|
Above, our original and Championship winning #34 Mad Cow car. Pictured from left to right: Will Campbell (driver #34), Anthony Crisp (driver #35), Bill Crisp (crew chief #35), Dave Campbell (crew chief #34, not pictured).
Driver #34 - Will Campbell Crew Chief #34 - Dave Campbell Webmaster - Anthony Crisp Crew Member - Bill Crisp Sponsor - Kay Duggan Events Coordinator - Kim Crisp Chief Morale Officer – Jack Queen of Everything - Abby
Mad Cow Mail
Welcome to Mad Cow Motorsports We race for fun. And yes, we race because we’ve had the “red mist” since we were kids. Mostly we do it because it is a great way to spend quality time with our family and friends. Racing is a family sport and we invite your family to join us at the track for lots of fun and excitement. Don’t forget to bring your cow bells! How Did We Get Started? Like most people, we always wanted to strap ourselves into a race car and experience the thrill of speed and competition. And that is exactly what we did. We scheduled a test ride with our local Legends dealer in Northern Virginia. The very next year, we purchased our own Legends car and began racing with some of the best drivers in the country. |
Mad Cow gets a bum steer…
After a wet and harrowing 12-hour tow to the track on Friday, we arrived around 6PM, setup, teched and got ready for practice the next morning. We practiced OK on Saturday, about 5 seconds off our previous pace, but we were running on 2-year-old tires, had just repaired the car from a bad wreck, and the track was obviously new, and needed to be relearned. Plus it was cold, and we had a pretty rusty driver. And the rear view mirror fell off early on, so it was difficult to do much cut-and-thrusting when you couldn’t see other cars behind you. My excuse book was getting pretty full by now, and I ended the session driving very cautiously.
We put on a new mirror for qualifying and ended up about 3 seconds faster in that session, and started the feature in good shape.
Well, almost. The race group had 53 cars, from many classes, and in the middle of the grid there was suddenly a sea of red brake lights as the group accordioned up for the start. We came flying over the bridge for the green flag to see most of the cars almost stopped. We braked hard, smoke coming from the front tires, but still ended up hitting the rear of a 944. There was no apparent damage to his car, but it quickly became apparent that our poor racer wasn’t so lucky. The race started, and we began working our way forward in the field. Except that the car felt funny, with the steering feeling “dead” in certain parts of the track. And we didn’t seem to have the power on the straights we thought we had enjoyed in the past. So I decided to just take it easy for the race (since unfortunately we were the only Legends car there) and finish. We ended up moving up 8 places anyway, and ran a 1.48, which was a competitive time under the circumstances.
As soon as the race ended, we got back to the pits, the front came off and we looked over the damage. The grill was a little (well, OK, a lot) smashed, there was a little fiberglass damage, and ominously, the front tires looked pretty toed out. No wonder the car had felt a little nervous in the race! We didn’t have our regular crew chief to help us (he had some weak excuse that involved something about work, I think) and our crew for the weekend had never actually seen a Legends car. But no matter, we reset the toe in the pits using our homemade toe plates, bent the grill back with the help of another race team that had a vise in their trailer, and buttoned up the car for tomorrow’s race.
Sunday practice was cold, and slow and about a third of the field sat it out. We wanted to test to see if our pit repairs had been effective so we trundled out on track with a little trepidation. We went much slower than in yesterday’s race and still noticed the steering feeling “dead” in some parts of the course. We still couldn’t see anything wrong with the car, but it just didn’t feel right. But we went out for qualifying anyway, still had the problem and (you were waiting for this, right?) ended up running off track in turn 1 at a pretty high speed when the car just wouldn’t turn at all. Fortunately, I was on the outside and relatively alone at the time, and so ended up getting a good view of the rest of qualifying from the gravel trap where the car had ended up, ingloriously spinning the tires until it was well and truly stuck.
After qualifying had ended, the #34 got pulled out of the trap and motored slowly back to the pits where we took the front end of the car off again. A call to our road race setup guru, Roger Austin at (Austin Legends) yielded a long-distance analysis of a bent steering rack bracket. But the bracket was actually pretty good, so that wasn’t it. While the car was up on (our new) jack, we tried to move the steering through its range. There was clearly a place where it was binding. It looked like the steering shaft had been pushed in a bit, as the shaft u-joint was sticking at certain angles. We also thought the steering rack itself was possibly hosed as well. Eventually, we buttoned it back up again, and started to strategize.
After some thought, we decided to give up our qualifying spot and start the race from the rear, run 1 or two laps at very slow speed and come in, so we would at least get INEX points. This race was started using a standing start, and we accidentally passed some cars on the start even as we just motored away briskly. We waved them past quickly and did our two laps, and came in and parked, our race done for the day.
So the Mad Cow car ended up with a bum steer(ing shaft), but we will fix the car, and race again, hopefully with better results. We had a great time anyway, running on a great track with a pretty good organization. Absent the problems, the car was reasonably fast, and we got to shake some of the racing cobwebs from our brains. Our next race will probably be Hyperfest at Summit Point. Look for us there- and don’t forget to Mooove Over!
Click here to access our entire archive of daily travels – or as we call it – Mad Cow Mischief. |
