Current Team Status and AI/X Race Reports 9/10/03
By Bruce GriggsI haven't written a race report for some time. Long overdue are reports about the May Willow Springs event, or the June Infineon Raceway event or the Reno-Fernley event for lack of time. I'll preface this Thunderhill report with a summary of the teams results of these three events.
May 24th & 25th Willow Springs
Guy Cunningham won AI on Saturday with a hard fought dual with Vageli Karas both in GR40 Mustangs. Tim Nichols won the AIX race on Saturday, for which the #40 GR40 Mustang was not present. I was going to sit out the Willow event for family reasons, but then the call came on Saturday morning that Hot Rod TV was going to be there so I prepped the #40 car real quick on Saturday evening and drove all night to race on Sunday. I put the car on the pole and won AIX. I was one tired puppy, but I really wanted put on the best possible face to represent the series to the Hot Rod TV audience. The more visibility the series gets, the bigger it will grow, and it will be a win-win for all involved. Kevin Chambers was very fast in his GR40 AI Mustang. Running in AI, not AIX he ran right behind be all day, winning his class unchallenged. Guy finishing second said he had nothing for him. Kevin is championship material. He just needs to focus on one racing endeavor and he will then be consistently fast in it. Some really good video of the event was made, of which a few edited clips used in another TV show can be seen at: http://www.americanironwest.com Click on Gallery, then Videos, then 2003 season, then Willow Springs.
June 28th & 29th Infineon Raceway
We had a large turn out for our Barbecue & Race entertainment venue at Infineon Raceway. Numerous visitors came from various business interests to see what AI/X racing is about and taste the world championship award-winning barbecue provided by Back 40 Texas Barbeque. All expressed their appreciation for the high quality show the competitors put on, and the fine eatin'.Guy Cunningham again continued his dominance of AI by winning the race on Saturday from behind. The standing start is hard for his underpowered machine, but he fought hard with Kevin Chambers and Vageli Karas to come home in first. On Sunday, while leading, Guy's battery became dislodged and shorted out power to the ignition, ending his day early. Griggs Team member Keith Videtto, who is coming on strong in AI fought a memorable dual with Kevin Chambers. We recently installed a new Trick Flow based 327 in his car that really has an awesome torque curve, far surpassing the old Edelbrock based motor. It is the best AI engine we have built yet. It uses all off the shelf parts, except for the pistons and crank, and should set a new benchmark for AI competition. This engine, and his GR40 chassis, ushered Keith to victory. Now that Keith has a competitive car under him, he can showcase his talent. We expect a lot of excitement from him in the future. This victory was Keith's first, and was very rewarding for all that know him, especially the Griggs Racing Team.
Paul Mashouf touches down on the back side of the bypass at Thunderhill
AIX witnessed another newcomer to the series for his first race ever. Paul Mashouf, veteran and class champion of the inaugural OTC, and many miles of open track driving with the Norcal Shelby club, NASA, SVTOA and such, was driving his 408 powered 1994 GR40 AIX car which was just recently ¾ converted from Street car to Race Car by the Griggs Racing crew and barrels of midnight oil. This was one of the largest fields of AIX West cars to appear yet, and Paul proved formidable his first time out, finishing fourth on Saturday, and second on Sunday after a hard fought dual to get around Terry Buch in his TCP Mustang. To Terry's credit, this was his first visit to AIX as well. His 66 Mustang with "lay-down" shocks is not legal but they are letting it run with the group for no points. Paul was able to pass him and drove on.
The pole sitting AIX car both days was the #40 GR40 Mustang, driven by myself, and I managed to win both days as well, by a comfortable margin.
