Unfortunately, things did not work out so well. In Sauk Rapids, about half way to BIR, my Jeep started vibrating a lot. We thought a trailer tire might be flat, but Greg pulled around and reported that we needed to pull over that it was the Jeep wheel wobbling. At that same moment the Jeep started shaking and I immediately pulled over. Turns out all five lugs had sheered off and the wheel was no longer connected to the Jeep.. It appears that the shop I had do my brakes last week forgot to tighten the lug nuts properly.
This was not good, but at least the wheel stayed on the Jeep and didn't launch off into traffic. We decided to fix it and Greg and Jeff headed off to buy new lugs and lug nuts. Jeremy and I worked to take things apart to prepare to reassemble.
When the new lugs arrived, they seemed really tight. After 2+ hours of work, they would not pull into the axle flange. The wheel was on, but there was almost no thread engagement in the lug nuts. Flustered, I called a tow truck to carry the Jeep and tow the trailer up to BIR.
During this, Erik and Steff had headed up to the track to talk to the ChumpCar staff about our predicament. They were very accommodating and planned to let us tech late. Unfortunately we got up there pretty late and they decided to tech us in the morning. This worked out ok because we had misread one rule, as 5 other teams had done, regarding the electrical shut-off, and needed to fix it. That took us until midnight. It turns out that the cut off switch needs to cut off the alternator output in addition to the battery. Oops!
Repairs were made, and we headed off to bed a little after midnight. Damn that was a long day...
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