[Eric S]

The last DE event of my 2009 season was NNJR VIR Nov. 6-8. The weather was outstanding and the track was perfect. While feeling under the weather I rode with a White student that hadn’t been to VIR before, and then felt okay in my first session. Second session; not so much. After about 3 laps heard something in the engine and felt it go down on power; started to hear a knock and within three corners got a meatball flag at Oak Tree so I checked my mirror and seeing no one there darted over to the South Course pit lane. Saw a little smoke and started to hear what sounded like an exhaust leak. Shut it off immediately, got towed back to the North Paddock, stowed everything in the trailer and went to the B&B where I was sick and in bed for 48 hours with Type A flu-like symptoms. Talk about a double whammy! But in one way, probably fortunate that my car broke; I didn’t realize just how sick I was and I probably would have “toughed it out” and kept driving – with potentially far worse consequences.

Imagining all sorts of things, from dropping a valve to worse, ASG found that the #1 head had simply cracked. It created an exhaust leak that formed a mini-plasma cutter that burned a hole in the chain housing (magnesium!) and started melting a timing chain ramp. No obvious signs of precipitators; perfectly clean/even burning in all cylinders with no signs of running lean, and the valve train was perfectly intact with no improper contact of any kind. This could have been pure mechanical fatigue or a result of contributing factors; I’ll post some photos when I take some next week so maybe someone will have additional ideas of what caused this to happen and what to look for/test.

So it looks like my New Year is off to a good start; it’s a simple and straightforward repair and I’ll be ready for the 2010 track season!