2014 25 Hours of Thunderhill
Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 7:48 pm
Figured I'd share what I did last weekend.
I asked a friend of mine if he wanted to go spectate and he said he may have a friend entering a car. He gave his friend a call and called me back asking if I'd like to be part of the pit crew. It was game on.
The whole experience was awesome. I was a tire changer and I was also a helper for getting fuel to the pits and ready for going in the car. It was a blast jumping the wall when the car came into the hot pits and waiting for fuel to get done and then going to town with changing tires. The only thing you were allowed to do to the car while fueling was clean windows so I did that too a few times.
The car was an E46 M3 built to NASA GTS5 specs I believe. Coolest parts were that it had the radiator in the trunk, and the exhaust was in the passenger door.
We were the smallest team there... 7 pit crew members, and 2 drivers. The first driver was the owner and the second driver was the majority builder of the car.
At one point during the first 12 hours the car was in 6th place overall until a couple incidents happened. First it got hit by another car at about midnight and broke the RF tie rod assembly. Luckily the team next to us that was fielding a spec e46 had a spare that they gave to us. We installed it, set toe, and sent the car backout with fresh tires, full fuel, and fresh driver. About 2 laps later the drive radioed in saying the trans wouldn't shift. The car got towed in and the trans was pulled. Another team who was out of the race sold us their spare trans and that got bolted in and the car went backout. It ran flawlessly unit 11AM (1 hour left) when the driver radioed in saying there was water on the windshield and he needed to pit to get it cleaned up. Well, it was oil. VANOS line on the head had split and all the oil had been pumped out but it hadn't seized yet. Engine oil was added, the line was remove and cut and then the open ends smashed flat with a hammer and then rolled up. The line went back on and the engine fired up... no leak, so back on the track with only 15 minutes left.
The rest is history (im in the green hat)...
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r50TAUI3ils[/youtube]
I asked a friend of mine if he wanted to go spectate and he said he may have a friend entering a car. He gave his friend a call and called me back asking if I'd like to be part of the pit crew. It was game on.
The whole experience was awesome. I was a tire changer and I was also a helper for getting fuel to the pits and ready for going in the car. It was a blast jumping the wall when the car came into the hot pits and waiting for fuel to get done and then going to town with changing tires. The only thing you were allowed to do to the car while fueling was clean windows so I did that too a few times.
The car was an E46 M3 built to NASA GTS5 specs I believe. Coolest parts were that it had the radiator in the trunk, and the exhaust was in the passenger door.
We were the smallest team there... 7 pit crew members, and 2 drivers. The first driver was the owner and the second driver was the majority builder of the car.
At one point during the first 12 hours the car was in 6th place overall until a couple incidents happened. First it got hit by another car at about midnight and broke the RF tie rod assembly. Luckily the team next to us that was fielding a spec e46 had a spare that they gave to us. We installed it, set toe, and sent the car backout with fresh tires, full fuel, and fresh driver. About 2 laps later the drive radioed in saying the trans wouldn't shift. The car got towed in and the trans was pulled. Another team who was out of the race sold us their spare trans and that got bolted in and the car went backout. It ran flawlessly unit 11AM (1 hour left) when the driver radioed in saying there was water on the windshield and he needed to pit to get it cleaned up. Well, it was oil. VANOS line on the head had split and all the oil had been pumped out but it hadn't seized yet. Engine oil was added, the line was remove and cut and then the open ends smashed flat with a hammer and then rolled up. The line went back on and the engine fired up... no leak, so back on the track with only 15 minutes left.
The rest is history (im in the green hat)...
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r50TAUI3ils[/youtube]