2007 went by in a flash, I can not believe how quickly things went from buying the car to battling for a Runoffs victory on the last lap. It was a good year and hopefully just a taste of some better times in 2008. The year started off with fighting a lot of bugs with the Formula Ford. As expected not only was there a learning curve in just driving a formula car for the first time, but also learning how to tune a lot of things in the car I never got to play with before. All of that pretty much was put on hold until I could keep the car running. One thing that made this project a little more difficult than it should have been was converting a used Formula Ford 2000 car to a Formula Ford 1600. Not only was I fighting the differences in the rules and engine, but also the problems associated with buying a very used and abused chassis.

Blackhawk Farms Regional and National.

The first weekend out was Blackhawk Farms and I was really tight on time to complete the car for the first regional. My first session out on the track I encountered my first issue. As I was warming up the car the first lap, one of the front tires began to come loose. At first I thought we just forgot to torque the wheel down, but Niki remembered doing that so we looked for other possible causes. What we quickly found out was that the pins for locating the wheel were too long or more to the point the new OZ wheels did not have deep enough locating holes. That was just the beginning of the adventure. I completed the rest of the test day and began picking up driving the Formula Ford now that I was able to get in a few laps. Picking up left foot braking was easy for me, since the first thing I ever drove was a go-kart. Shifting was easier then a Miata and the car reacted much quicker than a Miata as well. However, there was very little feel in the Formula Ford and the noise and vibration were horrible. It later turned out a lot of the noise and vibration was a problem I had not yet discovered from the car being altered by the previous owner/s. The lack of feel was not something associated so much with the Formula Ford as it was the setup. I figured it would take some time to get the setup nailed, but I was pretty much starting from scratch on everything. All in all things were looking up the first weekend, even though the setup on the car was really far off. I actually was winning my very first race in the Formula Ford until about mid way through the race, I lost pretty much every ounce of oil in the engine either on the track or in pit lane. What had happened was that the oil filter had come loose blowing out the seal and then all of the oil. Here is an e-mail I received from my buddy Rocco the next day after having the oil down problem, it's funny stuff!

 

Oil Slick Headed For Fox River; Drinking Water Shouldn't Be Affected (Blackhawk Farms Raceway, Beloit, WI, APRIL 29th 2007) -- Workers set up trucks Wednesday to contain an estimated 63,000 gallons of crude oil that prepared to seep into the Fox River from a ruptured oil filter on Tony Coello’s Formula Ford car, forming a huge slick approaching the River. South Beloit environmental officials called it a major inland spill and said crews were in a race themselves to keep the 10-mile-long slick from flowing to the Fox River, which could threaten drinking water supplies downriver. "That's the battle we're all facing," said Environmental Protection Agency on-site coordinator Napoleon, who estimated the slow-moving slick had traveled within five miles of rivers. The slick was meandering at less than a mile per hour. It was not immediately clear what caused the a.m. rupture of the Formula Ford, which carries about 180,000 barrels of crude daily around the track, at least what it seemed like. The break was about 8 laps from the finish line and sent a visually estimated 63,000 gallons of oil gushing onto the track at Blackhawk farms. The spill did not threaten any drinking water supplies along the Fox River and posed no public health risk, despite a slippery oil slick that spun out multiple cars on the track, and delayed several races. There were also reports of fire shooting out the back of the Formula Ford, but no injuries. The immediate effect on wildlife appeared to be limited. Several dozen geese were seen landing in the spill, but only a handful of birds required treatment. Officials had received no reports of fish kills. An official said a couple of factors might minimize the impact on wildlife. "Given the time of year and the oil is pretty thick and is probably going to float, there may not be much of a fish kill, if any at all," said a spokesman for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. Workers shut down the 2-mile race track after being alerted of the break. The track workers responded to the spill along with other federal, state and local track officials. Workers battled the slick by deploying toe trucks across north-flowing spill.  The source of the main containment was later found by track officials by following the spill trail back to the pits.  "That's going to be our line of defense we will use a highly advanced  oil tracking machine to find and capture these Spy Hunter type drivers, commented, workers" Clean up operations were estimated to take up to a week. If the slick flows into the Fox River it could arrive in Milwaukee area sometime Thursday. In a statement sent to Rockstar News, South Beloit Water Company spokesman says the spill is treatable, and should cause no problems for future racers. Rockstar News, received no comment from T-Bone, but feel confident we will shortly after broadcasting this report.

