Category Archives: Books

Passing on the inside

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By Erik Dolson

Over the July 4th weekend, my qualifying run on Friday morning at the Pacific Northwest Historics in Seattle felt pretty good. I was glad I’d practiced the day before, and had done a few sessions the month before in karts. Maybe I hadn’t lost it.

Okay, so I was on old tires, and not as smooth as I could be, and hadn’t quite figured out the new exit at Turn 3B. They’d repaved half the track, and some parts felt different. Different grip, different line. But overall, it felt pretty good.

Until the time sheets came out: I’d qualified 9th.

9th.

Two seconds behind cars I’d been several seconds faster than for years. Read more… →

Big Bore Bad Boys

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Facts are sometimes lost around a race track. Maybe often around a race track. There were four cars involved, not three. It happened in less than two seconds. And nobody was at fault.

But those are facts, and probably don’t matter. Disagreements have a way of becoming facts and the fact is, most of the Big Bore Bad Boys won’t be racing at the Portland Historics this July.

I wasn’t racing when it happened, or probably would have been right in the middle of it. I took last season off to go sailing. I loved sailing but missed the racing, more than I expected. Irish has asked if I want to be buried in the race car and I said “yes, but not with my helmet on.” The helmet would just be weird. Read more… →

Winding it up

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Whew! The new / old Jessica book is finished!

It’s new because it went from 50,000 words to 80,000 words, which is insane for the genre. Which genre is a key question. The book may fall flat because it breaks all sorts of rules and bends into different genres, and readers really like to know what they’re getting after they’ve judged a book by its cover. Read more… →

PNW racers doing well at Indy

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Racers from the Pacific Northwest are doing well at the 2016 Brickyard Vintage Racing Invitational, weathering a storm that threatened to blow them away when they arrived.

As of early Friday, David Kuniki, driving an A-Production Corvette with a 427 cubic inch motor, was running first or second in the event against cars owned by professional race shops.

Curt Kallberg, also driving a 427 Vette, is in the top middle of the pack, according to Kuniki. Jeff Taylor of Sisters Oregon was racing his 1964 Studebaker in A Sedan. Taylor could not be reached. Norm Daniels is driving a Camaro Trans-Am car.

Matt Parent was first in his class in his Cup Car (a stock car), and was doing quite well driving his small block Corvette in B-Production with a 350 cubic inch motor, according to engine builder Craig Blood of Blood Enterprises.

“He’s 4th in B Production and 13th overall,” Blood said.

Jeff Mincheff and Jackie Mincheff, experienced drivers from the Portland area but new to Corvettes, are doing well, according to their mechanic Jon Bibler, who also wrenches for Kallberg and Erik Dolson.

“Jackie is doing pretty good. Jeff’s car ( a recent acquisition) is a neat piece, everything on it is as it was raced in 1972. But there’s some work to do (to make it competitive),” Bibler said.

Kuniki said the track reminded him of Portland International Raceway.

“There are two fast chutes. After one, there is a hard right and left, like the chicane in Portland. The back section is technical, you can overdrive it and lose time.  Curt (Kallberg) and I both think it’s similar to Portland.”

Kuniki qualified 1st on Thursday, “on new tires with a 1:38:8. This morning I qualified second with a 1:39:3. I had the older tires on, maybe I was too nervous. This afternoon I’ll have fresh rubber and put it on ‘kill.’ ”

He added, “Along the straight you are three feet off the wall, and the sound from our big blocks is pretty cool.”

Kuniki is dueling with an “incredibly prepared” Corvette driven by Edward Sevadjian, president of  Duntov Motor Company, and Peter Klutt, owner of Legendary Motorcar Company. 

“They made Klutt put a small block in his car to run A production (small blocks normally run B-production), and he still qualified behind me with a small block on old tires,” Kuniki said. “Curt Kallberg is in the upper middle of the pack, even though he’s running with the wrong gears and the wrong carb setting.”

When the racers set up on Wednesday, a thunderstorm blew through the area that threatened to take them out. Bibler said it was like a tornado almost touched down. Kuniki said that he and mechanic Freddie Jonsson had all they could do to save the tents and awning.

“It came on in about a minute. Freddie and I were both holding on to the awning on the trailer and it was picking us up like Mary Poppins. We managed to save the awning but then had to grab the tent and hold on to it for about an hour.  Nobody could help anybody else, everyone had their own problems.”

