Anthony's Coal Fired Racing

Can you believe it? W are just 7 days away from the kickoff of the 2012 Chump Car Series!! The ACF Racing team has been working tirelessly on the famous pizza car, which is currently running faster than ever. Last weekend the team took the car to the track for testing and tuning. (all i have to say is….I hope these other team are ready for ACF Racing)

We have tons of new mouth watering video we will be posting on the site, so keep coming back! Andddd, from what I hear, ACF Racing is going to be hosting a meetballs & martini party one of these days! All of this fun and interesting stuff will be brought to you right here at ACFRacing.com. — Including trackside updates @ the next race!

 Enjoy our lastest video, which gives you a quick tour of our new shop, The Coal Cave……….

The ACF Racing team has been diligently working to plan out the 2012 season. We have lots of exciting events planned, including the upcoming Chump Car race at Palm Beach International Raceway on March 3rd & 4th. To give you a quick update, our new race shop is amazing. Equiped with a new hydraulic lift & half-pipe, we have all the tools necessary to become a main contender in the 2012 Chump Car Series. I hope everyone had a great holiday season. Please stay tuned for more updates!

Sorry it took so long for this post.  Between loading up all the gear, the afterparty, the trek home, and returning to real life it was put on the backburner.  For those of you who don’t like to read, I’ll cut to the chase.  We didn’t finish the damned race.  We lasted 9 hours then the clutch blew.  Lesson learned: replace ALL wear parts.  For those of you who do enjoy reading I will go into more detail.

Sebring is an amazing track.  Hell, it’s so amazing it doesn’t even look like a track.  This is due to the fact that it was formerly an airstrip, so there are a lot of random runoffs that aren’t actually part of the marked course.  For a virgin, this can be quite confusing.  To add to the complexity, the track is 3.7 miles long and has multiple surface changes.  This makes for a track which, for lack of a better phrase, beats the ever-loving crap out of cars.  In some sections it feels like the car is just going to rattle to pieces and you’re going to end up sliding down the track in nothing but your seat holding a steering wheel.  Don’t get me wrong, I am by no means complaining.  This was probably the most fun experience on four wheels that I’ve ever had.

J.D. was our first driver.  Initially the car was running great.  Believe it or not, the heap made it up to 135 MPH down the back stretch.  Thanks to this, J.D. held the best lap time for our team of 2:57.  However, the car cooled down a little too quickly due to the fact that we were running without a thermostat.  Or so we thought, I’ll get back to this point later.   Anywho, back to J.D..  He was doing well.  Every time he passed the pit he had gained position on other racers.  Due to our excitement, and the fact that we are total n00bs, everyone ran to various viewing areas.  Some on the second floor pavilion, and Perque and I at turn 17 shooting video.  J.D. came in to pit and switch the MAF sensors and low and behold, no one was in pit but Bobby.  J.D., being trained to deal with emergency situations, got himself out of the car, and changed the MAF sensors with full race gear on.  Bobby fortunately helped fill water and put the hood back on.  Needless to say, a ” at least three team members in the pit at all times” rule was quickly instituted. 

Our next driver was Brad. This was Brad’s first time EVER competing in a road race.  Having your first experience road racing be in a 200 dollar rust bucket on Sebring is the equivalent of attempting the Iditarod on a trashcan lid while being pulled by a single shih tzu.  It’s really freaking hard.  At first Brad was a tad overwhelmed, which is to be expected.  However, as all people who spend considerable amounts of their lives piloting various sorts of machines powered by exploding dino-juice, he quickly found his groove.  Brad put down some pretty respectable times and ended up having a blast.  His time behind the wheel was free from catastrophic failure, and he didn’t find himself in any scraps.  Well done rookie.

Perque was the third driver.  Around this time we decided we should install the thermostat to see if that would make the car run better.  So after a few laps Perque came in for a pit.  J.D., Brad, and Sturgis got to work quickly.  In a matter of fifteen minutes the thermostat was installed and Perque was off.  The car definitely ran a lot smoother, plenty of power out of the corners.  But alas, the top end still wasn’t there.  The car didn’t want to go above five grand and it was difficult to get her up to 120.  Fortunately, combination of power out of the corners and somewhat decent handling still allowed us to pass a lot of cars.  We decided it was a tuning issue at this point and that dealing with it would have to wait until the next race.  At one point, a brown Fox Body Mustang attempted to pass Perque and made a date with the wall.  Poor feller had to be towed off, but he made it back out.  Perque was putting down a consistent 3:04, which is pretty damned good.

