Today was an eventful day at the Martin Sports Car Club autocross in Tavares, FL.


The day started out badly enough... i should have considered it an omen and just stayed home... lol!

I stayed at my GF's place in Lakeland this weekend, and parked my car there Friday night, and didn't touch it again until this morning.... well, over the weekend, apparently i parked my left-rear tire right on top of an active ant hill living in a crack in her driveway.... SOOOO.... my car is now a make-shift ant farm... YAY! So, i now get to bomb my car to kill off all the insects before they make a whole town out of the unibody....

So we dealt with that in the morning, and had a beautiful drive out to the Autocross along some backroads and stuff in Clermont... really nice views out there on the rolling hills....

So, we get to the auto-x, and I went out for my first pass of the day, and about halfway through the run, the power died off suddenly, and the motor started making all sorts of racket! I wasn't sure what happened at first, but i kept on with the run... which wound up being pretty darn good by itself... but pulling off the track, i noticed the motor making a noise that i never want to hear... a spun rod bearing. I'm not exactly sure what caused this, but it was definitely oil starvation. It is certainly my fault, because i didn't check the oil level before heading out to the race, but since an oil change was just done on it recently, and the car wasn't burning oil noticably, and there were no drips on the ground anywhere i park, i didn't think anything of it... however, upon checking it after the fact, it was definitely very low...

SO EVERYONE CHECK YOUR OIL OFTEN! Sometimes we have to learn the hard way in life...

The motor has never eaten oil this fast... I've changed the oil 4 times since i bought the car, and this is the first time the oil level has ever gone down like this since an oil change... i'm not sure if it was another problem that led to this or not, but regardless, what is done is done.


ANYWAY, to the point of this story.... after that happened, i was crushed... first of all, my GF was with me, and she had to get back home to Lakeland, and i still had to get to Melbourne afterwards... about 250 miles of driving or so... not happening on a spun bearing. Also, my parents had JUST shown up after that run, and i didn't think they'd be able to watch me run anymore after driving all the way out there... this was turning into a painful day


BUT....



THANKFULLY, Richard (no-cones) was out there racing as well, and he VERY generously allowed me to borrow his car for the rest of the event so that i could still swing some times, and then my parents could still watch me run

Just that alone would have been enough, but Richard also hung with me on the attempted drive home (which only lasted about 15 miles before i t started making too much noise for comfort), stayed with me while i waited for the tow truck, and he even drove me back to the shop so i wouldn't have to ride with the weird tow truck driver, and then he drove me down to Chris's house... THANK YOU RICHARD!

My Father was able to drive my GF home, so that worked out really well...

And to top off the S2ki community assistance, Friggin Chris is very generously letting me borrow a car for a week or so while i get other arrangements sorted out, and figure something else out for my daily transportation while my car is down...

And wait... it gets better... Richard has agreed to let me co-drive his car for the Deland event...

Man, this community is AWESOME!

Thank you guys for helping me out so much!!! I appreciate it more than you know!




On the bright side of it all though, i was able to pull off a win in B-Prepared, and finished 15th overall out of 97 entries in an unfamiliar car with a VERY different suspension setup than what i'm used to Thanks again Richard for letting me run your car! It was a lot of fun to drive... it was a VERY different driving experience for sure.. i really do like the 2.2L torque

 

Also, many thanks to Jack Neely, who allowed us all to pile under his tent... thanks for sharin the shade man!

S2000 peeps are the BEST!

 

The weekend turned out better than you thought. Nice gestures no-cones and Mr. Neely.

 

all around.

 

yay

 

sorry about the motor


yay for the community and its members

a good bunch of people around here, I tell ya!

 

sorry about your motor, good luck with the re-build.

 

All of you rock.

 

Sucks about the motor, but its nice to see how great tha S2k community is. S2000 is like a brotherhood, we are all great friends. Richard is awesome for letting you drive the car.

 

this community is truly UNDER-rated. This is another example of just how great the owners are. It always amazes me how (the ownership of) a particular car can do that. I'm not saying other cars can't or won't ... but, i've seen/heard so many great examples here. Maybe it's just all the sunshine