Cole Morgan Racing

It has been a chaotic two weeks here at Cole Morgan Racing - two weekends of back-to-back endurance racing!

First, we took the car out to New Jersey Motorsports Park for its endurance racing debut with NASA NorthEast. The day started out well, but some electrical issues during practice caused us to miss qualifying. We made the race start, but after about 45 minutes had an alternator issue. Took it behind the wall, got it fixed, and sent the car back out where it rain like a freight train for the rest of the race. We came home 3rd place in class!

Then, week two - on to Watkins Glen International with the ChampCar Endurance Series! Friday practice went smoothly. Friday night, after looking at the weather, the crew took 4 hours to check over the car and prepare it for the rain on Saturday. It worked. Our car and drivers were unstoppable on Saturday. When the green flag dropped, we fired off from our starting position of 13th overall of 76 to 8th, where we held strong for the whole first stint. At the end of the day, we finished 1st place in our class, beating 2nd place by 5 laps. We also finished 15th place overall. Unfortunately, we suffered a crash while trying to chase after 13th on the last lap with a broken shifter. Nothing that we couldn't handle, though. Drivers and crew all pitched in, and stayed up until midnight fixing the car in the wind, rain, and cold.

Unfortunately, Sunday did not go quite as well. We gambled and lost on leaving a wet weather setup in the car the night before, and not a single drop of rain fell for the entire race. With just 3 hours to go, while fighting for 1st place in D class, we suffered a headgasket failure which took us out for the day.

Still, a great two weeks of racing! A big thank you to both NASA and Champcar for putting on such great events. And thank you to Gridseat for making our team management the easiest it has ever been.

We will have the car patched up and ready to go for the Champcar weekend at Autobahn Country Club on June 12th-14th.

Want to race this car? We still have open availability. Check out our schedule at https://gridseat.co/ref/cole-morgan-racing

We are still looking for drivers for the first half of this year's Champcar schedule! If you are interested in driving with us, send us an e-mail at [email protected]

5/1 - 5/3 Champcar @ Harris Hill - 3 seats remaining
5/22 - 5/26 Champcar @ Watkin's Glen - 3 seats remaining
6/13 - 6/14 Champcar @ Autobahn - 3 seats remaining
6/26 - 6/28 Champcar @ Sebring - 2 seats remaining

We got our new Champcar out for some testing last weekend at Hedge Hollow Raceway near Kansas City last weekend. What a great track! We will definitely be making our way back there.

As for the car, it was a great weekend of testing. We managed to sort out all of the gremlins that come with any new build, and learned some small things that need changed before our first race.

Next stop... Gingerman!

For the last OVR SCCA Autocross event of 2024, I was given the opportunity to race a Porsche 911 Carrera by our friends Josh Beckman and John Beckman over at Mach Jesus Racing. What an experience! I had never sat in this car - or any rear engine car - until I was driving up to the start line for the first line. As Josh said, "it's like trying to race a front wheel drive car in reverse." Very fun, and very challenging. I managed a 9th place finish out of the 22 cars in our class. And, somebody got a picture of me with a wheel pulled about 6 inches off of the ground!

Thank you again to John for letting me drive his car.

Race-Keeper Trivinci
Fortress Obetz

Here's some racing action for your weekend as we get closer to the end of the off season.
NASA Great Lakes at Pittsburgh International Race Complex in July of 2023. What a great weekend! We had a huge group of 35 cars in HPDE 2 that weekend, so lots of traffic. But, everything ran smoothly all weekend, and I was able to move up to advanced group, and earned my TREC license!

This year we plan to run in the NASA TREC series next year all around the Midwest. Plus, hopefully, races in other series. In addition to the autocrosses that we have always run.

Racing will be back before you know it! But for now, enjoy this video of us racing our old Grapestang around Pitt Race.

