2025 Round 5 Mid Ohio Sportscar Course
August Mid Ohio Recap
Weeeelllllllll, it’s been awhile since Thunder Grinch has wreaked havoc on a NASA Great Lakes race track. Let’s take a quick look at why I’ve missed the last 2 race weekends. If you remember from my Gingerman recap, Grinch suffered a catastrophic engine failure during the first practice session of the weekend. If you don’t remember, go take a look at it, then come back, we’ll wait…… Memory refreshed? Good, let’s continue. The following weekend, we left for a vacation in Florida, so there was no time to work on the car until returning, I did, however, manage to procure a replacement engine during the week before we left. When we returned from FLA. as a RACE WINNER! I jumped right into removing the old engine, then swapping over certain spec parts the class requires. Once I had the “new to me” engine ready to go, it was just a matter of dropping it into the engine bay, bolting it up, then connecting all the hoses and wires needed to make it run. It’s MUCH simpler on the Thunder Roadster than, say a 1984 Camaro. When I went to fire the engine up, I discovered a problem: It seemed to be stuck in gear, so it wouldn’t start. I disconnected the driveshaft, so it wouldn’t have the extra drag from the rear axle, and the engine started right up, and honestly sounded GREAT! After trying in vain to figure out why the transmission was stuck in gear, I had to face the fact that I would not be making my next race, at Ozarks the third week of July. We still had to go to the event, because Melanie is part of the timing and scoring crew for the NASA Championships, and they were using that weekend as a “dry run” to make sure everything would work as they hoped. When we returned from the event, I was able to work out a time for the group’s “Mr. Fix it” to come to my shop and see if he could solve the issue, since he has much more experience with these engines than I do. After working for a few hours, he determined that he needed to take the engine home with him, so he could completely rebuild the transmission. After he made the repairs(it ended up being a severely bent shifter fork, that wouldn’t allow the trans to shift out of third gear), I drove to his place and picked it up. When I tried to start the car up a couple of days later, it took right off, AND the transmission shifted perfectly, we were GO for Mid Ohio in a couple of weeks!
FRIDAY
My plan for the first day of the weekend was to run in three practice sessions, then join the endurance race for three 45 minute sessions, just to get used to driving the car for that length of time, since that’s how long our championship race will be. The first session went well, since I hadn’t been on track in ANY car since late June, I was feeling a little rusty, so I just took it easy and got back into “race mode”. When I made it back to my paddock spot, however, I discovered that it didn’t actually go as smoothly as I thought. There was oil ALL OVER the engine bay! NOT a thing you want to see, especially on a “new” engine. But, seeing how I had just had literally everything on the engine apart, I figured that I had probably just left something slightly loose. After letting the engine cool sufficiently, I set to checking ALL the bolts and hoses that could be causing an oil leak. Several of them tightened slightly, so I thought the problem was solved, but the length of time it took for the engine to cool, plus me checking everything caused me to miss the next two practice sessions. Not a big deal, since the endurance race was 4 hours long. I decided to start the race, then pit after 10 minutes to have the officials check and make sure it wasn’t leaking anymore. As they removed the hood, the expressions on their faces told me what I didn’t want to know, then one of them confirmed it by holding up a couple of fingers with oil all over them. Crap. I drove back to the paddock, and looked under the hood myself, yep, oil everywhere, just like before, time to let it cool down before trying to track the source down again. After poking my nose around in the engine bay for a few minutes, I decided it looked like the source might be the oil catch can, which is positioned next to the radiator at the right front corner of the engine bay. It was perfectly positioned to be where the oil was coming from, I inspected it, expecting to find a crack(it’s made out of plastic), but there was none. Then I checked the oil line going into it, nice and tight, next I inspected the breather on the top, again tight. The last thing was the drain valve, maybe I left it open… It happens. Nope, closed, BUT, wait, this fitting is really loose. Maybe with all the vibration, that's wobbling around and letting oil escape. After talking with a couple of the guys, I was able to borrow another catch can off of a TR that wasn’t going to be on track until Saturday. This HAD to be the source of the leak! Time to suit up and head back on track! After 10 more minutes, I pulled back into the pits to have it looked at again, surely it would be fixed….. Nope, same thing, oil everywhere. Back in the paddock, I was quite dejected for a time, there just didn’t seem