Tom Cantrell said the weather was fierce.

“The first day the weather was bad, storms came though and were just ripping us. We got about 5 inches of rain in two hours, canopies were blowing away.”

Since then, though, weather has been good, if a little humid.

“We’re having fun,” Cantrell said. “So far the track has been good. We’re getting to know the Can-Am car, making little changes here and there, but it’s doing really well. The cup car is just excellent. We cut four and a half seconds off the last time we were here. We let Brent Glassetner (a builder of Nascar race cars in North Carolina ) have it in the off season, that was a good decision.

“Norm Daniels is doing good, Kallberg seems pretty problem free. All the guys from the Pacific Northwest are doing well,” said Cantrell.

A Fast New Season

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The Jaguar went sideways just after the hump of Turn 1, hit the bank, went airborne, came down on its nose, flipped end for end, then rolled. That’s what a driver saw from another Jaguar close behind.

In just a few seconds, a newly-built race car, driven by a novice in his first race, became a pile of barely usable parts wrapped in mangled aluminum, its driver sent to the hospital.

Bad stuff happens at over 150 mph, and some of us are hitting the mid-160s.

Canuck has seen worse. Hell, Canuck has been through a few off-roads himself in Seattle. But a few years ago “Alice,” Canuck’s new Corvette, suffered the same fate as the Jaguar, and at the very same place on the track. Its then-owner was the fastest and probably the best driver in our little group, like Canuck is now. He was hospitalized and hasn’t raced since.

The driver of the Jaguar, rumored to be unconscious when workers got to him, just suffered a couple of broken ribs according to word passed around in the pits.

Canuck was spooked. He and I agreed that having a qualifying session as the first session on the track is a really bad idea.That’s when the former owner of Alice got hurt, too. Qualifying is even worse after a winter layoff; Drivers are out of shape, cars may not have everything tightened down after working on them over the winter. Jumping in and trying to qualify near the front is a bad way to start a new season.

But nobody asked Canuck or me what we thought of the schedule, so we run when they tell us to run. Irish and I had been driving all over the Pacific Northwest to wrap up other commitments: close to nine hours on Thursday, then left Portland late on Friday and didn’t get in to our hotel until 1:30 a.m. Saturday morning. It was a slog to get everything put together by the time that 9:30 session came around.

I didn’t see the wreck. I’d come in early to find out what was wrong with my motor, which had a bad stutter and no water temperature showing on the gauge.

The wreck shook Canuck up, so he said, and he sat out the first race on Saturday, just to gather himself together. That’s the only reason I won, and if the drag boat motor in Excalibur’s black Stingray hadn’t blown up as he was trying to catch up, I might not have.

A lot of motors blew over the weekend. There were long streaks of oil in several places at different times where one car after punched a piston down throughout the bottom of an oil pan, or a rod out the side of the block.

Hey, the cars we’re racing are 50 years old. Swede did a great job building up Alice for Canuck. Just like Mule did a tremendous job putting Yellow Jacket back together after I blew the rear end last season, and broke trailing arms the year before. But there’s only so much that can be done with 50-year-old technology that was current when family telephones had no screen and sat on a table in the hallway.

Or drivers who grew up waiting a turn to use them. We are getting older, health issues dog us now, eyes and ears and immune systems failing faster than some of us get around the track.

Starting near last, Canuck worked his way up from the back of the pack on Saturday afternoon, and was posting the best lap times. With entries down, they put four-cylinder cars into our group, or us into theirs, which made for challenging racing. Still having trouble with my air-fuel mixture, I was rusty as a shipwreck on the beach. Still, it was a win. Canuck ended up third.

There was a new car, actually one built a few years back but just returned to the paddock. Quicksilver is a mid-year Corvette boasting another 427. Piloted by an experienced driver, formerly of a Mustang, he was damn fast for his first time out in this car.

Sunday belonged to Canuck, though I did give him a challenge in the last race of the day. He was way out in front when a yellow flag came out, then the pace car so they could bunch up the racers as they hauled in another of the four-bangers that blew up.

My engine was finally running well, thanks to Mule, who noticed the rear float bowl on my carburetor was over-full. Merlin came over and adjusted it. Finally, she was running clean.

