2005 - Round-4 Ice Racing Weekend
I was a little worried about the JDM engine, as I hadn’t given it a good shakedown. I did run into an issue where a vacuum hose held the throttle at WOT in the mock grid, but that was easily remedied..
Qualified first in FWD street studs (by half a lap if I recall correctly). Perhaps Andy Hughes was still sleepin?
I was no longer worried about the engine. 
James and Paulo arrived at the track around lunch time to check out the ice racing action. I had just bought Jeff Wenzel’s old Stud tires, so I signed up for an afternoon of stud racing. James joined me for my first time driving a stud car — we had a blast for two laps until the clutch blew up.
James approves of the studded goodness.
(Unfortunately, due to the swap time constraints, I did not change the clutch. The clutch was from an 88 civic, which is approx 1″ smaller OD than 89+ D-series clutches.) I knew it was going to go eventually, but was hoping it would hold out for the season.
Let the wrenching tale begin:
I found a proper ‘90 civic si clutch kit at Canadian Tire — got the dynapac kit, included clutch disc, pressure plate, alignment tool, release bearing and pilot bearing.. Luckily the flywheel was ok, and James and Paulo were willing to courier — 1.5 hours each way to the C-Tire in Peterborough.
While they were gone, Todd McCall and I dropped the tranny out of the car and pulled out what was left of the disc.
James and Paulo got back to the track around 730pm, so working in the dark under headlights, the new clutch was mated with the flywheel.
While taking a break to enjoy my coffee while it was still warm, I happened to try the alignment tool in the destroyed disc — it didn’t fit! Transmissions from 88’s have a different number of splines — I then understood why the wrong disc was used, and realized that I needed a different clutch, or a different tranny. ugh.
Pitting just beside me is the Nielsen family (Frank Nielsen, Eric Nielsen, Brian Nielsen and Brian’s GF Crystal. They run three EF civics — a phone call later I was hauling my tranny 1.5 hours south to Haydon, about 10 mins from Mosport. We swapped my diff over to the new tranny, chucked it back in the truck, and I headed back to Minden. Many thanks to Brian and Frank for their help in my time of need.
I intended to stop by the Cliffe for ONE BEER. Two hours later I dropped a drunk Jeff off at Minden House and got to bed around 3am.
The next morning Todd McCall woke ME up to work on MY car — we had the car on the ground by 11am, ready to roc. Thanks Todd.
Luckily the DAC boys postponed one of Saturday’s Street Stud and Stud races to Sunday, resulting in only one SS throw-away race, and another opportunity to try studs.
The postponed stud race on Sunday was a blast — I putted along behind the field for a couple laps to get a feel for the car, then decided to go racing. Blasted by a few guys, and was in Tom Prentice’s rooster tail when the checkers were throw. Being that I was running illegal 24×7mm stud/foot tires, and had cost Gianni Biral and James Feeney a couple points each, I had Crusher remove those points.
I ran the postponed street studs race, and two others — each time finishing second, on Andy Hughes’ bumper. I had him by half a car length into the kink three times, but in the process of providing him racing room, I ended up in the sou. I’ll get him.