August 9th & 10th Reno-Fernley
I won Saturday's AIX event at Reno, John Lindsey second, and Bill Dafron third. But on Sunday, I ran against my old teammate, SCCA National Champion, and 2002 AIX Champion, Ross Murray driving Bill Dafron's GR40 Mustang. Its, big 383 engine and Jerico transmission definitely outclassed my little 306 and Tremec. But, we managed a side-by-side race for the finish that I have heard people are still talking about. Tim Nichols finished third. Reno was a challenging track to say the least. But we won't be revisiting Fernley until major improvements are made. We survived with minimal damage to the three cars we ran, all had windshield and body damage of some sort. Others running that weekend lost their cars. In my opinion, safety is an issue when it comes to AI competition at the fledgling track.We rushed home from Reno and prepped for Lowes Motor Speedway, a non-points event for us, and a trip to NASCAR country for an AI/X East-West shootout. (See the report "Lowes '03 Report" elsewhere on this site).
September 6th & 7th Thunder Hill:
Each AI event puts on its own personality. In racing, the slightest little change in a performance characteristic can put a completely different complexion on an event. For this reason Thunderhill was quite unique for the Griggs Racing Team experience to date, and I would venture to say for the series. As the event unfolded it required a change in strategy for our team to continue to prove GR40 superiority in chassis design through AI/X racing. The story is as follows:The cars arrived back at our shop from their trip to North Carolina, 5 days before we had to leave for Thunderhill. Many were the repairs and preparations needed to be competitive at T/hill. The Griggs Racing Team returned tired from Lowes, and having caught some sort of respiratory virus that put me down over the labor day weekend, we ended up having three days to repair and prep four cars for the second round of '03 at Thunderhill. The new Trick flow based 327 cubic inch engines we have built for the two team AI cars, #31 AI GR40 Mustang of Keith Videtto and the #42 AI GR40 Mustang of Guy Cunningham, were taken to the dyno and returned for a little more power and added weight accordingly. The 408 powered #49 AIX GR40 Mustang of Paul Mashouf was also part of the Griggs Racing Team this weekend. Paul's last event was at Fernley, Nevada August 9th and 10th, two weeks before we left for Lowes.
The #40 AIX GR40 Mustang, and the point-leading car in the AIX West series, my car, was losing oil pressure at the end of the event in North Carolina. After the trip home, we had three days to correct it. It was decided to pull the pan and inspect everything. The pump was found worn, but all bearings looked as new. The timing chain was replaced as it showed some wear.
We arrived at T/hill Friday Morning and spent the day working with Keith and Paul to get them up to speed, and optimize their chassis settings. Guy and I didn't run on Friday.
Saturday arrived and we all went out. In Morning practice Guy and Keith were fast, turning times as fast as most AIX cars. Paul's AIX mount was fast too, considering his car is still going through the metamorphosis from street machine to racecar. It is still a little heavy over all and nose heavy by a bunch. A 2:00 lap time is mighty respectable and by Saturday morning all three of them were doing consistent 2:00 laps with occasional 1:59s. But my car, which always suffers from last minute preparation due to our customer priorities was 3-4 seconds off my usual pace, and it felt horrible. It wasn't the same car I drove at Lowe's two weeks before. Apparently the cam timing was now off, either we installed the chain wrong, or the marks on the new chain were off. Even though I know better, in the rush I gave the go-ahead to forgo degreeing the cam when the chain was replace, as it was a mid-night last minute affair. The car had no low-end torque and wouldn't pull hard until it was above 6000 rpm. It was a slug off the corner.
Paul Mahouf leads Keith Videtto through Turn 3 at Thunderhill
I make all the chassis set-up decisions on our team for all 4 cars. I spent the weekend making decisions on the four cars, and dealing with the lack of torque from my little 306. I couldn't keep up with Keith, or Guy, or hardly anybody. Engine torque is one of the largest loads you can put in a chassis and a change in Torque availability affects the chassis set up considerably. We didn't have what we needed to time the cam with us, nor did I want to get that far into the engine at the track, so I kept working with the chassis to optimize it all weekend. I also retuned the engine to try to get the most out what we had. The low power wouldn't turn the car, and I had to get resourceful in both driving technique and chassis adjustments just to get confidence in it.
Another problem was loss of front rebound control after running several laps. I haven't dyno tested the struts yet, but I am pretty sure one of them has lost gas pressure. I shouldn't complain as they have been on the car since 1994 and through two serious crashes. They have never been serviced and we just kept running them to see how long they would last on a racecar. The good thing is Koni struts are guaranteed for life, and the rebuild should be inexpensive.