I was right behind Canuck as we waited for the disabled car to be hauled to safety. As we came to Turn Nine, I saw that the yellow flags weren’t out. It was a race! But Canuck didn’t register that fact until I hit the throttle and flew by him.

He went after me. I wasn’t going to shake him, so I did everything I could to stay right where he would need to be to get by me. Cowboy is the master at making his car 15 feet wide, but I kept it up for the next several laps. Then I lost concentration coming in to Turn Eight on the final lap. Canuck got to the inside, and I decided not to chop him off or send him into the dirt, so it was a drag race to the flag.

I hit the gas too hard. The magic motor Merlin built responded in an instant. I actually needed less to do more, and spun the tires for just a moment too long. Canuck beat me by one-third of a second to the checkered flag.

It was disappointing, but a better race than it would have been if Canuck hadn’t fallen asleep. Irish said it was exciting. Mule thought I’d let him by on purpose, but that isn’t so. I apologized to my crew chief Jakester, but he said, as he usually does, that we did good for the weekend. Smartest 15-year-old I know.

Walking back from the timekeepers tent, with proof in hand that I hadn’t done my best, Irish said something about the friendship and mutual respect she’d seen over the weekend.

“This is my tribe,” I said. “Even though I only see them five or six times a year, I’m more comfortable with these people than with anyone else.”

The first race of the season is a time to shake off the cobwebs, rediscover the limits of what we can do. Or, in the case of the Jaguar, find out what we can’t. Merlin asked if I would consider spending a little time and money for a minor change that might make just a little bit more of what we all want. As if I didn’t have trouble already getting power down without spinning the tires.

Then today I get a call from someone who knew someone who might want to buy my race car, something I’ve been thinking about for a couple of years. Maybe I should accept that I’ve had a pretty good run. Better to go out near the top, rather than stay too long, right?

I asked Irish what she thought. As she saw last weekend with the Jaguar, and other cars  towed in on the hook, this is not a hobby without risks.

“I’ve only just met these people, but I’m not ready not to see them again,” she said, but carefully letting me know that it was my decision. Did I expect anything else?

By the next race, Excalibur will have a new motor, Quicksilver will have even more time under his belt, Alice will be better sorted. Those guys have got some serious juice. Cowboy will be back with everything he can bring, Captain America has a new engine, too. There were photos shown of Ceegar coming through Turn Five with two wheels off the ground. He was missed, but he’ll be back.

“A bit more?” Merlin asked, without using exactly those words. Even though I had too much “more” already, last weekend, for my skill level? Order the parts, Merlin, and I’ll order some new tires, and brake pads, too.

Of course I want more. It’s never enough.

Kia needs to fix these cars

By | | It's Never Enough, Out My Writer's Window
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Foxy takes her daughter to school every morning in a 2013 Kia Optima. She has to stop, then turn left across one lane of traffic diving downhill around a blind curve, into a stream accelerating uphill from the right, cars coming fast in each direction.

It wasn’t working too well.

“When I step on the gas, the car starts to go, but then just stops! I took it back to the dealer, but the guy in the service department said it was part of the traction control, and I was just pushing the gas too hard.”

I took the wheel for a few days. It didn’t seem that bad. I could make it happen, but not without being pretty aggressive. So the service guy was probably right, it was just traction control.

Then it rained.

We were in a busy intersection with about five lanes in each direction, counting turn lanes. I was first in line at the red light, on a slight uphill grade. Green. Step on gas. Car goes… maybe two feet. Suddenly stops. Another few feet. Stops. By now, I’m well into the intersection starting and stopping my way on through.

“That’s really ugly,” were the first words out of my mouth. I hope. Followed by, “That’s not right.”

“See?!” said Foxy.

“It acts like it’s driving only one wheel, and when that one slips, the traction control hits the brakes,” I say. From then on, I turn the traction control off so I can at least predict what’s going to happen, and wonder if Kia will then say it’s my fault if there’s an accident.

The Optima is a front wheel drive car. When a front wheel drive car accelerates, weight shifts to the back wheels, reducing front wheel traction. Okay. The tires aren’t new, but they’re not bald. Okay. That’s the end of excuses, as far as I am concerned. I’ve driven front wheel drive cars before. This is wrong.