to be any obvious place that oil was coming from. After a little bit, one of the new Thunder Roadster drivers came over and we started looking at the engine together. Fresh eyes, and a new perspective can lead to breakthroughs. There were a couple of connection points on the motor that I was suspicious of possibly being where the oil was coming from, and there was another spot that he pointed out as looking suspect that I hadn’t even noticed. Following his suggestion, I cleaned the entire area with brake clean, then, after it dried, covered the two spots I suspected with fresh shop towels, then started the engine. I let it run at idle for a couple of minutes, then brought it up to half throttle for 30 seconds or so, then revved it up to about two thirds throttle several times, then let it idle for a couple of minutes again. After shutting it down and waiting about 10 minutes for it to cool off, I checked the shop towels for signs of fresh oil….. Clean, darn. However, the third area actually looked to have some oil seepage around it! That must be where it’s coming from. After conferring with a few of the other drivers, we decided the best approach was to fill the area with a self forming gasket material, then let it cure overnight. Hopefully after our warmup session in the morning, it would all be good….. It was an encouraging end to a frustrating day, tomorrow was going to be fun!
SATURDAY
The day started off with our warmup session at 8:50, which for our class is pretty much required, since your time in that session determines where you start for qualifying, and being the fastest cars in our group, we want to start near the front in Quali. I still don’t generally push too hard in these sessions, I just try to set a solid time that puts me ahead of any out of class cars. My main goal is to get my mind in “Race Mode”, my reflexes up to speed, and make sure the car is mechanically sound. This last objective was of most importance, with the mystery oil leak I was fighting all day Friday. After the session, I felt good. Mentally I was there, as well as my reflexes, and the car seemed to be raring to go. When I removed the hood, after returning to my paddock spot, however, things weren’t so good…. Once again, there was oil EVERYWHERE, this was starting to just be stupid, now. After talking to a couple of the guys about the latest fix that didn’t work, it seemed that for whatever reason, there was excess crankcase pressure, allowing oil to leak out of someplace it normally wouldn’t. I had been watching the oil level very closely, and despite the mess, I had probably only lost, at most, half a quart all day Friday. We decided to try one more possible fix, but decided that it wasn’t all that bad, and to just try and keep it clean and check the oil level before every session the rest of the weekend. Qualifying was up next for us, but not until 11:20, meaning I still had around 90 minutes, so I went and had a pair of my tires flipped on their rims, so I could use them on the back axle. The front tires of these cars tend to wear on the inside, so you can extend their life by rotating them when you move them to the rear axle. I got that done and the tires all bolted to the car with just the right amount of time left before qualifying. With better tires on the front of the car, I ran a quick enough lap to put me in spot 8 on the grid, the lap was also just 2 tenths off my personal best from back in May, so I felt very good going into the first race of the weekend. However, do to a scheduling quirk, our race wasn’t until 4:15, nearly 5 hours after qualifying ended, that’s a long time to wait! Luckily, I found several things to do to keep myself occupied. I was able to enjoy the lunch break with my wife, which doesn’t always happen, and it gave me more time to try and fix the oil leak, because it still wasn’t getting better. I noticed that the vent tube running from the engine to the catch can was kinked where it had to make a sharp bend to clear the underside of the carburetors, so I took it off to test it and see if that could be causing too much of a restriction. If I held the tube straight while blowing in one end, it was very easy to feel the air coming out the other end, but, if I bent the tube the way it was on the engine, I could barely feel any air movement. This MUST be the culprit! Encouraged, I set to work trimming the hose so that it wouldn’t bend at such an extreme angle, it was going to work this time, I just knew it! I also had enough time to go over my coaching video that the race coaching service I signed up for recently sent back to me earlier in the morning. The coach had several areas for me to work on, but the three biggest involved my line in the keyhole turn, carrying more speed in T4-6, and my line in the carousel. I made it my mission to work on those three things if I wasn’t actively racing somebody, at the time, I had no idea how much I would be able to practice his suggestions…. I got a pretty decent start in the race, picking up a couple of positions through the first few corners, and was looking for more going through the sweeping lefthander exiting Thunder Valley. Unfortunately, I