Race 3 began with a race to get a few things done. Thursday was spent checking all the bolts/nuts/fittings that I could. The main areas that I found and will need to pay attention to were that the bolts holding the steering box to the frame were loose, the rear leaf spring u-bolts were loose, and the tie rod/drag link bolts were loose again.
I replaced the all the bolts and nuts for the track bar and tie rods with grade 8 bolts and lock nuts. Everything else looked good with no major leaks or visible signs of wear or damage. That took about all day on Thursday and ran over to about 10am on Friday morning.
Clay got here at about 11 am. We still had to change tires and I had to find out why one tire was leaking. We put it on the tire machine and broke the beads. One bead was damaged a bit. I cleaned the bead seats up and put a fair amount of bead sealer on the tire and aired it up again. From there we had to load up the Bronco and trailer and head out.
It was now 2pm and we were on the road! Made a quick stop to the store to throw some groceries down our necks (heard that saying recently and I think it is kinda funny), and to get some food for the rest of the weekend. From there, we went to Heintz Performance over by Loweâs Speedway to pick up some tear offs for my helmet. The rain started falling and we got rained on from there till we got out of Charlotte.
A quick shot down I-85 brought us to the big town of Spartanburg SC. The race was to be held at the fairgrounds complex, which was a 5/8 mile dirt track at some point years back. We made our way off of 85, following the shrill voice of the GPS. We followed the directions through a round about. It was a 2 lane traffic circle! Quite fun trying to navigate with a 24â trailer attached and a cop behind usâ¦
As we neared our destination, the road got worse, as did the neighborhoods and vehicles around us. We locked the doors and made our way to Fairgrounds Rd. A map of the fairgrounds can be seen here.
We pulled in and I was relieved to see tall fencing with barbed wire around the top⦠We were assured that a guard would be in place over the course of the night. Behind the fair grounds was a set of rail road tracks. I guess we were on the wrong side of those.
We got the Bronco unloaded and got set to pre-run the course and to get tech inspected. We passed tech with no issues. The course was crazy. We were supposed to use the whole place, but that didnât happen.. It ended up being about 0.3 miles in entirety!
The start/finish was where turn 4 used to be. We ran the course clockwise around turns 4 and then 3. We then had a series of switchbacks and went into the obstacle course, surrounded by concrete barriers. The A class ended up not going on any obstacles. We kind of dodged our way through them and made our way to some more hair pin turns and back out of the obstacle course and down the back stretch, toward old turn #2. Once we got to turn 2, we did a hairpin 180 and ran the other way down the back stretch. Basically, it was an out and back, with a guard rail on one side, concrete barriers on the other, separated in the middle by nothing more than some stakes and caution tape.
The run down the back stretch had a jump in it, but the jump was set up backwards. The way up it was gradual. The way down was steep and sharp. Basically it was a slam on the brakes up it, try to go easy down it, and continue on from there. After running the back stretch, we skirted around the obstacle course and back to the start/finish at turn 4, and beginning a new lap.
Pre-running was very dusty. It was obvious that there hadnât been rain down there. We ran slowly at first. There were a lot of rough, uneven ruts and bumps and I wanted to pick the best lines we could find. During one trip down the back stretch, we had another vehicle coming toward us. They were on their side of the track, but it was so dusty that we couldnât see them, except for their headlights, which they had on. Great idea! I flipped our lights on and we ran a few hard laps after that.
It was really dusty, dry, and flat. We ran 2wd in the whole thing and we really struggled trying to get through the 180 degree turn at the end of the back stretch. It was basically like trying to do a U turn on a 2 lane back road. Jam on the brakes, crank the wheel, nail the gas, and try to swing the back end around. The Bronco pushed really bad, especially when braking. It made it tough.
We got done running and put the Bronco in the trailer. We did see the #121 of Iron Man Fab go over the jump on the back stretch. They carried WAY too much speed. They still rolled over it, not catching any air, but when they came down, the front nose dived and rebounded. When it rebounded, it probably went 4 ft in the air! Ended in a set of broken front shocks, which they had to scramble to find locally and replaceâ¦
A HUGE thanks to Robert for letting us stay over at his place. He has got a very nice casa. Carl W drew it up. It sits on 17 or so acres, has a pond, a rock pit, and was beautiful! He was about a 20 minute drive from the track, so we unhitched the trailer and drove down there for some food and a place to sleep and wash the dust off.
