HMMS Tours Rolex Grand AM Gainsco Racing Team Shop

It started with a post on MetroplexMINI.org, the Houston MINI Motoring Society was coming up to the Dallas area to tour the Gainsco Racing Team shop, they had room for a few more people and invited us. Thanks to the eagle eyed AGranger I had a PM telling me about event, however, it was the same day, even the same time as the MM.org annual business meeting where to outgoing board handed over everything to the incoming. I was torn as I was the outgoing VP...yeah..for about 1.2 seconds that is. The shop is like 5 miles from house. I had driven by it countless times and never knew it was there. I went on the tour.

A small contingent of D/FW MINI Owners met with the group that drove the 4+ hours from Houston and then went to the shop. Hidden in plain site in a nondescript industrial park is Bob Stallings Racing Gainsco Team shop. The team was just back from Daytona testing prepping the car for the upcoming 24 Hours at Daytona.

All the images below along many more from the visit can be seeing in their full size glory in my Gallery



We were greeting by the Team Manager in the small reception area that was full of trophies from past achievements. The team has won the 2007 and 2009 Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series Team and Driver Championships with drivers Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty. Alex is the youngest son Dan Gurney, an American racing legend.

A few 1st Place Trophies


With the demise of Pontiac the team is now running Chevrolet power. We saw a picture of the new engine with its now individual throttle bodies for each cylinder. The 8 velocity stacks look so cool, reminded me quite a bit of the way engines used to look. These race engines are out being prepped for Daytona at the Earnhardt-Childress Racing Shop. In it's stead was engine that was used for some other testing.





Check out the size of the Alcon Calipers...



and yes, the pistons look to be cross drilled. What you see is a small ring that snaps on the caliper pistons that has holes in it to reduce the heat transfer.

More detail on the pistons and drilled rings...



Brake Rotor with temp telling paint.



More Caliper detail.



Rear rotors are smaller, this set has small groves for outgassing.



Front uprights with brake ducting



And the hubs, these wheel are center lock. The pins help to locate the wheel and prevent slippage while the palls are to prevent the wheel nut from backing off.



The team has left and right wheel guns as the thread on the hubs is directional depending on the side of the car it is on. Torque is 500 ft/lb on the nut.

More hub detail





Front Splitter with ducting hoses for the brakes, this is the underside.



To be continued...

 

The shop is rather large and quite neat. There were 2 stations where cars were being assembled. Another area dedicated to transmissions and one dedicated to damper rebuilding.

Dampers being rebuilt



Various springs and coilover bits.



The transmission are was pretty darn cool. The car uses a sequential box with straight cut gears. Here is a transmission all torn down.



Primary gearbox for the Daytona car recently assembled.



The tech was kind enough to demonstrate how it works. When the shift lever is pulled back it send a signal to the ecu to cut the ignition for a split second to allow for the shift. Connected to the top of the shaft that is front and center with the holes in it is a hydraulic actuator that turn the shaft 1/3 of a rotation. When in neutral the first 1/2rd ration causes the fork to move selecting the proper gear. Keep pulling back on the stick, the shaft keeps turning and each gear is selected. Downshifts are the opposite.

The transporter has a drawer full of gears allowing them to dial in the correct gearset for any track.



Drivers stuff in the transporter



That set of Lowes logoed Nomex is Jimmie Johnson who joins the team for the Daytona race. BTW, Jimmie says the the new paving at Daytona is very nice, quite smooth and very fast. He went on to predict that there will be 4 wide racing at the NASCAR event. (As reported to us by the Team Manger from conversations they had during the recent test days)

Driving Sim, didn't get many details on this.



Gearbox cooling is handled by a heat exchanger in the rear bodywork. Not the quick disconnect lines.



Detail of uprights to locate the rear bodywork and wing. This connects directly to the chassis.



Backside of the switch panel in the cockpit, very clean and simple wiring. The gauge is as small as possible to keep weight down. These sort of details are evident throughout the entire chassis.



Business end of the same panel.



There is Air Conditioning as evidenced by the switches in the lower panel. This is fed to the drivers helmet allowing them to keep a cool head.

Below is the dry sump oiling system. All lines are as short as possible and jsut looking at the hoses you can see how nicely they are constructed. Many areas are coated with a gold film to keep the heat down. It's an off the shelf product from DEI. Many of us have used the same product in our own cars, just not the more expensive gold version.




Starter Motor and a pump, not how they have labels with notes such as rebuild dates and mileage on the part. These labels were on most everything.



Clutch pack - it too has a label on it of in service date and miles accumulated. Sorry it was on the backside and I didn't want to be picking up parts just to get a better picture.



Transaxle, the half shafts are really beefy. Hydraulic lines lines and pump are for gearbox oil.They connect to the cooler in the rear bodywork. There are sensor for everything on the car. They can read the data realtime in the pits and relay instruction back to the driver to change various settings.



Driver lineup for the Daytona 24



This tour was a blast. Never had I been so up close to one of these cars. Gainsco gave us full access to the cars and the techs. The tech were wonderful, they tool time out of their day to answer all our questions, even stopping what they were doing to demonstrate how various systems worked. A huge thanks goes to Terry Wilbert the Team Manager for being the consummate host. Thanks for the hats and signed posters too.

I now have a totally new perspective on how these cars are built. I wish the team the best and hope they are successful in the 2011 season.