No Brainer at Brainerd, Part 2

[WinkTimber]

The green flag fell at 8:29 AM for the remaining 19 ChumpCars. A no show was the #33 Tubby Butterman BMW (the one with the Cheetah Woods theme). The clutch failed near the end of Saturday's race, but they were able to salvage a 4th place finish by running a few laps at a slightly slower pace. The Butterballs replaced the offending clutch, but when they tested it, it was a no-go so the car remains on jack stands this morning. Another non-starter was the #80 Twisted Ford Mustang, reason unknown.

A couple of teams that DNFed on Saturday were able to re-start today. The #26 "That Just Happened" Talladega Nights themed Toyota MR2 received a transmission transplant after securing use of a hoist in one of the drag racing garages on the other side of the track. (There is bracket drag racing taking place on the old BIR main straightaway while the ChumpCars are racing on the newer 2.5 mile Club road course.)

Also making the show today is Team Cougar Bait. After the Saab's V6 engine failed from losing all the coolant on Saturday, the team chose instead to build a car in the paddock. They had already been offered a 4-cylinder Saab 9-3, and since the engine management systems were quite different, chose instead to transfer their roll cage and other safety gear to the other chassis. The work was virtually completed by 3 AM and the crew went off to catch a few hours of sleep. ChumpCar Technical Director Lloyd Boggs gave the new car his approval and it is on the track now.

[WinkTimber]

Hour One update:

#26 - That Just Happened, Toyota MR2

# 5 - SpeedLab Friends of Paul Bunyan, BMW

#17 - Flying Circus, BMW

#22 - Cockroach Racing, Ford Escort

#51 - B.A.R., BMW

#11 - Brain-Nerds, Porsche 944

#24 - Bear Patrol, Lexus SC400

#49 - Slugworks Racing, Honda

#28 - Bare Mental Racing, Nissan Sentra

#15 - Flyin' Eagles, VW

[WinkTimber]

The #80 Ford Mustang started the race a couple of hours late, but is now on the track. The team replaced a clutch last night, but installed the throw out bearing backwards. The team removed the gearbox again this morning in an effort to get some track time today.

The Team Cougar Bait Saab 9-3 is running well, less than 24 hours after its conversion to a ChumpCar racer. The team is optimistic that it will be a finisher today.

Unofficial standings about 2:15 into the race:

# 5 - 70 laps

#17 - 70

#26 - 70

#51 - -3

#22 - -4

#11 - -5

#49 - -6

#28 - -6

#83 - -6

# 3 - -6

[loumindar]

Thanks for the updates, Winker. It's almost (but not quite) like being there.

[WinkTimber]

Thanks Brother Lou! Looks like I will be providing regular updates at all future ChumpCar races, too. Having worked in other motorsports series over the years, I know how much fun it is to follow along while the action is taking place. Not quite as good as on TV or in person, but much better than reading about it a month later.

Tim Winker

[WinkTimber]

Hour 3 Update:

1. #17 - 95 laps

2. #26 - 94

3. #51 - 93

4. # 5 - 92

5. #22 - 89

6. #28 - 89

7. #83 - 89

8. #11 - 88

9. #15 - 87

10. #46 - 87

The Flyin' Eagles (#15 VW) and Team Cougar Bait (#46 Saab 9-3) have broken into the top 10!

Team Mayhem (#83 Honda) continues to move up the list as well, now up to 7th position.

Despite running well this morning after a rough day on Saturday, it looks like the #29 E30 Bombers BMW is out with an engine issue.

[WinkTimber]

I have been out taking photos, so was a bit late at catching the update. Here are the Top Ten at 4:10 into today's race.

1. #17 - 126 laps

2. # 5 - 125

3. #26 - 123

4. #51 - 123

5. # 3 - 119

6. #83 - 118

7. #11 - 117

8. #28 - 117

9. #15 - 117

10. #22 - 115

The #20 NSCC (Space Shuttle) BMW pulled off at Trun 3 and had to be flat towed back to the paddock area via the infield. The car has developed an intermittent misfire. It has gone back onto the track, for now.