07-10-2011, 01:49 PM (This post was last modified: 07-10-2011, 01:52 PM by broncosbybart.)
Woke up early the next morning, as the driverâs meeting was at 7:30. We had to get gas, fill the Bronco, check it over, and get ready to go! On the way back, the roads got worse and worse. We reached a point where a sign actually stated that state maintenance to the road ended!! The GPS told us to press on. I told Clay to get out his 9 and shoot at anything that moved
We passed a handful of beer joints and abandoned buildings before getting to the track again. I canât imagine taking a family to the fair down there!!
Overnight it had rained a bunch, which was awesome. The UTVâs ran their heat laps. We started 4th out of 6 for our heat race. The track was slick! We had to run 4wd. I couldnât make one hairpin turn right at the start and got nerfed in the quarter panel by a passing Heep! At least it was the quarter that was already damaged...
I eventually got the hang of driving on the slick track. Clay shifted the front axle in and out, at my command. It is hard to hear through helmets and the sound of the screaming 302! That thing sounded awesome! The Bronco just wouldnât turn. It went straight like a bullet, but tight turns were out of the question. We finished where we started, 4th out of 6. It wasnât going to be a good day.
The main event wasnât going to be until about 3pm. We had the Bronco parked under the easy up next to the trailer. A lot of people came over to talk about their Broncos, or Broncos they used to have, and to look at ours. We got a lot of compliments and swapped war stories. After a bit, we checked it over and I moved the steering stop bolts in the knuckles further in, to allow for more steering while Clay tightened up the twin stick shifter bolts, as they had loosened up some.
It got really hot. We were sweating just standing still in the shade. A small amount of rain fell before the UTVâs ran. It wasnât near enough. The dust was awful. We were next and slated to run 20 laps. We started 10th out of 13. The track changed dramatically. A lot of silt had built up. It was dry and hard in some places, soft and silty in others. We ended up running 2wd, except at the start/finish where we had to stop at each lap to get our lap recorded by the scorers.
Each time we got to the hairpin 180, we had to do a 3 point turn. It cost us a lot of time. Others were making it in 1 pass. It really hurt us. About half way through the race the steering got harder. A few laps later it quit altogether. I stopped and we opened the hood. There was PS fluid everywhere!!! Something had majorly failed but we couldnât tell what. Nothing was visibly wrong, but our PS was done. We limped it in for a finish. Both Clay and I were black. The dust was so bad that our faces were reddish black, even through the enclosed helmets.
We donât know where we finished yet. The scoring was not done even by the time we left. I think we finished mid pack somewhere, as a lot of people didnât finish at all due to mechanical problems or crash damage.
My favorite part of the day was seeing Will in his Jeep TJ. He was right in front of us one lap. He hit a jump, and his hood flew straight up, like something out of the movies. Must have made it hard to see, as he had to quick stop and re-latch itâ¦
Here are some pics of the track and of some class C rigs. I didn't get to take any other pics.
Wow!!! Great writeup. If I didn't have the kiddos definitely would have driven up to see the action. Have you considered using safety wire for the items that are frequently coming lose?
'77 351w- Explorer EFI, 4R70W, 4-link, lockers, 4.56, 35" MT/Rs with a severe rock addiction.mokin:
Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.
07-10-2011, 04:08 PM (This post was last modified: 07-10-2011, 10:38 PM by broncosbybart.)
Thanks for the comments.
Nah, just about everything has either lock-nuts or lock washers. It is still pretty new and the things that were loose should tighten up after a few runs and subsequent re-torquing. The tie rods had old hardware on it all. The new stuff should fix the issues.
Backed it out of the trailer today and put some PS fluid in it. The top of the box has a cover that is held on with 2 bolts. It is the cover that the sector shaft adjusting nut is attached to. The seal between that cover and the box itself blew out. It spews fluid when turning. The fluid shoots out in a very high pressure stream and goes right into the fan, which then slings it everywhere....
Gotta fix it this week. Hoping to do the URE work day/trail run this weekend!
mokin:![[Image: sig2.jpg]](http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll176/mchuzie/sig2.jpg)
