Chicagoland GSCA 1998 Events

Web Site Index
>	1998 Past Events

Past Events

2003 Events

2002 Events

2001 Events

2000 Events

1999 Events

1998 Events

1997 Events

	December 5, 1998	CCGSCA Free Christmas Party	Palos Pizza
	Saturday at 6:00 pm		8650 W. 103rd Street Palos Hills, IL 60465

We definitely had another hit.  About 70 members enjoyed the party held at Palos Pizza.  We had an 7th injector system thanks to Jeff and Jill Ferraro to raffle off with Tom Mogler the winner.  We had plenty of desserts, appetizers, pizza and great beverages.  Winners of competition were: Sandi Papacz 1st place appetizer,  Barb Pedrak 1st place dessert, with Marlyn Bachar and Linda Sacauskas' foods coming in very close.  Racing series winners Pat Sweeny, John Soffietti, Steve Pitts, and Ken Stasiak accepted their trophies.  A great wrap up to CCGSCA's fourth year.

	November 8, 1998	Meeting & Technical Session	Precision Turbo & Engine
	Sunday		Hebron, IN

Harry did it again with a great technical session. As always the dos for performance and dont's for breaking parts was covered very well, with an excellent question and answer session period afterward. There were some great cars in the garage to look at, and the technique for testing flow rate of a fuel pump was demonstrated. This was a session that could not be missed for information on Turbo Regals.

	October 18, 1998	Meeting	Resource Center
	Sunday at 10:00 am		Woodridge, IL

Fall kick off meeting.  Got some excellent suguestions on how to get membership involved.  Am putting together an event calendar, setting up an event reminder pyramid, will put a questionaire in the membership packet, and are considering a reward system.  Great meeting with good participation from our members.

	October 11, 1998	Bracket Race Results	Byron Dragway
	Sunday	Event Race Chairman…..Bernie Rekus	Byron, IL

A great day in the middle of October for Dragracing.  Good air and the track hooked for most racers quite well.

	Sept. 25, 26 & 27, 1998	GSCA Midwest Buick Challenge	US 41 Dragway
	Friday, Saturday & Sunday		Morocco, Indiana

A successful first year event with great vendors including Bowling Green Customs, Jimmy's Transmissions, Eastern Performance, Casper's Electronics, Precision Turbo and Engine.  The Indiana Chapter put on a great car show with many classes to show off the various beautiful performance Buicks made over the years.  We had 95 racers on Saturday and 80 racers on Sunday put on a great show for us.  The weather was great and surprizingly warm for late September

Other duties called that I had to tend to will get the data from others very soon.
.

Midwest Buick Car Show
Sponsored by Indiana Chapter GSCA
September 26, 1998

We would like to thank Bill Burton, Sid Meyer, Belva Meyer and the great help from the Indiana Chapter who ran this fine show.

	September 5, 1998	Bracket Race Results	Route 66 Dragway
	Saturday Afternoon	Event Race Chairman…..Bernie Rekus	Joliet, IL

About 28 members raced at the Saturday night grudge match in spite of the heat and holiday weekend at Rt 66.  At least five other members had cars there but opted due to the heat to not participate.  Here is the latest standings in this great series,

	September 3 , 1998	Cruise - Hooters	1301 Butterfield Road
	Thursday	6:30-9:30 p.m.	Downers Grove, IL

This was an unofficial cruise for Hooters.  After advertising earlier this spring, they cancelled the events.  We knew this earlier that day thanks to member Bud Sacauskas who actually called Hooters who indicated "what cruise", before his long drive from Indiana.  We had about 12 members show up with a Turbo TA, Franks 455 powered Saturn Yellow T-Type (its for sale since he repurchased the Vette he bought new in 1977 from the owner in Texas), and a number of Turbo Regals, so the bench racing was great. 

	August 26, 1998	Annual Cruise at Strats	2906 N. Mannheim Road
	Wednesday	7-10 p.m  847-455-3040	Franklin Park, IL

This was the cruise to beat all cruises.  We had 10 Gran Sports there early then 15 Turbo Regals came to back us up.  Great showing of members in their daily drivers as well.  As usual we ruled the southwest corner of the huge lot.   I'm afraid the word did not get out that we avoid the insanity near Strats itself, so many did not find us out west.  Our spot allows members to get in and out, unlike near Strats where people get blocked in.  This evening definately went too fast.