[Guest moose]

Winker - Awesome job.. Its like I am watching the race from my desk at errr.. work.

[WinkTimber]

With dragsters occasionally ripping the air at BIR with 10 seconds of powerful sound, over at the road course the Chumpsters continue to motor 'round. A loon flies over once in awhile, protesting the interruption to their normally quiet neighborhood. There are also several pair of Canada Geese on the property, parading their young in straight lines, showing the downy babies the best places to find yummy wood ticks.

The weather forecasters have predicted rain, but there has been only a sprinkle at the trck. we can see rain falling to the south and to the east, but it looks like rainfall may bypass us today.

Hour 5.0 Standings.

1. #17 - 151 laps

2. #51 - 147

3. #26 - 145

4. # 5 - 142

5. #11 - 141

6. #15 - 138

7. # 3 - 138

8. #28 - 138

9. #22 - 138

10. #83 - 137*

* #83 had been in 7th place moments before this, but was in the pits for a driver change and 5-minute fuel stop.

[WinkTimber]

One crazy incident to report. A driver in the #5 BMW attempted to make an inside pass on the tight left-hand turn at the end of the pits, and smacked the driver's door of the #24 Bear Patrol Lexus. Both cars made a stop at the pits for inspection and some minor repairs but were able to continue.

At Hour 6:

1. #17 - 178 laps

2. #51 - 174

3. #26 - 171

4. # 5 - 170

5. #11 - 167

6. #15 - 166

7. # 3 - 166

8. #83 - 165

9. #28 - 165

10. #22 - 162

Many of the drivers here have experience in ice racing and in rallying as well as road racing. Roughly 1/3 had no road racing experience prior to this weekend.

With less than an hour to go, the pace steps up a little as teams try to move up a place or two for the checkered flag.

[WinkTimber]

With only a few minutes remaining, the rain has arrived. The deluge hit just after the checkered flag.

Final results:

1. #17, Von Richtofen's Flying Circus, BMW - 207 laps

2. #51, B.A.R., BMW - 203 laps

3. #26, Shake and Bake, Toyota MR2 - 199 laps

4. #5, SpeedLab/Friends of Paul Bunyan, BMW - 198 laps

5. #11, Brain-Nerds, Porsche 944 - 196 laps

6. #3 Three Sheets Racing, Ford ZX2 - 194 laps

7. #83, Mayhem Racing, Honda Civic - 192 laps

8. #28, Bare Mental Racing, Nissan Sentra - 191 laps

9. #46, Team Cougar Bait, Saab 9-3 - 187 laps

10. #99, Team Short Bus, VW - 186 laps

The guys are packing up so I will have to do more updates and photos later from home (about 3 hours away).

Hope to see you in Texas! It looks like I will be there.

Tim Winker

[Jeff G 78]

Thanks for the play by play Tim.

[Andrew]

Way to go team Shake and Bake!

This is Andrew from Team Party Cat and we can't thank the volunteers of this series enough for putting on a very high quality event. Everyone was very kind and informative, and I'd like to give Lloyd a HUGE thank you for going above and beyond to help us get our car properly tech'd before the race began. Seriously Lloyd, you rock.

On track I found that all of the passes were clean and complete, and I thought that the quality of sportsmanship was also great.

In short: Chumpcar is a well run event in many regards and Team Party Cat is looking forward to Iowa! See you guys then!

[WinkTimber]

Got home about 9pm, poured myself a weekend toast, edited photos for awhile, and quickly ran out of what steam I had left after a fun Sunday. Saturday was a little less fun when our car, the #92 Fart-hinder Saab 900, spun a rod bearing on the 1st lap. No idea why it would have done that, but we had gone over everything EXCEPT the bearings when the engine and tranny were out.

