,
The Enviate knocked into the huge boulders with enough force to knock one back about an inch!CL Anyway, we didn’t have any spare body panels, and the body was completely burnt, as well as the aero. The chassis took a good hit, the bell housing was cracked, the rear NSX suspension components were completely destroyed (even though Honda Performance Development offered us whatever we needed to get it back together). We needed essentially new safety equipment as well, and our budget was depleted by this point. So, we called it quits and stuck around the rest of the week to help other teams however we could. Later that afternoon, I TIG welded Pat Doran’s Titanium exhaust after his RS200 took a nasty tumble off the mountain that same morning. And then we did it again two days later when he crashed again. Pikes Peak is rough!
CL We got the car home, and I didn’t look at it for almost two months. The shop was a disaster, employees quit over the ordeal, and I had a ton of work to catch up on. September rolled around, and I relocated the entire race program to my home-based shop so that I could tinker with the car while being home with my new little family (Vera was born August 14th), and so I could begin to separate racing from LoveFab’s daily routine. I was able to determine that the driver’s compartment was completely unharmed, with the bulk of the chassis damage relegated to the “passenger rear” corner. It was tweaked about 1” inboard. The Haltech ECU’s plug and play LS engine harness and all related electronics were fine, with two sensors melted (unbelievable based on the heat of that fire!!!). If an oil fitting wasn’t cracked from the TiAL Wastegate getting slammed into the dry sump pump, I have no doubt that the car would’ve started right up.
Myself, the LoveFab team, and some of the boys from Garrett Turbo at the summit.CL The KW Clubsport front coilovers were fine, but the rears were pretty messed up. One was burned alive, and the other was bent in half. I am curious if the “burnt” shock would still dyno ok, we are still waiting to hear back from KW about testing it for their R&D purposes. The Stoptech brakes were fine, though the rear drivers caliper was fully engulfed for three minutes total. The HRE wheels took the brunt of the hit; though no wheel needed more than one barrel-half replaced. They are tremendously strong, with no cracks on any of the four wheels. We can’t wait to get these repaired to put them back into service. Finally the Turbo by Garrett turbochargers survived the incident as well. In the meantime, we installed one of the GTX3576R turbochargers (passenger side bank actually) on my J32A2 powered EG hatch that just made 343whp at only 7.5psi. We’ll put the turbo back on the Enviate when the time comes, but the Civic will be put through a couple of Time Attack events throughout 2014.
MIQ Now that you’ve had some time since the race to sort out everything that transpired (and to see the birth of your first born!), what are your plans for the future? Will you come back to compete at the Peak again?