The locking differential is weak as well and was a bit erratic causing occasional darting across the track when transitioning throttle to brake and back. All these things made for a busy time in the cockpit just trying to stay with the fast AI cars.
Saturday's AI race should hav been a cakewalk for Guy Cunningham, whose only competition was from teammate Keith Videtto. But Guy dropped a couple of wheels off the track early in the blind bypass of turn 5 and in the process dislodged again the battery, disconnecting the power to his engines computer. Keith went on tho win unchallenged, for his third victory of the season. In AIX I finished a distant third behind Terry Buch and Tim Nichols while all the time analyzing what my car needed to get back to its normal pace.
So, we didn't give up. We worked on the distributor, and a few other things to help get the torque up, then came up with a plan to help improve the potential AIX race results for our team. Since Guy was so fast in AI trim, and it was Keith's was almost as fast and should assure us the AI win agin, and Guy's points lead for the AI Championship is so great he could miss a few races and still clinch the championship, we decided to pull the ballast and restrictors from his #42 AI car, and run him in AIX. I thought about driving his car in AIX myself, but the pedals won't accommodate my extra long legs. If his lap times while on the AI rules required Toyos were fast enough in Sunday morning's practice, we were going to put on the faster 275 Hoosier's that I run on for qualifying and the race.
It worked. Guy won the overall and AIX pole at a low 1:58.6, the fastest lap of the field for the weekend, in front of Tim Nichols whose car runs a competing chassis, is about 6 inches wider, has a dry-sumped 351 and runs larger 315 Hoosier tires. This Guy did with his new limited output AI engine, which is identical to the one we built for Keith. 347 rwhp unrestricted, 329 restricted with lots of torque.
I pulled a rabbit out of a hat and qualified third somehow, and Vageli Karas driving the Terry Buch's dry-sumped 383-powered Jerico transmission equipped 66 Mustang was on my right. Behind me was my teammate Paul Mashouf with his 408, and next to him was Bill Dafron. I was very concerned about the flying start with all that horsepower around me, but when the green flag dropped, Guy was gone like a bullet, Tim missed a shift and went backward and I went into turn one right behind Guy in second place, much to my surprise. Tim recovered from his missed shift and soon caught up.
Guy was under instruction to run at the lowest speed possible to keep from any possibility of throwing away the overall win, so he paced himself ahead of me as I spent the next 10 laps or so defending my position, as it is with the Tim Nichols/ John Lindsey team that I am in competition for the championship. They have run all the races; I have missed two. Our worst two events are not counted, but that still leaves me no room for error. Our wins and pole positions with the #40 GR40 Mustang have kept me in the points lead after tossing out the two zero point missed events. As it stands, I still have to do well in all the remaining races to win the championship.
Business is business. If you look at our competitor's ads in the Mustang magazines you see they are misleading and untruthful in that they display the 2001 AI and AIX champions as though they were using their product at the time they won the championship. This is not true as they were racing GR40 Mustangs in 2001 and then both of them lost the championships the following year, 2002, when they changed over to their competitor's products. This fallacious ad has bothered me all year, and I finally have to say something about it. With the way our competitor's advertise we know we can't let them win, and the only way they will is if we let them. I like John and Tim, and if they were running our parts, they would be way out front in points from the support we would give them, and I wouldn't even be running in the series myself, but they chose the "dark-side." And we had to respond. Theirs is the car that our primary competitor and emulator of our product line directly supports.
Of course, the simple fact that their car is so much wider and has much more rubber, should give them a huge advantage, but any well-driven GR40 Mustang on smaller rubber still outpaces them on the track. At the risk of sounding arrogant, that alone should prove GR40 superiority. But there are those that don't look beneath the surface and make purchase decisions based on the lies they readily believe. So we must race to prove the truth. It is kind of like waging war against an evil dictator that continues to emit propaganda.