tried to carry way too much speed through the corner considering the line I was running, and the car spun. If you remember, I also spun the car in May, and ruined my starter, this time I was able to keep from doing that, but the engine still died. So there I was, facing the wrong way smack in the center of the track with the entire field of Spec E46’s barreling around a blind corner right at me. I have no idea how none of them creamed me, especially the bright orange one that only registered as a blur to my eyes when he went by as my car came to rest, but thankfully they were all able to avoid me without hitting anybody else. I recycled the ignition, and the car fired right up, then, since Thunder Roadsters don’t have reverse, I had to do a little off roading to get pointed the right way and continue my race, over a half lap behind the field. I took the first lap pretty easy, making sure there wasn’t any damage to the car that might cause handling issues, and to make sure I got all the crud cleaned off my tires. This allowed a group of out of class cars to catch me, there were three of them running very close to each other, seeing the situation, I decided to let them pass so I wouldn’t interfere in their race. While staying with the group of slower cars, I had plenty of time to work on the things my coach wanted me to try, and felt like I made a good deal of progress. As we got inside of 15 minutes remaining, I noticed another Thunder Roadster ahead of me in the distance… Holy crap, I have a chance to not finish last! For how far back I was after the spin, it was a huge accomplishment to get back within striking distance. One of the three cars I had been following had separated themselves from the other two, and the third car in line was starting to have grip issues, so I pounced. I got around the third car in line when he went wide exiting the carousel, then on the next lap, I was closing on the second car and he saw the developing situation, and let me around on the front straight so I could chase down my class opponent. The next time around, I was right behind the other TR entering the Carousel, but the class leader was breathing down my neck at the same time, so I let him have the corner, then resumed the chase. There was more out of class traffic that lap, and I just couldn’t get to my opponent, but at the start of the next lap(the LAST lap, btw!), the second place car in our class caught me, and I decided I could use him to help facilitate the pass. I drafted him down the back straight, and as he passed the car ahead of me, it forced him off line, and I was able to capitalize as we went through turn 5. Now all I had to do was hold on for 5 more corners, which I did! That was the happiest I’ve ever been finishing 11th, it felt like a victory considering how the race started. That was a great way to end the first day of racing, and gave me some confidence heading into the double header day of Sunday.
SUNDAY
The starting positions for our first race on Sunday were determined by our fast lap from Saturday’s race, which meant I would roll off in P11 of 12. After my extended learning session in Saturday;s race, I was feeling pretty confident despite the low starting position. When the green waved, I got a very good jump on the car in front of me, and went to the inside to get by. I don’t think he ever saw me, because he moved right, and squeezed me into the grass as we passed the start line. I probably should have tried harder to hold my position, but instead I elected to avoid a collision, and ended up with all four tires in the grass. By the time I recovered and made my way back to the pavement, I found myself in the middle of those pesky E46’s again. I tried for a lap to get myself out in front of them, but just couldn’t get away. So like Saturday, I let them around to impact their race as little as possible. Again, I went into “learn mode” and just concentrated on improving the corners I struggled with, also, I had a great seat for some amazing racing! Just as they were starting to separate themselves, and I started thinking about pushing past, I started having brake issues. At first it wasn’t too alarming, the pedal just felt slightly spongy in a couple corners, but it always came back with a pump or two. I decided the brakes were good enough, so started pushing harder once again, this time it almost bit me. I was really hustling the car, and going into turn 4, aka “China Beach”, the pedal went to the floor, and I had zero brakes…. NOT GOOD! This is THE WORST place at Mid Ohio to lose your brakes, as you hit your highest speed at the end of that straight. It;s the place that in pro races there have been some unbelievable accidents due to cars losing braking ability. I pumped the pedal several times, and it finally started giving me a little brake force, but not much, time to just hold onto the car and do my best to get around the turn without hitting the sand. Somehow, I made it around just barely going all four tires in the grass. I got my breath back, settled the car and brought it back on track at a slow pace. I continued on trying to make it back to pit road at about 50% pace, and still