	August 7, 1998	Annual Cruise - Duke’s	8200 S. Harlem
	Friday	7-10 p.m.    708-599-0576	Bridgeview, IL

Unfortunately it rained earlier that day and the skies looked threating so we missed this event.  If anybody was there please report the number of members that braved the weather and came out to play.  This is usually a great event to attend second only to Strats.

	August 1, 1998	Bracket Race Results	Route 66 Dragway
		Event Race Chairman…..John Evans	Joliet, IL

About 32 members joined the Saturday night grudge match at Rt 66 and really had a great time.  Most report they plan to make Rt 66 their track of choice.

	July 18, 1998	Second Annual Picnic	Brookfield Ave. @ Hollywood Train Station
	Saturday 12pm - 7pm	Car Show & Picnic	Brookfield, IL

We combined with Hollywood Motors, Do You Remember When Bar & Eatery, and Thomas Landscaping to provide a great opportunity to show our Buicks with other area automobiles.   Classes included 50's and older, 60s and 70s, 80s and 90s, and Special Interest.  We also had Buick owners chose the best V8 powered car and Turbo car for Trophies.  The Buicks at this event included.

	July 4, 1998	CCGSCA Car Show	Wilton Industries
	Saturday at 11:00 am		Woodridge, IL

Our annual 4th of July event was a great family event and a great place to bring our Buicks with great sunny weather.  There is no admittance fee for this show of which people choice awards were given.  There are goodie bags for the first 125 cars with at least 42 buicks at the event.  We had a great time, bench racing and looking at each others cars.  Thanks Frank for such a great event.

	June 27, 1998	Bracket Race Results	Route 66 Dragway
		Event Race Chairman…..Bernie Rekus	Joliet, IL

About 22 members joined the Saturday night grudge match at Rt 66 and really had a great time.  It was a hot nite in Joliet.

	July 22, 1998	Car Show, Cool Cars under the Stars	York Road - downtown
	Wednesday	Buick/Olds/GM nigh	Elmhurst, IL

The BOP night at Elmhurst was well attended by our membership.   This was probably the best cruise of all.  This event is so large that we could not park near each other, but managed to get in some discussion on the merits of owning Buicks.

	June 14, 1998	Meeting & Technical Session	Resource Center
	Sunday at 11:00 am		Woodridge, IL

John Spina with Casper Electronics gave us some more insight into our 11 plus year old wiring harness, demonstrating the unsealed connectors that were a throughback to earlier harnesses, and the newer weather pack connectors that represent better connections.  He recommended going through the non-weather pack connections and grounds annually and applying white lithium grease in addition to the black grease GM used since this material is probably drying and cracking.  He also pointed to weak areas on the harness, extra wires that may be used for other functions, and the green connector for tackometer and grey connector for fuel pump activation.  In all it was an informative session.

	May 17, 1998	Meeting & Technical Session	Midas
	Sunday at 11:00 am		Palos Hills, IL

What a great day for a drive to Palos Hills and view the undersides of our Turbo Regals on a handly lift and have an exhaust and suspension expert help us understand all those components we ignore in our quest for faster ETs.  We had four new members among 30 members that enjoyed the Technical Session.  All in all it was a great day to enjoy all things Buick.

	April 28, 1998	Buick GSCA Nationals	Beach Bend Raceway
	To. . May 2, 1998	If you look for negativity you will find it	Bowling Green, KY

Well the 1998 GS Nationals will be remembered for breaking all records for rain at Bowling Green.  Monday once we passed Louisville, KY we had rain the rest of the was down   Overnight it poured, but Tuesday morning was great for the start of the Nationals.  Unfortunately this only held until about 11:00 am.  Wednesday it rained off an on all day, with pauses in between to get the track nearly dry.   Thursday some racing got in late   Friday the car show had occasional showers after raining the night before, with the show area grass turning muddy.   Saturday was wonderful, but the shower could not hold off the last half hour to finish the drag racing program.

The Chicagoland Chapter visitation and vending area was flooded out (we were not on lake side property, but were a part of the lake) and had to be relocated.  Unfortunately our new site was not that much higher so we had to use straw to minimize the mud.   Brad's Thursday night Restoration Session was a success, as our Turbo Regal Technical Session.  A number of members showed up for our outdoor meeting Friday at noon, under the canopy where it was dry.