With that problem fixed and the oil refilled I was looking forward to the first National of the year.  Unfortunately the first session out  was my last session out for the weekend, as the loss of oil had hurt the lower end of the engine and so i was a spectator for the rest of the weekend. Monday the engine came out of the car and off it went to Ivey for it's first rebuild to repair the lower end damage. I thought I would miss half the year since I did not have a spare engine, but Ivey turned the engine around in a couple days and I was ready for the next National at Blackhawk Farms.

I was trying to run Avon tires like Nick was using on his Formula Continental, but was having problems getting Avon tires. Nick and I had ordered the tires around the first of the year, however, it was not about 5 months later and we still did not have the correct tires. Avon dealer Frisby tire did their best to help us out, but all they had were some older and harder Avons sitting around. The Linstrands had a set of Hoosier tires they got me for the weekend and I made another big leap in my performance. Things were going well for my first National and I qualified 3rd and found myself leading the race running times very close to the track record in only my second weekend in the car. Unfortunately another teething problem popped up and just past halfway the radiator cap vibrated lose and started spewing all the water out of the car. Knowing that I already missed one race this year I could not afford another DNF so I tried to limp the car home to a finish and had to let Scott Rubenzer take the victory.

With the radiator cap problem solved with the use of some safety wire, and the engine fixed once again by Jay Ivey, I was ready for the double regional warm up races at Road America in preparation for the June Sprints. Things went really well at Road America, as I won both of my races for the double regional. The weekend allowed me to do some more tire testing and continue to play with camber and shock settings.

June Sprints.

The June Sprints was another tough weekend for the whole family. Things had been going really well, as I got to start working with Hoosier tire and tested the 6" front tire for the first time. Both Nick and I qualified on pole and we both had enough speed in hand to easily win our races. However, thing started out rough, with my race on Saturday. I was winning the race and had a rather large lead when a double yellow came out. On the restart with three laps left in the race I entered turn 5 only to have a turnbuckle on the right rear suspension fail. With the field now closed up behind me, Gerald Barrett who was in second place at the time hit me when the suspension failed and the car lost drive having spit out the axle. Geral Barrett was able to continue on, but my car was a little worse for wear. On Sunday, Niki had a suspension failure in the 2nd qualifying session damaged three corners of the car. The family with some help from the Rosetto's rebuilt the car for the race and Niki won, well sort of. He was blackflagged for jumping the start and after Niki pulled in to serve the black flag he came back to win the race, well sort of. After the race they penalized Nick again putting him back to last for not coming in soon off to honor the black flag.

Autobahn National.

At this point Niki had put his Formula Continental away and decided to run his Spec Miata while I continued to tweak my Formula Ford. Nick and I headed to Autobahn Country club in Illinois for our third National of the year and at this point it was not only looking like I would not have a chance at winning the divisional points, but I also was in jeopardy of not qualifying for the Runoffs. It was very important that I got a points paying finish at a track we had never been to before. Autobahn is one of the more challenging track I have ever driven as it is a really unique and fun layout. However, the track surface is also the bumpiest track I have ever driven. The setup challenge was even more difficult by the fact that the track had sealer in the corners that made the corners slick as ice. With no mechanic present, I drove at about 80% in practice and qualifying to make sure I did not create any extra work for Nick and I. Unfortunately I was about 1 second off the pace which put me in the third qualifying position. As it turned out qualifying would mean very little as the bumpy surface would hamper my race. The massive bump leading into turn 1 had snapped all the rivets holding the battery box in place allowing the battery to short out on the chassis. As I went over bumps and through sweepers the battery would short and cut off the power. I quickly lost the lead group and would end up in third place. Just to add to the fun, the water outlet on the engine cracked showing there was still a major vibration problem that needed to be fixed. On the bright side i got third place points and more importantly another finish toward the four that are required to make the Runoffs.

