The Rebuild

The SCCA Majors at Thunderhill ended with a big impact for me. There was significant damage to my car. Both front corners were destroyed and nearly every piece of bodywork was damaged. That stuff is all bolt on, so not a huge deal. But worst of all there was some damage to the frame. While the frame damage is certainly repairable, the time to do so was working against me as I still need to complete another race to even get qualified for this year's Runoffs. So to save some time, Doug Learned offered to work a deal where I could swap my engine, gearbox, etc... over on to another frame they had in the shop. But that other frame was currently built as an F2000 car. So the Zetec engine came out, and my Honda went in. While basically building a complete car, we are also taking the opportunity to try some changes that we hope will show up on the track. We will be installing slightly larger radiators to keep the Honda running cooler. And we will also be switching to the F2000 style engine cover without the large air intake to reduce aero drag a bit. This will be important once we get to that long front straightaway at Indy. Doug Jr and Doug Sr have been making good progress on the rebuild. A large portion of the work is now done. And we are targeting to get the car completed in time for the SCCA Regionals at Laguna Seca on June 1 - 4. Now it's time to get on the simulator to learn Laguna Seca before I turn my first real laps there in a couple of weeks.