Barret qualifying in light rain. The Mini Cooper-S chasing him turned 2:10. The Ghia 2.07.
7000 RPM
"There is a point at 7000rpm where everything fades, the machine becomes weightless. It just disappears. All that's left is a body moving through space and time. 7000rpm. That's where you meet it. You feel it coming. It asks you a question, the only questions that really matters. Who are you?" (Carroll Shelby)
08Oct20; Thr. My son Barret and I get 53 through tech, COVID-19 practices dictating that the inspectors stay in their trailer and accept our "self tech" checklist through a half-opened window, sign our log book, and hand out stickers to us the same way. We've been waiting for all this year to get back on the track, and it's finally happening!
The Swamp
Our camp and private paddock is down in the swamp, a secluded glade just below Turn 1. The first major item on local prep is resetting 53's toe-in with hand held measuring tape toe-plates. We'd installed new tie rods ends back in Birmingham. After much fine adjustment, Jamie our weekend mechanic, and Barret get the required 1/8th-inch toe confirmed and locked down.
Barret (in driving suit) and sponsor Steve Nordness of Automation Personnel Services. Steve drives an Audi R8 and is at Road Atlanta learning how Historic Sportscar Racing works.
Our paddock partner is an ex-SCCA yellow 1977 Datsun 200SX much like the ones Bob Sharp prepped for Paul Neuman and raced right here at Road Atlanta. This 200SX has its 2-litre engine breathing through a single progressive 2bbl downdraft Weber. One of the Datsun team crew comes over to visit, takes a look at our car, and asks "What kind of Alfa is this?" Easy mistake. Alfa took styling cues from the early Ghia, rather than the other way round.
The Zagato turned 2:19. The Ghia 2.07.
We do have an Alfa sharing paddock area with us, a beautiful red 1960 Sprint Zagato. Both the 200SX and the Zagato are in our group, but not our class. We are class VP5, Group 2 qualifying and racing. VP classes are all historic production sports cars, typically 2-litres and under.
The Sprite turned 2:20. The Ghia 2:07
The only other VP5 car is an 1959 Austin Healy "Sebring" Sprite, a factory racer made just for long, fast tracks like Sebring. Sterling Moss won his class and finished 2nd overall in one at Sebring in 1960. These are not just cars we are up against, they are legends.
Vintage racing being what it is, period original parts are often no longer available, so some substituting is allowed by HSR and other sanctioning bodies. Our Ghia came from the factory with a 1584cc (1600cc) engine. SCCA, in their 1973 revision to the 1972 GCR for reasons best known to themselves, allowed the Showroom Stock Ghia a 1679cc engine, same size as the Porsche 914-4. The 1679cc was known as a 1700. We have taken advantage of this by building our own 1700cc engines, being 85.5mm bore by 74mm stroke for a 1699cc displacement.
The engine substitution parts allowances broadened over the years for the aging lot of vintage cars to the point now, as it applies to us, if VW built it and it will bolt in, we can run it. That would mean we could run a 2.0 914-4, which is actually a 1971cc. In Europe, the 914-4's were sold as VW-Porsches, not badged as Porsche alone as they were stateside. So, we interpret the engine substitutions by displacement. That means this weekend we are running a 1915cc Type 1 rather than a 1971cc Type 4. It's all still pushrods and carbs.
09Oct20; Fri. We leave the hotel at sunrise, fueled by Holiday Inn free breakfast and coffee, to make first Group 2 practice. The weather is gray, damp, about 60° F, chilly.
Qualifying Session #1 1055 hrs EST
We're ready. Our Hoosier Speedster (racing bias-ply) tire pressures are 22 front and 24 rear. We've just bumped up our 48IDF main jets from 150's to 170's, due to very lean running at recent track days back in Alabama. The 150's had been holdover's from using this 1915cc engine at Bonneville's high altitude last year.
48IDF's. Better suited to road racing than the well-known 48IDA.
Barret goes out but only for a lap. He reports that the engine is running badly, no power above 5000rpm. We quickly check fuel pressure, fuel delivery, and do a plug check. All good. It has to be the jetting! With the 150's, the Ghia was fast, but way lean. No 155's are available (out on loan to a friend) and 160's might be too much. We decide to swap back to the 150's just to get a qualifying time.
Then the racing gremlins struck. As Barret is lowering a jet stack into the carb body, the main jet falls right off the end and down the jet stack hole. So much for 20-minute first qualifying. The carb top has to be removed. Jamie tries to be careful but breaks the top gasket in two places, wiggling the carb top off the float. No replacement gasket is available. We glue the torn one in place. The 48IDF's are new to us, and we're not up to date on rebuild kits. Now we wait past lunch for the next qualifying.
Qualifying Session #2 1440 hrs EST
Barret rolls out with Group #2. We have good weather, sunlight breaking through a cloud cover, ambient temps rising toward 70° F. We're running a baffle in the stinger pipe, no glass packing, so we're not as brutally loud as usual, but we still make a hostile snarl. Even with the baffle we're not taking much of a performance loss, if any, because the Ghia was tuned for this exhaust restriction.
