February10th,
2012
12/18/11:
Team LaCross Tests at Daytona
The
team had worked hard to find new ways to make
their Superspeedway car faster and were anxious to
find out if they had succeeded. ARCA provides this
opportunity with winter testing at Daytona
International Speedway. This is the annual
preparation for the big race in February.
Chuck
Miller and the crew put in several hours of work
to fine tune the aerodynamics of the front fascia
and the back edge of the roof. They also worked on
the front end geometry in an effort to get more
aerodynamic compression in the front springs.
On
the way down to the test, Brent stopped in
Mooresville NC to get an estimate from Brian Smith’s
Carolina Fabrication to do some additional
aerodynamic body work. He offered some suggests on
how to “test” the theories about airflow over
the roof.
Upon
arriving on Friday, the team of Chuck Miller, Bob
Cincotta, John Traphagen, Matt Sheerin, Chris
Perry, John Cross and the Burton Family went to
work getting the car ready for the track. The
first day went well until late in the afternoon,
after changing the rear springs (per ARCA rules),
Brent found the car to be violently erratic in the
corners and almost hit the 3rd turn wall. After
bringing it back to the garage and going over it
with a fine tooth comb, no apparent cause was
found. Time ran out and there was not a chance to
try it again until the next day.
On
Saturday, Brent got the first chance to try the
new springs again and found there to be no
problem. So the crew came to the conclusion that
there must have been something on the track to
cause the car to loose control. The good news is
that the handling was fixed, but unfortunately the
car was just not responding to any of the changes
that the team was making. Finally, at the end day,
the guys make some roof patches as suggested by
Brian Smith, and this resulted in an immediate
improvement of 0.3 sec.. This was enough to give
the team hope for some more improvements.
On
Sunday, the guys tried a few more adjustments
without additional results. There was only one
adjustment (gear change) left to do before loading
up to go home, but unfortunately the flywheel
exploded just as Brent was entering the tri-oval
past the pit road entrance. The debris from the
broken flywheel cause enough damage to the
bellhousing, headers and oil lines that the team
had to call it quits for the day.
As
usual the team left the track with a combination
of frustration and optimism for all of the good
information that they had gained by testing at the
World Center of Speed. |