ARCA

Kil-Kare Mike Buckley report

Buckeroo Motorsports Mike Buckley ARCA ...

Edited: May 8, 2001, 12:19 PM

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Buckeroo Motorsports Mike Buckley ARCA #48

Kil-Kare Report

The worst part of the Kil-Kare report is that we did not make it to Kil-Kare.

The story begins earlier in the week.  The new Buckeroo power plant was
assembled during the Memorial weekend and finished up Tuesday night.  This
originally was a  KaTech V-6.  They build quite a few of the Busch series
motors.  The car needed to be modified for the engine setback and new motor
and trans mounts were welded into place on Wednesday.  Thursday we would
finish up connecting the motor in the car.  This is where the trouble starts.

Thursday night, with plenty of help we start the final hookups of hoses, etc. We went to put on the starter and it would not fit. The pan had a sump on the starter side which we had prepared for and had a couple different starters and an aftermarket unit to bolt up. None of the units would fit on the block with this pan. Long story made short we had three pans, three starters, two bell housings and two flywheels and at two in the morning the motor was back on the floor and all these parts were scattered trying to make something work. I finally sent everyone home to bed and began putting in the motor (without a starter) and getting everything hooked up. We thought we figured out that we needed from the auto parts store and thought to be prepared when they opened back up. Crew returned early in the morning. Auto parts store opened and we called some starter manufactures that told us what we wanted didn't exist. We then setout on making an adapter to get our stuff to fit this block. By 2:30 PM the motor finally is timed and is running. We were four hours from Kil-Kare (qualifying scheduled for 5:00 pm) and still had to fit exhaust on the smaller V-6 header collectors which would have taken at least an hour at the track. We decided to concentrate on Flat Rock which was scheduled for Saturday. We then worked on the car until Midnight and got a little sleep.

Flat Rock Report

We made it to the track!!!! The motor is sounding good and we're ready for practice. Flat rock is about an hour from the shop. It's a good thing because we forgot to bring extra gear sets for the quick change. I didn't know what gear to use for the V-6 so I stuck with the one we used at Flat rock for the V-8. Big mistake. Our first practice session, the car went around the track at about 6000 rpm and was very slow. The gear was changed, but I didn't want to get too radical with the new motor and all the work we had just done (not to mention the pocketbook which is now empty). In changing the gear we missed any more practice which we greatly needed. Qualifying, the motor came up to 7500 and we qualified 15th.

During the race the car pushed horribly. The car with the V-6 was as different to drive as if I climbed into someone else's. Our normal setup was out to lunch and without the practice time we became lunch during the race. At lap 70, I spun the car out of turn 4 as I was trying different things to get the car faster. This turned out to be the only caution of the race. Towards the end of the race, we were running with the mid pack cars and we finally got some racing in instead of just being passed. We finished 14th, 5 laps down.

Our next race will be again at Flat Rock on July 6. We will take the time off to get the car right and do some practicing at Flat Rock to get set up proper for the next race. We'll gear up the motor to run around 8100 rpm for the next race as it looks to be a good piece. We'll also try to get some work done on the speedway car (in reality our money was spent on the new motor which will not work for the speedways).

Eric Smith's team did pretty well in both races.........but thats a story for Randy to tell.

Mike Buckley ARCA #48 http://www.fdt.net/~crest/buckley.htm

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