There are 25 Group #2 cars on the track. Loti, 911's MG's, Alfas, even a couple of hot rod Corvairs. Our paddock neighbor, the Datsun SX200, is sidelined with a transmission problem for the session. The Ghia is among them, the underdog challenger, sporty car against sports cars. This is it. When the green flag drops, the bulls**t stops.
Barret begins the session taking it easy, testing the corrected front end alignment, feeling out the available power, and he has not yet committed to taking all the right lines. But as he reaches the long back straight (turns 7 to 10) without really pushing it, he sees 7000rpm on the Ghia's AutoMeter tach in 4th gear. With our tire diameter and final drive, 7000rpm is 140mph.
In April of 2017 we had turned 130mph here on a 1.7 (1699cc) engine and Weber 40's.
When the time sheets are printed, we could cheer. Without trying, just cruising, Barret has posted a qualifying lap time of 2:07, placing 13th (right in the middle) of the 25 Group 2 cars. This is not our best Road Atlanta time. Back in April 2017, on our 1.7 engine, we had posted a 2:03. But 2:07 was enough for now. Hard on it, the 1915cc Ghia ought to be able to break two minutes.
Fully race-prepped Lotus, Alfa Romeos, Austin Healeys, and more had fell behind the Ghia. I think we've reached true sports car status. There is no major secret tweak that lets us run with this crowd, just lots of tried and true parts and adjustments. Four wheel dual 40mm piston Karmann Ghia brake calipers, crossed-drilled rotors, Koni shocks, 19mm front and 16mm rear sway bars, and urethane bushings everywhere. Our 8-gallon sprint fuel cell rides above the front axle beam and our battery lives down where there was once horns, for better weight distribution.
To celebrate, that night we descend on the Roman Oven, a small Italian pasta and wine restaurant close to the track and a Road Atlanta tradition, like the Sebring Diner near that track.
10Oct20; Sat. Qualifying Session #3
The morning is wet and chilly, dark sky, rain drizzling on and off. We swap to our rain tires, actually just street Falken's. We last used them here at Road Atlanta in 2017 during the Mitty. We had posted that 2:03 in the dry on them, just before we got Hoosier Speedsters. At best, for rain they are only adequate.
At 10:05 AM EST, in the wet, the session begins. We've set the Falken's pressures to 24 front, 26 rear. Soon the Group in all on track, at first some being erratic in the rain, while others begin to push it. Jamie and I watch in the gray spray from the closely bunched cars for the Ghia's low, rounded silhouette and red racing stripe.
The Datsun 200SX is now on track in this wet session but is not passing Barret. The little white Mini (Team Two Girls Racing) is right behind Barret but not able to get around him. I see the Ghia beginning to slip and slide as Barret spot brakes and power downshifts. He can feel the Falkens starting to loose grip, feeling greasy as they get hot, and at the same time, the too-lean 150 mains are causing cylinder head overheating, gradually robbing power, but that hasn't affected oil temp yet. The oil temp is steady on 200° to 210° F. All we have going for us at this lean moment is cool, wet air being sucked down the dual 48mm Webers 38mm venturis.
Then at about 10:40 AM, through the rain, Jamie saw something violent happening on the front straight just as the downhill run ends
"Somebody's crashed!" Jamie cried, "It's us!"
Barret has spun off the track into the grass, throwing mud, and hit the wall, right rear corner of the car first, silver paint chips and red-orange tail light lens plastic fragments flying. The exhaust headers collapse, the stinger is ripped off, and the Ghia bounces to a shuddering halt. Yellow flags start to wave. It's hard to see in the rain. There are flashing lights of emergency vehicles. Somehow the cars behind Barret miss him as they dodge and weave in the rain. There are very long seconds as we wait for additional impacts.
The adage of "Don't put it on the track unless you're prepared to lose it" is running laps in my head. This is my son, himself the father of a four year old. Yet we put him on the track. Like Shelby asked, "Who are you?"
Finally, as the corner workers swarm around the Ghia, our view is partially blocked by the flatbed wrecker already on site, we see the Ghia slowly moving under its own power, taking the pit road in. I hurry back down to the swamp on foot. Obviously Barret is okay.
Barret has totaled out a few street cars, but this is his first track incident. He is not wearing a HANS device, but does have a high-density neck support collar. The imploding sheet metal absorbed part of the shock but not all. He won't feel it until tomorrow The unpadded aluminum racing seat is bolted directly to the floor and roll bar, and there is no rubber in the body-to-chassis mounting.
The Ghia no longer has an exhaust system. The right rear fender is driven into the body. The tail light lens is gone. But there are no oil or fuel leaks and the Ghia is tracking straight. Plus the engine is running. It is worth noting here that our dual fuel pumps inertial safety switch (mounted up near the fuel cell) did not trigger.
Our Ghia has an unconventional cooling system. All air to the fan housing is directly ducted through the firewall, so full engine compartment sheet metal is unnecessary. Oil coolers get fed through the deck lid. No fans.
We pack to go home, thinking about the future, how to go about repairs, what kind of "rain" tires can we get (if any). One thing is certain. All the Falkens are going to the dump. The bright spot is we took on the factory-racer sports cars and left them with a Karmann Ghia racing story.
FJC