Next stop, Internet. Turns out, a number of people have complained about this, including reports to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. I take notes.

Coincidentally, a few days later, Foxy gets a call from the dealership, asking how she likes her car. She mentions the problem, and sales guy points out that even though she bought it used, the car is still under warranty. That’s all I need.

I drop Foxy off at work and head down to the dealership, wait for the manager on duty to get off the phone.

“I’ve never heard of this,” he says.

“I’m surprised. There have been a number of complaints, they’re easy to find online, and some reports to the NHTSA. Here’s  where you find them, and here’s the part number needed to fix it. Would you like to write it down?”

I may not be much of a wrench, but I can go online.

Sales manager says he has to talk to service manager.

“Would you like me to come along?” I ask.

“No, let me see what he’s doing, first,” sales manager says.

Ten minutes later, he takes me back to the service manager. We all sit down.

“Not really heard of this being a problem” says service manager, who seems like a very nice guy.

“Well, here’s a couple of places you can find records of complaints,” I say. “And here’s the part number that solves the problem.” That part number had been posted by a guy in Louisianna, who I now want to buy a bowl of jambalaya: 1 58920 − 2T550, Hydraulic Unit Assembly, or an HECU, which I’m told stands for hydraulic electronic control unit.

Somewhere in that conversation, the term, “one wheel peel” comes up. Exactly what I felt at the rainy intersection.

“I’m willing to be flexible,” I say to the two managers. “She can give you this car back, and we’ll look for a car someplace else, or you can put her in a different car, or you can fix it. But we can’t let her take her daughter to school in a car that isn’t safe. We just can’t do that,” I say, making sure that all three of us understand this isn’t just my problem, and especially not hers.

The sales manager leaves the room at that point. Service manager says he has to make a phone call. When he comes back, he says there is a part that might make a difference, he can’t guarantee it. But he has authorization to install it under warranty. He’ll keep the Optima, and gives me a loaner.

Foxy picks her car up a week later.

“It doesn’t spin and stop! It drives like a normal car!”

Cool. I get to be a hero for… a few minutes. That’s good enough. I appreciate the dealership stepping up and taking care of this, finally, once confronted by hard evidence. They were polite, friendly, professional, and surprisingly, I liked the drivable little box they gave us as a loaner car. It’s got soul.

But how many Kia’s were sold with this problem? Just the 2013 models? Just the Optimas? How many women, and men, who don’t have decades of experience with all sorts of drivetrains at all sorts of speeds in all sorts of conditions, were told, “You’re giving it too much gas. That’s a safety feature.” What will these cars do in the snow? How many of these cars will go out of warranty, and how many customers will be stuck with what could be a $1,500 bill?

Or get hit by a truck in the middle of an intersection because a car they could not afford to fix just wouldn’t GO!

Kia, the company, should do more. It should not be left to owners to individually resolve this problem. Kia needs to recall any car with this issue, and Kia knows what cars are affected and who owns them. Vehicles with this design flaw should be repaired and drivers should not be charged. Kia the company should accept this responsibility.

Alice

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I may have won a couple of races, but Swede was champion of the Columbia River Classic in Portland, and it wasn’t even close.

Swede doesn’t drive, either.

And his car never turned a lap.

Jakester and Jakester’s Dad had me set up on Friday while I was trying to get back to the track from visiting a childhood friend and his folks south of Portland. Traffic in that city gets worse by the week, and an accident at the Terwilliger curves plugs it like bad plumbing.

Tireman and Son helped. They had brought both their Studebaker and their Camaro. Tireman hasn’t raced in two years, but the two of them played evenly every time they were on the track. How cool that a father and son get to race against each other. It’s even cooler that Tireman appreciates it so much.

On Saturday, we all had gremlins. Excalibur came in after only a few minutes in the morning, his steering wheel shaking so badly that he didn’t know if something had come loose. Ceegar was playing catch up with two cars, and the Mustang was acting like a bronc. Cowboy didn’t know it yet, but his brake pads were worn down to the steel.

And I was still chasing, after three races, an electrical issue that seemed to be moving from part to part around the engine compartment just fast enough to stay out of site. Replaced the starter after the spring race. The battery after the first July race. A connector ate the last race in Portland. As I sat on the grid for the first race on Saturday, I saw my battery wasn’t being charged. Again, or still? Too late to do anything except hope I had enough juice in the new battery for a 20 minute run.