Let's talk endurance racing pit stops! Outside of top-level pro racing like IMSA and WEC, pit stops look much different that many people think due to the nature of the cars, and rules about how pit stops are performed. Below is an example of a ChampCar Endurance Series pit stop. This was when I was refueling for the 90racing team at Pittsburgh International Race Complex in October.

Because endurance racing series like Champcar, TREC, and AER require the use of 200 treadwear "street tires," it is not uncommon for teams to run for several hours on one set of tires. Most cars can in these series can race for hours on end without changing tires. And, with many of the races being 7-8 hours long, it is totally normal to see a car not change tires during a race. If tires do have to be changed, teams often only change 1-2 at a time to save time in the pits. Because 200 treadwear tires do not lose much grip as they wear, we are able to do this without affecting the car's handling.

That means that teams only need to pit for fuel. Endurance racing does not allow one driver to drive for more than two hours at a time, so the goal is to make your car fuel efficient enough to race for two hours without stopping. Most cars are able to do this now. So, if there are no cautions, pit road gets to be a VERY busy place every two hours.

Adding to the congestion, there are oftentimes more cars entered in the race than there are spaces on pit road. Typically, two cars will have to share one pitbox, so communication on pit road between teams is very important. You don't want to call your driver in only for there to be no space on pit road! At some races, like the 14 Hours of Daytona, there may be up to four teams trying to share one pit box. Talk about a traffic jam...

As for what goes on during the stops, typically several things are checked while the car is on pit road. Most series have a "minimum pit stop time" rule which requires the car to be on pit road for five minutes if they are adding fuel. This gives you about 3:30 to perform your pit stop. MUCH longer than the 30 second pit stops you see in IMSA.

During a normal pit stop, crews will refuel and change drivers. Then, check tire wear and tire pressures, clean debris from the grill and/or brake ducts, top off engine oil (and sometimes other fluids), clean the windshield, check the new drivers radio, and adjust mirrors. Some teams will also re-torque their lugnuts at every stop, and many have to add ice to the cool-suit systems in the car. Adding fuel can take up to just over two minutes on some cars, so crews do have to be quick about things. Now, envision 30-50 cars doing this all at once, and you know why people always say that pit road is pure chaos! Oh, and if you mess up the pit stop, that's it! You're probably out of contention. No pressure.

Because pit road is so chaotic, there are quite a few safety rules. While refueling, the vehicle's kill switch must be turned "off," which turns off the engine and disables all electronics. Due to the high fire risk, any crewman who are over the wall during refueling must be in full fireproof gear, and there has to be a crewman holding a fire extinguisher with the pin already pulled and pointed at the fuelman. Fuel jugs are also limited to a capacity of 5 gallons, but can be modified to pour fuel faster. Because there are so many people working on cars, all series also have a speed limit for cars on pit road. Typically 20-35 MPH depending on the track. Accidents can, and do, still happen, but they are much less common and much less severe than they were 30 years ago.

Race car update!

We've been hard at work ever since getting the new chassis. We finished stripping parts from the purple Mustang, and rolled it out of the garage for the last time.

Now, it's time to get to work on the new car! We got it into the garage, and have gotten everything cleaned up on it. Plus, we got all of the old wiring, the old dashboard, and the old seat bracket out. The best part is... there is NO RUST! What we had original thought was a large amount of rust on the frame kit turned out to be nothing more than surface rust. That will save us a TON of work getting the car ready.

Next steps: prep the interior, underside, and engine bay to be re-painted. Then, sort through and trim all of the factory wiring harnesses from the purple car.

Oh, and we need a name for the new chassis... any suggestions? Our last two Mustangs were named "Bananastang" and "Grapestang."

It's been a busy couple of weeks here at Cole Morgan Racing as we've been preparing to go endurance racing next year! Our purple 1996 Mustang has been torn down to the chassis, and we have now picked up a new, caged chassis for 2025. We have a lot of work to do to get it ready to race, but we will have it ready for the NASA Great Lakes season opener next year!

Stay tuned, there will be lots of updates posted here as we get our new car ready to race.