Back to the story -
After the lunchtime drag race, the track was opened up again and I went out for some more seat time. This time I was being more aggressive than the other two sessions. I was still letting people pass me so I wouldn't have to worry about traffic and I could concentrate on hitting the marks. Turn two at willow is a long sweeper and when I exited it on this lap, I saw a puff of smoke. I couldn't really tell where it was coming from and the car was running ok, so I kept going. I must have got out early in the session, as there were not too many people on the track when I started, but now there was a bunch of traffic in front of me. Then I got waved by which was cool, I got to pass some people at high speed and I was on my way again. A few more laps and I was feeling really comfortable with the car and getting faster but then there was a yellow flag, so I slowed down and tried to figure out what the yellow was out for. Just at the end of turn 9 (I caught the yellow at turn 4 so it was a long way from the problem car) was a Porsche turbo with a flat right rear tire. Our session was going to end anyway so I went back to the pits. I have this on video but I have not converted it yet. You can see me get passed by an AMX, a new Challenger and a new Charger, then I get to pass a Super Bee and a couple of other cars. Anyway, back in the pits, I'm checking out other cars and talking to some of the drivers and stuff. I even talked to Bob Tarrozzi (sp?) for a while - neat guy. When I walked back to the car, and noticed there are some spots on the ground in the back, which is odd. So I get under there and find the source of my puff of smoke - gear oil GREAT! so there is gear oil all over the axle housing, rear sway bar, gas tank, exhaust, valence panel and the brake drum backing plate. Since I've had an axle seal fail before and saturate the brake shoes on the passenger's side, my first thought is that the driver's side axle seal failed. I'm not upset because I actually put a spare in the toolbox before we left so I can change it if I need to. However, the more I think about it, the less sense it makes. I'm looking at the axle vent and the most oil accumulation is around the fitting - the fitting with no vent hose on it. Oops! That ended my day since I did not have any hose to put on the fitting and it took a while to clean all the gear oil off everything. Did I mention that we wrapped the exhaust pipes where they go by the fuel tank, so the heat wrap was soaked with gear oil? Made for a nice aroma while driving
After the car was cleaned up, we were getting near the end of track time and we still had to drive to Van Nuys -70 miles- to get to the hotel for Spring Fling. The guys at the track were going to go to dinner, but with it getting late we decided to bail out of that and head towards LA. Again - track day near you? YOU MUST GO! There were guys with race cars, street cars, Hyundai's, assorted econoboxes that couldn't get out of their own way, no one went off, there were no accidents or issues all day besides the guy with the flat tire (who had his car towed away). Everyone had a good time! The drive to Van Nuys went well - no tickets! We got checked in and then spent some time cleaning up the car for the Malibu beach cruise in the morning. The thing that is nice about staying at the host hotel is it is only 1.5 miles from the park where the show happens. There weren't a whole lot of mopar people there on Thursday night, just couple here and there. Finally we can get a good night's sleep...