Cowboy was on the pole, and I was to his left. Excalibur was right behind Cowboy,  and Nice Guy’s Camaro sat right behind our three, big-engined, tuned, loud Corvettes. But not too loud — they made us tone it down after we lit up the meter during qualifying.

When the green flag fell, Cowboy and I had a drag race going to the first turn.

We both had the same idea. Go deep, start in front. I couldn’t believe how deep Cowboy was going, but I was going to take him as far as I could before I hit the brakes. Finally, I hit my binders as hard as I dared, trying keep a balance between stopping and spinning. I didn’t know if I was going to make the turn into the chicane.

I looked to my right to see if I was going to turn in front of  Cowboy or into him, and just in time: he comes whistling past me and doesn’t even try to make the turn. Remember those brake pads? He just used up about the last of them. He has to stop at the stop sign in the center of the turn but off the track and let the field go by.

I pushed hard, trying to build a lead on Excaliber, but I don’t see him in my mirrors. I see Nice Guy’s Camaro falling back (his engine is two-thirds the size of mine), but that’s all.

Mule, who wrenches for both Cowboy and me, comes over after helping Cowboy complete the sale of his new Garcia Corvette to Polished. Actually, it went to Ms. Polished. They drive matching Lotuses, but were now stepping into our rude class of ground-pounders. The Garcia car was supposed to be for him, but he didn’t fit. Ms. Polished fit though, and so the car was hers.

And she did a damn good job driving it, only a few seconds behind those of us who have been muscling these machines for decades. And that’s one concession that will be made: power steering.

“My shoulders!” she said after coming in off the track. Imagine wrestling a car like that at speed, working at it so hard your shoulders were talking back to you. Hat’s off to her.

Mule finds, for the fourth time, the source of my electrical problem. It’s in the start switch. I wiggle it while Mule looks at the volt meter, and the problem jumps up, tries to hide, then I wiggle it again. It jumps up, then tries to hide, again. Mule sends me over to Armadillo for a new switch.

I started in back in the afternoon, to play with Excalibur and Ceegar. I cut my up through the pack, but it started to rain, and everybody but me was smart enough to call it a day. Jakester and his dad wipe the car down.

We were all disappointed that Canuck didn’t show with his new car, Alice. He was supposed to, but it’s a lot of work building a new car.

It wasn’t supposed to rain all day on Sunday. Twenty percent chance, according to my weather app. Yeah, I know that doesn’t mean it will rain 20 percent of the time. But still, you would think we’d get a break, right?

Nope. It was pouring at dawn, it would let up, then rain hard again. Most of us don’t race in the rain. I was told long ago, you pucker so hard when racing a Corvette in the rain, you can’t sit down for a week.

Banker asked me to convince Ms. Polished it would be a real bad idea to go out. What she was driving now was no Lotus. A cough can put you into the wall. I told her what I was told long ago. Not very classy of me, but had to get the point across.

But the winner of the weekend showed up. Canuck arrived with Alice, a car driven by, and wrecked by, some of the fastest drivers we’ve known. Alice was a complete rebuild. And that’s why Swede was champion of the Columbia River Classic.

We all do a pretty good job on our cars. Some are better than others, but each shows time spent, and attention to detail.

Alice was unbelievable. Not a dime was spared on pieces, and hour upon hour was lavished on detail. No trailer queen, she’ll be raced as hard, or harder than, all of the others.

But there were no short cuts taken in her build. Holes were precisely drilled in places no one would ever see to manage weight (or air flow), Heim  joint bearings replaced rubber bushings anywhere precision might be lost, her black paint was so black you could walk through it into another dimension; the names of all previous drivers were written respectfully on the top.

The guys standing around her know cars. They know what goes into a job like this. There was nothing to say, but to praise to Swede, and what he’d put together for Canuck. Alice has arrived.

But we were rained out, first the morning race, then the afternoon. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. Which leaves only one more weekend this year, the Finale in Seattle at the end of the month.

It’s been a strange season, and feels incomplete, for some reason. Maybe it’s because we didn’t get out on the track on Sunday, maybe it’s because I didn’t get to race against Alice. I guess we’ll see. Maybe it’s just never enough.