05/06/2026
I just realized I forgot to post a race recap from the April Ridge race with Lucky Dog. For this race, we had a great group of drivers with landscaper Adam Smith, data aficionado Paul Filsinger, and super chef Joshua Voigt. We also had quite the crew in attendance with Tom Claussen, is son Tim Claussen, my son Bryson Smith, and his girlfriend Arcadia.
Friday practice went pretty well, however there was some "floating" experienced down the front straight where the back of the car was moving around. I then felt a bit of a long pedal in the brakes, indicative of a wheel bearing going out....which was exactly the case with the driver side rear wheel. We replaced the bearing fairly quickly, however we also decided to change the passenger side rear bearing as it had a bit of play as well. It was then that we found the inner bearing casting on the control arm to have failed and we set about swapping that out, which took a bit longer to do, but we had the parts and got it done.
Saturdays race started off fairly well and we were in contention...until we experienced a reduction in engine power. This was determined to be a broken spark plug (see the pic below, it is supposed to have 3 electrodes, all of which had left the chat). We lost a few laps troubleshooting and replacing the plug, however we finished.
Sunday was a bit more exciting. I started off the race and the top-5 cars remained bunched up for the entire stint with some consistent laps throughout the stint. Paul drove second and really did a great job keeping us in the hunt, improving his laptimes and getting really comfortable in the car. Adam drove next and his stint was going well, until he had an off going around traffic which resulted in half of the splitter getting torn off and the radiator screen getting completely filled. We had to pit due to increasing water temps and to change drivers...unfortunately, just as we went back out for the last stint there was a full course yellow and our competitors were able to pit and put us a lap down...to 5th place.