Road America Cat Natonal.

Our next race of the year was back at Road America for the Cat National. It was great to get back to Road America, because I was able to get some more tire testing and car setup done. Road America is so much fun to drive and a great place to test things on the car. The lap is so long that if something works on the car it is very easy to see the result on the stop watch. Things actually went very smoothly for one all weekend and not only did I get pole position but I also comfortably won the race over Tim Kautz and Scott Rubenzer. Scott Rubenzer was the early leader for Central Division points, but he had a lot of mechanical issues with his car during the year as well. I did find during the year that Formula Ford is a high attrition class, I was not alone in fighting mechanical gremlins.

Gateway Summer Heat National.

Things were heating up now and not just with the race season, but the actual temperature outside. We headed to Gateway, Illinois for our next National race of the year to see our good friends the Degrands and Sellenrieks. It was over 100 F all weekend which was the hottest I ever experienced in racing or even heard of. The outside temperature at the time of my race was 103F, the car sitting in the shade was 120F and the asphalt was 150F. It was so hot, that the entire paddock was like a ghost town from about 10:00am on, people found any inside spot that had A/C for shelter from the heat. As for the racing, I got to test some aero bits on the front of the car, mainly the nose section which was a success and we later saved for the Runoffs. With the temperature being so hot and a need for getting points, the challenge was to make it to the finish. I got out to an early lead in the race and pulled out a good margin only to have it disappear under a full course yellow. After the restart I had a great battle with Mid-div racer David Livingston. The tires at this point were so hot, that they had lost pretty much all of their grip. I would bet anything the tires were basically liquid on the surface. Any way, I had a great battle with Livingston and was able to pull away slightly at the end for the win. At this point of the season I had enough finishes and points that I had qualified for the Runoffs. I also had enough points to win the Central Division which was amazing considering the issues we had with reliability along the way.

HPT Last Chance National.

Completing a stretch of four races in six weeks, Nick and I headed on our own again to Topeka, Kansas for the last race of the year before the SCCA Runoffs at this very track. This was my opportunity to make some finishing adjustments, tire tests and shakedown runs prior to the Runoffs on the newly updated HPT course. In an attempt to make HPT more challenging and fun to drive the two slow chicane type sections were opened up to change them from 60mph corners to 100+mph corners. The only problem with the changes they made to the circuit, was  that they did not finish the job and only had the track lined with clumps of dirt and no curbing at all. This was a very unsafe situation and caused a lot of expensive damage as can be witnessed above. As you can tell it was a very expensive weekend for the Coello Racing team. My race was up first and I had the car working better then ever. I was running excellent times and had the car up front all weekend. However while I was leading the race I clipped dirt on the apex of turn 2 and the car slid wide and off the track. The wall is so close at that spot the car slid down the hill and ripped the entire right side of the car off. With the Runoffs just over a month away this was the last thing I wanted. The one bright spot was that I had set a new track record prior to almost completely writing the car off. Unfortunately I was not the only one to hit a wall and in particular that exact wall. Niki in his Spec Miata race was in a title battle for 6th place when he got off track in almost the exact same place hitting the wall.

The last race of the year was the SCCA Runoffs and you can read all about it by clicking here!

I had a great year learning a tremendous amount about tuning, driving, racing, etc.....When all was said and done, I probably achieved about as much as I could in 10 months with the Formula Ford not only in driving it, but also setting up any car that I am allowed to play with numerous components and adjustments. Thanks to everyone that helped out in 2007 and I am really excited to be back at it in 2008. My next big project will be building a house, so even though my car is sitting all ready to go for the next season in the shop, i will be as busy as ever.