 08:26 PM
It's always fun watching the Cobra run! It was great hanging out with you guys. I am looking forward to next year already!