didn’t have much in the line of brakes whenever I tried them. Luckily there wasn’t much traffic approaching, so I was able to really take my time, and by the time I got to pit road, my brake pedal was acting almost normal. It was a bad ending to the race, but, again, I felt like I had improved. We had 4 hours before our final race, so I decided to get a head start on packing everything up… my absolute least favorite part of any race weekend. Once we got to around an hour of the race, it was time to relax and get into the right mind set by starting my pre race routine. I find a quiet and relatively cool place to just sit and try to clear my head of all external noise, then I start driving the track in my head and visualizing the likely scenarios to occur in the race. At about the 30-35 minute mark, I make one final personal “pit stop”, then run my final checks on the car: check oil level, make sure the belts are fully loosened, add fuel, make sure all the body panels are securely fastened, then finish by checking tire pressures. Once that’s done, I usually take a couple minutes to re-focus before suiting up, and again, it’s always the same routine: If I’m not already wearing any of my gear, I start with the socks, then my base layer pants, followed by the shirt, next is the suit itself. I pull it on half way, then put my shoes on, after that, I get the suit over my shoulders and zip it ¾ of the way. At this I carry my helmet, balaclava and ear buds to the car and sit them on the left side panel, where we climb in, so I don’t get in the car before putting them on. Next, I put my arm restraints on, left arm first, then take my gloves and put them in the cockpit next to the gear shift. Now is the point of “no return”, I make sure the fire suppression system is armed, then turn the master power switch on. Before climbing in, I get my ear buds seated properly, then pull the balaclava on, being careful to not dislodge the buds, next I make sure everything is tucked nicely into the neck hole of my suit and zip it the rest of the way. Once that’s all good, it’s time to put the helmet on and become a different person altogether, then hop in the car and strap up! For the last race of the weekend, we generally do what is called a “reverse grid”, meaning we start opposite of where we finished the last race. Since I finished last, this meant I was on pole, something I’ve only experienced rarely, and never with the Thunder Roadsters, this was either going to be awesome, or an utter failure. I didn’t get a terrible start, but lost a few spots on the opening lap, to be honest, I prefer starting a couple of rows back, I feel like I can get a little better jump on the start that way. Anyway, I put up a good fight, and settled in around 8th place for most of the race, following a couple of guys that I could have tried passing, but really wouldn’t have gained anything by it. Sometimes, especially when you're just learning a new car, it’s better to follow guys that know what they’re doing, instead of trying to pass them…. At least until the last couple of laps. I just stayed right in their tracks for probably 4-5 laps, “going to school” the entire time. It really helped me nail down the areas of track that I was struggling with, because I could see what they were doing, where they were putting their cars, and could copy that. Not only was I seeing where I needed to be, but I was feeling what it felt like as well. With about 4 laps to go, we encountered several slower out of class cars, and began to carefully work our way through them. By the time we got around, a couple of other TR’s had caught up to us, and I now had to worry about defending my spot, and the best way to do that sometimes is by passing the guy in front of you, so I started pushing to get by. After a lap of increased heat from running and braking harder, the pedal started to go spongy again, just like the earlier race. There was no way I could catch and then pass the two cars in front of me with that issue, and it made defending a big challenge as well, so I decided to call it a day and not risk ruining what had been a good learning weekend by wadding up the car. Also, with a short turn around to championships, I really didn’t need any extra repair work. Despite parking the car 3 laps early, I still learned a TON in that race, and set a new personal best lap time of 1:38.9, so it was a good race for me, even if looking at the final standings doesn’t reflect that.
NEXT UP
The next event on the Fast Farmer Autosport schedule is another visit to the west side of L:ake of The Ozarks in western Missouri September 3-8, to compete in the 2025 NASA Championships, hosted by Ozarks International Raceway. I’ve been to two Championships in the past, racing in 2021 at Daytona, then just spectating in 2023 at Pitt Race. It will be a very busy week, driving all day Wednesday to get there, then we have 5 practice sessions on Thursday, followed by a pair of qualifying sessions on Friday. The racing action starts on Saturday, with our preliminary race in the afternoon, which determines our starting spot for the championship race Sunday afternoon. This is going to be FUN!
