Getting Ready for the Next Race

It is now November. The SF Giants have won the World Series (now that was about as amazing as the Magic Rabbit finishing the first race!). Rye and I have experienced and survived Burning Man! Paul and Nancy have lounged on the beaches of Hawaii. Tedders is knocking them dead at Scott USA in Ketcham, ID, and Darrell is busy camping with his new camping friend. That is all behind us and now the Dirty Duck Racing team is gathering back together again to prepare for Arse-Freeze at Buttonwillow.

So much to do and so little time. First on our list of tasks was to get two new tires so that we have two spare tires in case we get a flat during the race. I ordered two tires, exactly the same as our current 4 racing tires. And Paul sand blasted and painted two "snowflake" rims. Below is the pic of our "sticker" tires for race day! They look fantastic!!

Just love the red background. I think Paul will have to paint all our rims red! Oh, for our fans, "sticker" tires means that the tires are so new they still have the paper stickers on them, not that they are sticky. Just brand new tires for race day. We will mount these two "stickers" on the front on race day, since we are a front wheel drive car. Have our newest tires in the front.

Next thing being addressed is our "prime mover", our engine. The engine currently in the race car is tired. When we raced at Thunderhill we all felt the engine max out, it would only go so far before running out of steam. That was perfect for our first time out, nobody got into too much trouble (Paul, you get a bye on your first bump, this time). The tired engine also kept us from stressing other parts of the car, besides the driver! But everyone agreed we needed more power. We want to PASS people!!

So our plan was the take the engine out of car#3. Oh yes, forgot to tell you. Right after our first race we got two more GTI's One for free and one for very little money, designated Car#2 and Car#3. That is what you get when an engineer (me) picks the names. Anyway, Car#3 is an identical to the race car (Car#1 by default). So planned to transplant the engine from #3 into the race car. Got the car into the garage and pulled the engine. Rye cleaned it up, ready for the swap. And then it happened!

Too much time cruising Craigslist. On Monday found a posting for 1985 Golf engine, transmission and front suspension. A few emails and determined that the engine is the desirable 2.0L ABA engine. This was in our long term plans, but the price was right. Gotta jump on it now. Rye met me yesterday and we drove into the Hayward Hills, very near Cal State Hayward campus (now called California State University East Bay, I liked the old name!) to find Lou Correa at his home. Lou does custom hot rods, primarily doing "chop" jobs on 50's sedans. So another car guy.

Once we find Lou's home, here is what we find in the dirt of his backyard:

Here is Lou pointing out the finer points of the "prime mover" that used to be in his daughter's 1995 Golf.
The history of how this engine, transmission and front suspension ends up sitting in the backyard is interesting. The 1995 Golf that it used to belong to had a mishap. Lou and his wife have a cabin in the Sierras, little town of Miwok, out of Sonora. Seems that his daughter's car had a sudden failure of it's parking brake, or maybe someone knocked it out of gear, the actual cause is unknown. The fact is the little Golf started rolling free down a steep hill outside the cabin, then left and road and found it way into a number of trees! No one hurt but the car was totalled.

The Golf was towed back to Hayward and Lou has parted the car out. This is all that was left. Car had 98,000 miles on it and Lou would give a 30 day warranty that the engine is fine. After Rye and I checked it out, we agreed the engine looks good and the price was very good. Now, Rye and I had to dismantle the assembly enough to free the engine from everything else. We didn't need or want the transmission or front suspension. About an hour later, here we are, engine is free. Thanks to Lou, I had some overalls to put over my work clothes. They even fit me! Here is a pic of the engine ready to load out, Lou saying his last goodbye to the "prime mover"!

OK, now we need receipt and transfer the cash. Receipt in my hand, cash in Lou's hand, handshake to seal the deal! 2.0L power plant is now ours.

Loaded up in Rye's trailer, ready to head back to Los Gatos. Spent last night taking all the bits and pieces off of the engine. In real fact, all we need is the engine block, the bottom part. Will use the head off of the race engine and all the other pieces from the current motor too! Supposed to increase horsepower up to 115hp. Our tired race engine was probably producing no more than 75-80hp.

Besides the engine, we are doing some mods to the suspension to get more negative camber, should help us in the corners. Also have a new tachometer I got on ebay which has memory and a shift light. Boy now we are talking real racing stuff!

There are rumors out there that our fan base is ballooning. We didn't think that we would have any fans at the Buttonwillow race on December 4 and 5, but the enormous talent of the Dirty Duck Racing Team and the spectacle of the Magic Rabbit apparently is drawing crowds from places like Carmel, Huntington Beach and Davis!! The DDR team welcomes our growing fan base and look forward to entertaining the Lufts and the Boltons in Buttonwillow. As the race name implies, it might be freezing, so bring your coats!

But don't fear, the Drivers Lounge, aka Bounder RV, will be there and available to all to escape the elements if needed. Yes its true, the Bounder broke down on the way back from Burning Man (failed water pump) but after being towed to Reno, all is fixed and ready to go!

Oh, and for the multitudes of our fans, the 2011 schedule has been published. Great news, two races at Infineon (always known to the team as Sears Point!), back again to Thunderhill and Buttonwillow, but also a race at Fernley, Nevada (one of Paul's favorite places). Go to the 24 Hours of Lemons website www.24hoursoflemons.com to see the schedule and the dates.

OK, that's it for today. More posts as our preparations for Arse-Freeze continue.