Bobby was the next driver.  Watching him come shooting out of turn 17 was brilliant.  Every time he passed the pit everyone would say, “Damn, he’s moving pretty good.”  Bobby was able to catch up to a couple cars and improve our position to 35th.  Had he not had to end his driving shift I’m sure he would have moved us even higher.  But all in all, Bobby essentially ran a perfect shift, which is really why there isn’t much to say.  A bit anticlimactic I know.  But if you’re a good driver, that’s the way it should be. 

The next driver was Anthony.  The first half of Anthony’s shift was a rollercoaster.  It took him a while to find his line.  His lap times ranged from a 3:05 to a 3:15.  Once he found his lines, he ran between a 3.03 and a 3.06 consistently.  This is not to say that once the half way point was past all was smooth.  Being somewhat of a caveman Anthony can be rather aggressive behind the wheel.  There was more than one occasion where he found himself coming out of turn five sideways.  But the turn five shenanigans were child’s play compared to the near-catastrophic slide in the Cunningham Cormer (see map of Sebring).  The Cunningham Corner is a hard right hander at the end of  a good sized straight.  You approach it doing over 90 MPH.  Anthony came in a little too hot-way too hot- and found himself staring at the wall.  He then over-corrected and found himself staring at the grass.  At which point he over-corrected again and found himself staring at the wall yet again.  Fortunately he was able to straighten out and continue at a relatively high velocity.  On the plus side, at least the corner man was entertained. 

Sturgis was our last driver.  Poor, poor Sturgis.  He put his heart and soul into this car and this race.  He even practiced driving the course in his daily a month before the race.  He was poised to be the fastest member of our team.  But alas, the racing gods decided it wasn’t meant to be.  We were all excited to see Sturgis pass the pit at a high rate of speed on his first lap.  Then, a yellow flag was waved.  We got concerned when we didn’t see the pizzamobile.  Then we started to hear other teams say that they thought they saw our car sitting on the side of the straight just past the hairpin with the driver’s side rear wheel missing.  Crap.  Our fears were confirmed when the car was towed into the pit, and the wheel was sitting where the back seat once resided. Sturgis then went on to tell us what happened.  He had just come out of the hairpin-fortunately- when all of a sudden *thud* the left rear of the car dropped.  He looked to his left and saw his wheel go rolling by.  Adrenaline-fueled and against better judgment, he unstrapped himself, hopped out of the car, and chased down the wheel.  Hey, those damned tires are expensive, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.  We were able to obtain three lug bolts from an autoparts store, but we needed four.  Fortunately, team “Deficient Crapcanics” were gracious enough to give us a lug bolt.  They said the only reason why was because they love Anthony’s Coal-Fired Pizza so much.  If that doesn’t say something about the product we put out, I dunno what does.  Before we knew it Sturgis was off.  Unfortunately, the glory was short lived.  He did one more lap and the clutch gave out.  Maybe next time we’ll spend 250 bucks on a replacement as opposed to spending it on booze for the damn paint party.  Lesson learned.

Amazingly, Sebring, a town which only exists due to the race track, doesn’t have an auto parts store that stays open past 5 pm on a Saturday.  We were finished.  The next logical step was for Anthony and Sturgis to return to the race track with 100 dollars worth of beer.  We packed our stuff, and went back to Chateau Elan, the trackside hotel.  Fortunately, it started storming and the race was put on hold.  If we can’t race, no one can.  We ran into Team MASH, with the tank-themed Lincoln Town Car. They were in the same situation as us, except their transmission blew.   They invited us to party at their room and we obliged.  Their room, as it turns out, was the Shelby Suite.  It is massive, has two massive balconies, and was located right at the hairpin.  It was a team member’s birthday so there was plenty of food and brownies, which they were more than happy to share.  We also brought something to the table though, our giant cooler of beers, a stereo, meatballs, focaccia bread and flood lights.  We played beer pong, listened to music and watched cars slide off the hairpin due to the wet conditions on the track.  A good time was had by all, and we made some new friends in the process.  If team MASH is somewhere out there reading this, thank you all so much.  We all look forward to the next race, and hope we can be neighbors in the pit yet again.

-Cheers everyone! Check back for updates, we may be down but we aren’t out!

You know that saying “Drive it till the wheels fall off?” Welllll, Ryan just did. Just after turn 7, the hair pin turn, Ryan felt the car begin to wobble. He proceeded to slow down, but as soon as he went into the next turn — BAM, he was no driving on 3 wheels. After leaving his car, in fear of being rear ended, Ryan ran and grabbed the tired which had rolled around 100feet from the car. Within a few minutes a tow truck came, and brought our broken down beast back to the garage….which is where we are now — putting on a new rotor and wheel, so Ryan can get back out there. We still have lots of racing left, around 7 hours. So, I will update you when we get back out on the track! Stay tuned!