Track & AX weekend 2 - PIR, The Ridge & WMC AX @ Evergreen

Leading up to this event was Whirlwind of upgrades. Dave and myself spent nearly every other day for two weeks wrenching on the car to wrap up the last few bits like a brake upgrade and the accusump. However, with those in place we felt confident we were good to go. Unfortuantely, that demonstrated to be over confidence!

First Event, Track Night in America at PIR 7/5/24

Unfortunately we only have pictures from AFTER the event, but the just is the car was having a coolant leak of some sort. Dave would get out, put in a few hot laps and then notice coolant on the windshield. We tried to bring the car out twice, but had no luck. Reviewing the entire thing together, we determined that the radiator cap was the most likely culprit as it was a lame 1.1bar AND it wasn't a terribly good fit. Par for the course on a $50 ebay radiator though I suppose. Dave got a ride to a nearby parts store from a friend, and with a new radiator cap jammed in place the car was happy as a clam for the rest of the event. Still, we knew we needed better.

Check out some video of Dave's first few laps out there:

After the event we decided to go on the hunt for a better radiator cap, if not a radiator. Nobody of course had a radiator cap that worked for our ebay radiator, but with some parts story jumping we found one parts store that had a two core radiator (ebay was single core) and then we drove to another parts store for a radiator cap. We also grabbed two electrica fans while we were at it. We then rushed back to my house, swapped it all out and got it installed and then called it a night. It was midnight, and we had a very early start to our day the next day to get to the Ridge.

Dave worked 1:1 with an instructor for the entire time, which cost a pretty penny, but Dave did find the instruction time useful. I do wish there was a half day option, as Dave was able to navigate the track by himself pretty compotently by that point and graduated to being permitted to run solo with Turn2, but eh whatever Dave's happy and he's well on his way to being able to run this at an actual Lemons event with us!

I hopped out in it and unfortunately lap timing wasn't working quite right for me. I was able to get a decent feel for the car though, and it corners amazingly and is a very planted and easy to control platform. It's biggest problem unfortunatey is a lack of power and the automatic transmission having NO idea what to do when it's on a race track. We're planning to eventually convert this car to a Manual after the transmission inevitably poops itself, so no biggie.

The car itself did exceptionally well. There were no heating or other issues to speak of. I ran a session and then Dave hopped into it to run a session back to back with me and the car didn't even mind that. I think we've got a nice stable combination for seat time and the inevitable endurance racing that Lemons will require of us.

Here's Video of Dave's solo session at the ridge:

Honda Accordian at WMC AX at Evergreen aviation Museum

Wrapping up the weekend was an Autocross event on Sunday. I mostly signed up because the event happened to be near my Girlfriends parents place, and thus we could go down, race around, and then join their family for a BBQ at their farm. The temperatures were yet again near 100 degrees, so tht was a struggle for sure. The Accordian though had no issues in the heat and was happy as a clam to put down some good times. As I was no longer new to Autocross, I wasn't in the Novice category anymore and instead raced NPF, aka Not For Points. I placed 10th out of 28 cars, being out some notably better cars and putting down a 36.735 run.

One of my favorite things about the event is our car was caught a lot of folks attention. People would be walking down the row of cars, taking them all in, and then stop flat footed at the Accord with a smile... or in the case of a few cantankerous old timers a look of dissaproval that only made me happier about how silly this car is. People who were watching the event would even cheer for the Accordian, the little beater that could!

Here's video of my 38s run. I pushed it a bit hard on already hot tires and consequently lost time.