September 11, 2010

Last Race Of The Year?

Renegade Miata Club's 5th event, and perhaps my last event of the year given what had taken place. The day was beautiful, course was excellent (as you'll see in the videos), and I managed to take a 1'14 flat in just two runs. I know I could've gone faster, but after the 3rd run is when the problems started.As I was coming off the course, coolant began spewing out of the overflow tank everywhere. I quickly went into grid and shut the car off (big mistake) as I noticed the temp gauge was all the way to full hot. After cleaning up the mess from the coolant, letting the car cool for 4 hours, then refilling the reservoir tank with coolant again, I tried to start the car. Luckily I got it started but it hesitated a lot. After managing to get it started though, I let it idle for a while and connected the access port to watch the coolant temps. Just idling, the temps were rising all the way to 220, so I had to shut down the engine again.

I decided to pack up and call it a day, putting everything away and cleaning up all of my things. After doing all this and then trying to start the car again, nothing happened. No turning, nothing. All I heard was constant clicking, which sounded like the ignition firing. Not sure what it could be, but some friends have speculated that the coolant seal had broke.Big thanks to Sal for towing my car to Liberty Mazda, and also to Rob, Ernie and Brian for helping me to push the car onto the trailer and get it all squared away. Couldn't have done it without you all, especially Sal. We'll see what Liberty Mazda has to say about the car come Monday morning. Below are my 2nd and 3rd runs of the day. The 3rd one being the last one, in where coolant began pouring out as I hit the finish. Could this be it for the car for the rest of the year? Stay tuned.



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