Sat. Heat 3A - Greenameyer?

[JoeCook1]

Looks like Greenameyer's all-conquering Lancair Legacy #33 "Airplane" ended up tied for last in Saturday's Sport Heat 3A. Wonder what happened and whether he can get it fixed for Sunday's Gold race?

[FlyKidChris]

D.G.'s Legacy

With a BIG lead (with no John Parker in a Thunder Mustang to press him), and while lapping other planes, Darryl's Legacy began smoking, with the smoke increasing before he pulled out. It appeared to me that all the smoke was coming out of one exhaust, thus the problem was probably limited to just one side or even one cylinder, but I don't know what the problem was. I believe the smoke was oil smoke.

[W J Pearce]

Last night around 9 PM, they had all the jugs off the engine. The team was working hard and there was talk of a parts run to Reding. At about 3 AM or so, I woke to the sound of an engine being run. Around 7 AM Greenamyer was in the air. Looks like he will be racing today.

One can only speculate what might have been. Could Greenamyer stay with Parker after all the work? Could Parker stay with Greenamyer? Sad that we have to speculate.

Regardless, the race 33 (Greenamyer) crew put in one hell of a effort to get back in the air. I wish them the best of luck. Maybe I'll give them some shirts as a reward.

Bill Pearce

[JoeCook1]

Thanks

Thanks for the info, guys. Good to hear they have it fixed up and ready to go.

Yeah, it would be a much more interesting race if John and the TM were in there to challenge.

[W J Pearce]

Regardless of all that went on, Greenamyer and crew did an incredible job. It was a fight from Sat till the checkered flag. Congratulations!!!

Bill Pearce

[Derrek]

Waht was it?

I went by his pit on saturday, and the word was that a oil scavenge resevoir had its mounting boilts loosen up and that he lost about a quart of oil in the process. They were very confident that it was no big deal at the time. What a surprise to hear sunday morning that they pulled an all nighter. The Continental guys were there when I went buy on saturday and the word from them was "What ever you need you got it". Anybody know exactly what the problem was?

[Unregistered]

I was there Saturday evening when they ran a compression check. They had guages hooked to all 6 cylinders and Darryl cranked it over. I wasn't close enough (OK my eyes aren't good enough) to read the guages, but it was clear that on the port side the back 2 cylinders read up the scale and were the same. The front guage barely moved. In addition, Darryl's lead mechanic pointed to the middle cylinder on the starboard side and said, "nothing here".

They replaced all 6 jugs to keep the engine balanced. Apparently the frantic search for parts (and I heard this second hand) was due to the fact that one of the boxes containing the new jugs was short a wrist pin. I understand after a fuitless search, they picked out one of the old wrist pins that was just a bit to large to fit into the new rod bearing and polished until they could get it to fit.

Whatever they did, it worked. It was a closer race Sunday than any previous heat. Darryl seemed to be babying the engine until he got passed at one point. He didn't stay behind long, and won comfortably.

I still say he is the best race pilot out there. I was video taping the Saturday race from the pits. From where I was, half the plane disapeared behind the Chevron Fuel truck, then the VP Racing Fule truck as he came around on each pass. Exactly the same amount of airplane was hidden on each lap except of course for the last lap where he had pulled up to a high altitude with the smoking engine. Constant altitude around the entire course. You also never saw him bank too much then have to back off, or bank too little and have to add more. Smooth. That's consistancy! Darryl, you da man!