I can safely say we had fun at the Nationals as we do every year.  I'm sure it is the company we have with fellow members at this great Buick event.  Of course it would have been more fun it there was more racing.  Maybe next year !

	April 19, 1998	Samatha Rix Memorial Race	Byron Dragway
	Sunday at 8:30 am		Byron, IL.

We had 47 entries in the with a good number of GS's represented as well as the Turbo Regals.  Spring came too early this year as we had about 150 club members and friends with  many of us not prepared to race.  Great day, great track with lots of great times in.  We signed up 5 new members sold lots of Tee shirts and plates, and gave away 144 hot dogs, two cases of potato chips and 6 cases of iced soda to a hungry crowd.

	April 8, 1998	Cruise and Show Planning Meeting	Resource Center
	Sunday at 10:00 am		Woodridge, IL.

A very nice spring day brought out the Turbo Regals in force.  We lined them up and took a picture of 18 Regals and one GS.  Is hard to believe we have as many GS owners as TR owners in this Chapter.  The meeting went well with 85 members showing interest in the summer schedule,  Pam Peters our Cruise Director for the North Side, and  Rich Fitzmaurice our Cruise Director for the South Side gave us several tips on places to go  Both web pages have been updated with all the great input from our members.  Great meeting and fun to see the TRs out so early this year.

	March 22, 1998	POB Swap Meet	Dupage County Fair Grounds
	Sunday from 8:am to 2:pm		Wheaton, IL
The CCGSCA had a booth there where we passed out a lot of information and signed up 9 new members.  A great event witl a lot of 66 through 72 GS parts available.  Steve and Pat had vendor spaces where they sold some of their surplus parts.

	March 8, 1998	Meeting & Technical Session	Jimmy's Transmissions
	Sunday at 11:00 am		Mundelien, IL.

Our scheduled March meeting and technical session was held at a Ramada Inn near Jimmy's Transmissions in Mundelien, IL. We had 45 members enjoy this session. Jimmy is the Midwest builder of TH400 and 200 4R transmissions that hold up, under the punishment our Buicks can dish out. Pricing for a mild built 200 4R (down to 12 seconds) is $700 installed, faster than that a super race version is recommended costing $900 installed.

This years session went through how torque converters are modified to withstand break torquing behind high powered engines, through the need for specialized bands, clutches and kolene reaction plates. The limiting factor of the 200 4R is the size of the 2nd gear band and third gear clutch pack. If the shift is made too hard there is a high probability of part breaking, but too soft a shift will result in overheating the bands. Bracket racing is much easier on these transmissions since they have time to cool between rounds.

With a 9 1/2 inch converter there is a real need for a deeper oil pan, since they hold three quarts less fluid. The second benefit of the heavy aluminum pan is relieving some of the torque off the transmission case. This reduces the chance of warping the case and producing leaks where the valve body bolts to.

An oil cooler is needed with higher stall torque converters. This cooler should be plumbed downstream of the coils running through the radiator which are necesary to warm up the transmission fluid after a cold startup. The cooler should be mounted in front of the AC condenser and front mount intercooler.

	February 14, 1999	Meeting & Tech Session	Andresen Automotive
	Sunday at 11:00 am		Woodstock, IL.

As if we didn't get our fix of all things Buick at the World of Wheels, attending the midwest meca of Buick V-8 power with 80 fellow club members was hard to beat. Tom Andresen is a wonderful host for our Chapter in his excellent shop. This years Technical Session was divided among cam degreeing and scaling a Buick for that perfect consistant launch. Both subjects were well covered and all of us came away with an understanding of both topics. Great day . . .

	January 30, thru	Performance Parts Show Car Series	McCormick Place - East
	February 1, 1998	36th Annual World of Wheels	Chicago, IL

Our Chapter did very well at this event. We had about 30 new members sign up, sold 25 video tapes of the 96 GS nationals for Scott Keller, and several sets of plates. Not only did we have a good showing of cars that entered the event, but a lot of the membership came by in the course of the event to cheer us on. This all made up for the hours to get the car into McCormick place Thursday. Getting out Sunday night was not that bad.

The Buicks that did not place were some of the finest cars there, but did not have their hoods open and had the doors locked during the Friday night judging which took many points away.

	January 11, 1998	Meeting & Technical Session	Resource Center