Guy Cunningham at Las Vegas, August 2002
As the race ensued, I drove absolutely as hard as I could to hold Tim behind me even though he could easily out accelerate me off the corners. After some side-by-side racing, and after two occasions of contact from behind, one that turned me sideways momentarily at 140mph on the front straight, I let it slip a little in turn one after trying to hold a tight entry line and, having abused my tires enough, I let him go and backed off giving myself a rest. Guy on the other hand was cruising about 100 yards ahead, staying back to keep us in site in his mirror. Tim ran him down and as Guy reported later Tim caught up to Guy in Turn 14, which surprised him. He thought it was a CMC car he had lapped, and then woke up to who it was and put it down up the front straight. The two of them ran nose to tail up the front straight inside lapped traffic and when Guy got to turn one and braked hard and deep, Tim got into a tank slapper behind him and spun on the entry to turn one and a lapped car hit him in the nose, ending his day.
After running so hard with him, I have to say Tim Nichols is an excellent and aggressive driver. I'd like to see him in a GR40 Mustang someday. He could possibly be the class of the field. Guy went on to win the overall and AIX, Keith suffered a broken driveline near the end. We are investigating the cause of this, as we have never had this happen to one of our drivelines before. But that is why we race, to improve our products, and test them tough. It should be noted that still in AI trim, restricted and all, Keith was close behind the three of us AIX leaders all race long. He was way out in front of the AI field when his day ended in disappointment. Keith is destined to be great in AI competition. Next year I would expect him to be Champion. Tim Gilpin from BBK took the win after a steady drive.
Vageli in the Terry Buch's 66 Mustang caught up to me as I slowed so I sped up a little and worked the traffic to keep him behind me. His first time in the "not legal enough to get points or trophy" car was without incident as far as I know. Apparently his power steering failed at the start and his arms were a bit tired. It is unfortunate Vageli has dropped out of AI competition in his own car. He was always a great competitor and his showmanship on the track in his black #3 GR40 Mustang will be missed.
GR40 teammate Paul Mashouf improved his performance, learning some more about his car and had a strong and respectable finished, close behind us in his semi-street GR40 94 Mustang. He ran clean, and received his permanent license at this event. My congratulations to Paul, who is now officially no longer a rookie. Bill Dafron in his fast GR40 mount suffered fuel feed issues all weekend and unfortunately dropped out about three laps from the end.
Thunderhill was sobering. Yes I can do some work to the #40 car and get it up to speed again. But, I realize we need to finish our new car to stay competitive in this ever-growing and challenging series. We also need to finish the development of new products on that new car. Griggs Racing does not have the resources to do all these things, and our client base suffers because of it. We really need someone else to carry the torch as our competitor's have in the Lindsey/Nichols arrangement with our competitor. Then I can use the new car for development of new and better products, which is proving impossible while having to win a championship. Our plan was never to run a house car for the championship, but as long as the others running in the AIX west field seem unable or unwilling to commit to what it takes to win a championship, or have as yet to prove the capability to us that they can, as the Lindsey/Nichols team has done for the other side, we have had to do so ourselves.
The reality is #40 is a 13 year old re-constituted SCCA A-sedan Mustang that we run against all these ever developing more powerful and more seriously shod AIX cars. We set the bar with it, and now we must raise it again as others are meeting it. This is a good thing for the customer, as better products and knowledge of the use of those products will become available to the public from it. Racing does indeed improve the breed. But we as a team must find more resources if we are to stay competitive both on the track and in the market place. Our chassis is still proving to be the best, but although it is the primary part of a road-racing car, the chassis is just one part of the equation, not the only part. After visiting Lowes, and now this run at T/Hill, it is apparent that from now on it will take more than just a good chassis to stay on top of the standings.
In my opinion Guy has the talent to be competitive in Trans-Am or any other full-fendered road-racing venue. Keith and Paul may not be too far behind. Guy wants to run AIX with his car next year, but even though he is very capable and the car he is driving could easily be converted to a dominant champion, it takes more money and time than he or we can afford. So unless we come up with additional financial support, or another capable driver that can afford to commit to a championship run, we will not be running a Griggs Racing owned car for the AIX championship next year. We may race in the series for development, but I doubt we will contend for the AIX west championship in 2004 as it stands now.