It’s been a very busy couple weeks for us, not leaving me any time to write new posts. The long weekend has given me a few moments to write this. Having to put in some long hours is not a bad problem to have, but it is nice to get away from work for a bit and play. For the past couple years we’ve been supporting Lyons Pride Racing where we can. Myself, I’ve become part of the pit crew.
This year has been a bit of a rocky season for the race team. I saw a t-shirt while in the pits that sums racing up quaintly: “Race it, Break it, Fix it, Repeat”. There’s been some shining moments for us, but the “Break it” part has gotten us a couple times this season. Fortunately, it hasn’t been on the track unlike a couple of our competitors. But before I get into the season, let me introduce you to Lyons Pride Racing.
First there’s is Lee Lyons, the owner and driver, and his co-owner, wife and part of the pit crew, Shannon Lyons. Then there is me, the most recent addition to the pit crew. Most importantly is the car. It’s a 91 Dodge Daytona with a 572cu in aluminum V8 that produces 1000hp and 750 ft lbs of torque. That gives us 8.2 to 8.3 seconds on the quarter mile, racing in the Super Pro division out of Medicine Hat.
So far this season, the first race of the season has been our best showing, making it to the semi finals of eliminations. Since then we’ve been struggling with the reaction timing on the car and losing out in the early rounds of eliminations. Although the wins have been hard to come by, we have been very close. One loss was by only .0008 of a second. A hard pill to swallow though.
The Lyons took a month through July and August to race south of the border. Initially they had a good showing making the finals in a national event, but then broke a torque converter and needed new slicks. After getting the car fixed, the next races were getting the car dialed back into it’s times again and with the stiff competition in the US, the results were lacking.
Last weekend we were back in Medicine Hat. Saturday during qualifying, it looked like this was going to be our weekend to make up some points. Our times were incredibly consistent at 8.35 seconds. As we brought the car into the staging lanes for the first round of eliminations, there was no oil pressure in the engine and soon discovered that we had thrown a belt. Ending that day of racing, we got the car back to the pits to replace the belt to prepare for the next day. Unfortunately, the belt wasn’t the problem. A pin broke inside the oil pump and seized it. Very luck this didn’t happen on the track, but it did end our weekend.
We’re rebuilding the oil pump here at Summit and will have it ready for the next race weekend on Sept 15/16. Hopefully, for the last couple races of the season, we’ll have a good showing to end it on a high. For more information on Lyons Pride Racing you can visit their website http://lyonsprideracing.blogspot.com/ or follow them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/lyonsprideracing/.