Autumn Mayhem at Gingerman!
- John Santiago
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
A few weeks ago, we made our first Fall trek to Gingerman Raceway!
A great group of kids came out to support the racers…and boy did we need it!
Early in the weekend we had trouble with braking instability – it got so bad that it led to an off-track incident that took out both passenger-side tires and the front bumper.
Much later we would find out that all this started with a single bolt backing out. That one bolt had just one job...just one: hold the left-front wheel speed sensor in place. This little snowball led to a cascade of trouble.
Sadly, over the weekend this was not yet apparent. So we patched up the car, put on another set of wheels/tires and sent it. That’s when things got ugly…
Seems that the left-rear wheel did not get properly mounted and made a bid for freedom. Our driver realized something was very wrong and managed to make it back to the paddock without losing the entire assembly.
Since the wheel studs took such severe bending loads, we had to replace them on top of scrounging around for a spare wheel to use. At least the kids got to learn how to replace wheel studs.
WE PERSEVERE!
Translation: We’re stubborn enough to keep going out on track after all that.
Our driver still reported severe braking instability, and it was getting worse. Somehow he finished the last race of the weekend like that. And then we found this:
Well there’s your problem!
We choose to look at it this way: We were extremely lucky all weekend! Despite all that happened, it could have been far-far worse.
In the paddock we rocked! Another racer needed to change out his water pump and Ocho jumped in to help.
We were also fortunate to receive a donation from our good friend Doug Townsend who offered us his former racing go kart.
The kart needs some loving to bring it back to life, but the kids will learn a lot in that project. Winter is going to be fun!
Join us and get your wrench on!
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