There were awards other than the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place trophies. Here we go....

Best Theme: #33 Tubby Butterman BMW.

- Golfing design with grass carpeting and golf balls attached to the hood and roof, golf bag in the rear and "Cheetah Woods" across the windshield.

Chump Award (Spirit for driving the worst piece of crap): #83 Mayhem Racing Honda Civic

One More Lap (Most pit stops): #20 North Star Chumps BMW

- Honorable Mention: nearly a tie with #18 LoL Laughing Out Loud BMW.

I Coulda Had a V8: #80 Team Twisted Mustang with a 4-cylinder engine.

Off the Charts Mechanical Excellence Award: #46 Team Cougar Bait Saab 9-3

- For building a new ChumpCar racer in the paddock area after the engine on their 1st entry failed due to overheating. The team made the start on Sunday and went on to a Top Ten finish!

In Our O-pinion (A great drive over the whole weekend): #24 Team Bear Patrol Lexus LS400

Bounced Off and Bounced Back (for being in the wrong place at the right time): #11 Brain-Nerds Racing Porsche 944.

- Got hit 3 times Sat and once Sun, none of them their fault.

Least But Not Last (Just Plain Worn Out Award): #56 Dutch Rudder Racing. Datsun 280Z

[WinkTimber]

BIR photo pages

Matthew Chemers
/>http://www.flickr.com/photos/45746599@N04/sets/72157624095148695/

Jerry Winker, Comic Ozzie RallySport Photography
/>http://comicozzie.com/
/>http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=1372954960&aid=2039207&s=60&hash=53c6e46ff61f1dcb394139905652bb34#!/album.php?aid=2039207&id=1372954960

[Slugworks Paul]

Way to go team Shanke and Bake!

This is Andrew from Team Party Cat and we can't thank the volunteers of this series enough for putting on a very high quality event. Everyone was very kind and informative, and I'd like to give Lloyd a HUGE thank you for going above and beyond to help us get our car properly tech'd before the race began. Seriously Lloyd, you rock.

On track I found that all of the passes were clean and complete, and I thought that the quality of sportsmanship was also great.

In short: Chumpcar is a well run event in many regards and Team Party Cat is looking forward to Iowa! See you guys then!

Get that car fixed! Hope to see you guys out there again. Sorry about your unfortunate break down.

Amazing, we were actually in 7th place. Too bad the screw holding in our distributor rotor had to come loose and fall out. lost about 25 minutes getting towed in and fixing that.

[vintage914racer]

Thanks, Tim, for the race updates. Thanks also to the Chumpcar staff and volunteers who made this great event a success. We would've like to see our names on Sunday's final results, but our engine decided it didn't want to run any longer. We're planning to be back for next year's event at BIR if not others.

[Guest AWiley1953]

Hi Tim, When I go to your Comic ozzie site to view photos, I have no clue as how to find them. When I go to your facebook page, it shows photos foa second and then goes all black. ????????

[Vector]

Hi Tim, When I go to your Comic ozzie site to view photos, I have no clue as how to find them. When I go to your facebook page, it shows photos foa second and then goes all black. ????????

That's actually Tim's brother Jerry's site. I don't think that the non-fb site has any Chump picture on it (yet), but the facebook site works, you just have to right click and open in a new tab or window because the Chumpcar frames mess it up.

[WinkTimber]

When I go to your Comic ozzie site to view photos, I have no clue as how to find them.

AFAIK, Jerry has not posted his ChumpCar photos to the Comic Ozzie site yet, but has shared about 60 pix on Facebook. You may have to be a Facebook subscriber to view those photos.

I have now posted some pix to Snapfish.

/>http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4611892014/a=97966422_97966422/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Tim Winker

(Jerry's much older brother)

[csadn]

/>http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4611892014/a=97966422_97966422/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

This site's being as fascistic about logins as F******* is....