The Pacific Northwest Historic Races is the marquee event for SOVREN each year. It’s the only three-day event, it draws the biggest field of drivers and spectators, and has a featured marque and a row of vendor booths.
This year over 150 drivers registered, the spectators were many (especially on Saturday), and the featured marque was Ferrari.
For me the ‘weekend’ starts on Wednesday evening, when I load up the trailer with the car, tools, spare parts, and other items. Thursday morning I do a bit of work, then head south on Issaquah-Hobart Road, then Highway 18 to the track, arriving around 10:00 to find about twenty other drivers queued up for paddock opening at 11:00. I quickly locate Rod, Owen, Martin, and the Newby clan and our chat and catching-up makes the hour wait go by in five minutes.
Load-in to the paddock is a carefully orchestrated affair that I am grateful to Stephen Newby for managing. All I have to do is show up and follow directions to where he has me in what is affectionately called “Drip-pan Alley”.
Unload, chat some more, help others as needed, then make a run for race fuel. The new MCCS 1275 engine uses about 50% more fuel than the 948s I ran in 2022 and 2023, so I fill the tank, then take my three empty cans out to Small & Sons, which supports Come Race with Me by offering drivers a discount on race fuel.
Saturday I arrive at the track by 7:30 or so, with a delivery from Top Pot. After a lively driver’s meeting at 8:25…Group 1 is NOT the first out for practice. This is the first time in my two years of racing that our race group isn’t first on the schedule all three days. Our first race on Saturday and Sunday is 11:15!
Alright, you are here for the race summaries, videos, and photos. Here you are:
Friday Practice, 9:35 AM
When I lift to brake going into turn 3a on the first lap out, the throttle sticks the car at 7000 RPM. I nurse it around to the exit at turn 8, immediately hop out to check under the bonnet and think I spot the problem. I re-fire and carefully make my way to my trailer, shorten the throttle cable, re-fasten myself in the car, and return to the track…and it sticks again. That’s it for practice for me, and I miss qualifying as well. Skip down below or to the end of the video for an explanation.
Friday Qualifying, 1:45 PM
Sometimes racing looks like this:
Friday Race 1, 4:15 PM
Finally my first dry-track session with the new engine!
Saturday Race 2, 11:15 AM
Very close pass at the apex of turn 1. Getting a feel for the speed. 2nd gear becomes a problem in 3a and 3b.
Saturday Race 3, 4:05 PM
Kinda not feeling the vibe, so I don’t push things. A lesson learned from mountaineering.
Saturday Sprite-Midget Challenge Race, 5:05 PM
Le Mans-style start. Going back on track with a hot car results in it not wanting to start. A push-start gets me going a half-lap behind the field.
Sunday Race 4, 11:15 AM
I came off the track after this one feeling like I had one lap where I didn’t make any significant errors shifting, wrestling with 2nd gear, or with my line. That lap turned out to be a 1:44, my best at Pacific Raceways.
Sunday Race 5, 3:50 PM
I wait for a push start, get on track a lap down, and have a very fun back-and-forth race with Jake in the #111 Corvette.
It was a great, fun weekend of starting to learn how to drive a faster car and hanging with good friends. Our Spridget Paddock, in what’s affectionately called “Drip Pan Alley” had quite a bit of mechanical attrition through the weekend. We had two cars go out with head and transmission issues. Another went through a head gasket, then the replacement gasket and a piston. One had minor contact with another car but kept racing. I had the throttle linkage issue on Friday, the issue with it popping out of 2nd gear, and the hot-engine no-start problem. The latter was exacerbated, I found out later, but a WOSP starter motor that had accumulated enough oil in it to be balky.
The throttle issue was multi-faceted, but primarily caused by a linkage shaft made too short.
I think the end of the shaft chamfered itself during Spring Sprints and was rounded off enough that it partially came out of the retaining nut and jammed. My initial plan was to just shift it over a bit, but I found that the other side had no more extra length than the side that came out. I decided to err on the side of safety and drove home to get an HS2 carb set, from which I took this linkage, shortened it, shortened it again (drat), installed backwards, and finally installed correctly. Then I had to re-balance and adjust the carbs. During that process I found that the tab upper-right in the photo was rubbing just slightly on the spring-tensioned idle adjust screw I’d installed to replace the janky locknut screw. And the rotating assembly was also rubbing just slightly on the throttle body on the underside. The former was fixed with a file, the latter with a slight bend with pliers.
I’ve already installed a fresh starter, and cleaned the old one, along with scheming about how to make it more oil-tight.
My spare straight-cut transmission will be installed before the next race weekend (August 10-11) at Mission, BC. See you then!