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mekilljoydammit posted:... so ignoring things like that you can't dual purpose a car for it, it doesn't seem like wheel to wheel racing is actually *that* much more expensive. But then maybe I'm biased, and Midwestern Council is cheaper than SCCA. Consumables are more expensive. You beat the poo poo out of the car in w2w compared to DEs. Multiple laps drafting, pushing brake markers, etc. You also get less seat time at a race than you do DE. Car prep costs are through the roof compared to DE. Lol @60 cars at an event. VIR is ~15k to rent for a weekend so that would be an expensive weekend. I usually have ~60 cars in my race group. Then there are 2 race groups, 3 de groups, two TT groups. FatCow fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Aug 13, 2017 |
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Aug 13, 2017 12:13
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Bare metal is a great budget solution for endurance racing    They weren't fresh, but these pads were well beyond done by the end of 9.5hrs of racing on day 1 of Lemons.
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Aug 13, 2017 18:03
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Bah. There's still plenty of life left in those pads. This was one of our rear pads after COTA. 
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Aug 13, 2017 19:35
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FatCow posted:Consumables are more expensive. You beat the poo poo out of the car in w2w compared to DEs. Multiple laps drafting, pushing brake markers, etc. You also get less seat time at a race than you do DE. Car prep costs are through the roof compared to DE. Doesn't that just boil down to "you don't wear stuff out if you go slow" though?  Seriously though, I mean, I was around a second and a half to two seconds a lap faster while trying to chase someone. It just doesn't seem like the W2W costs are that awful, at least ignoring the Purple Crack. I mean I'm tempted to try RRs or something but I want to wait and get a better idea how many heat cycles R7s actually last first.And yeah, SCCA regional races are having issues; the national office really does need to do something differently. No, I don't know what.
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Aug 13, 2017 21:10
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A lot of the costs are in car prep. I have something like 15k into my Miata and honestly there is another 5k before I really even get to the obvious limits of the rule book. You're not going to be taking cool down laps, or warm up laps, unless you absolutely need to. Scrub the tires on the outlap then drive as fast as the tires let you. A lot of it boils down to driving faster is harder on the car, if you're sprint racing the expectation is you're pretty balls out unless you're just pacing the field. Tires are a huge part of the costs. SCCA needs to figure out a way to let me race without dumping 5k+ into a Miata motor. Until then I run a junkyard motor with bolt ons with NASA. We also pulled out 5th place at the VIR 24 after getting put into the tires by some also rans 6 hours in. 
FatCow fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Aug 14, 2017 |
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Aug 14, 2017 01:31
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NCs in T4 are cheaper than NBs in SM I can't help but suspect... or at least we're running an unopened engine that came in a nice cardboard crate from Mazda. Then again my dad's running SCCA regionals and I'm running Midwestern Council and it's not like either of us are in spitting distance of track records; about 2 seconds off for him, 3-4 seconds off the record for me. SM turned into kind of a monster spending-wise. I remember the valve seat crap from Seca, and god knows what all else they're up to. I guess it was more of... I don't know, I have a pretty fair idea what roadrace prep costs but wondering how much more affordable doing track day stuff really is.
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Aug 14, 2017 02:05
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Spot opened up for VIR this weekend! LONG day yesterday finishing up the miata (bad clutch), installing removable wheel, fixing stuck door, and then lots of tow-vehicle prep. Gonna be an awesome weekend 
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Aug 14, 2017 14:01
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mekilljoydammit posted:NCs in T4 are cheaper than NBs in SM I can't help but suspect... or at least we're running an unopened engine that came in a nice cardboard crate from Mazda. Then again my dad's running SCCA regionals and I'm running Midwestern Council and it's not like either of us are in spitting distance of track records; about 2 seconds off for him, 3-4 seconds off the record for me. I always liked how the FFR cars did it with nasa. Dyno at the start of the season sets your minimum weight. You'll also be randomly dynoed mid season so don't lie about it. Totally removes the benefit of multi thousand dollar "stock" engines.
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Aug 14, 2017 14:32
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honda whisperer posted:I always liked how the FFR cars did it with nasa. Dyno at the start of the season sets your minimum weight. You'll also be randomly dynoed mid season so don't lie about it. Ugh... see... I'm going to try not to turn this into NASA bashing (I like some of their ideas, and SCCA does things wrong too, lots of things) but I really suspect the only reason dyno measured PtW works for NASA is because it doesn't seem like anyone cares enough to cheat very much. Unless you're handing out sealed ECUs at every event it's not techable, and sooner or later someone is going to come along and conclusively demonstrate that.
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Aug 14, 2017 15:25
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True, it won't stop cheating, but it would make having a clearly better power to weight actually be cheating instead of an accepted gray area where you must spend a lot of money to be competitive in a class designed for affordability.
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Aug 14, 2017 16:00
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There's always money to be spent. One of the shops that does Runoffs level prep for SM is localish to me (they did the remap on our NC) and I've chatted with a bunch of people at that grade of things... one of the things he brought up is that Jim Drago was doubledipping between STL and SM at Road America. Pulling the restrictor off was worth about 12hp, which was worth about a second at Road America... and there realistically isn't 12hp between a pro built motor and a crate motor. Yeah, at Seca a lot of people got caught out because there was vagueness, they built to one side of it and SCCA decided to draw a line, but there's just not that much in that little bit of power if the driver's doing their job. (I am nowhere near the driver Drago is)
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Aug 14, 2017 16:23
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Super miata has a set weight, max hp, and set limits under the curve. Granted I'm sure people could cheat (add/pull timing) but I think the idea is that if you're pulling on ANYONE on the straights you're done for. Shrug. Tough topic.
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Aug 14, 2017 16:36
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Sure, just with open ECUs it's trivial to do map switching because it's trivial to figure out when you're on a dyno vs on track, and "he got a better corner exit than me" can look like pulling down the straight. That said I don't know that it's feasible to make a seriously cheaty engine for Supermiata S2 given where the power numbers are, but S1 it definitely would be (... and people wonder why SCCA is leery of turbos for most classes) It *is* a tough topic - it's why SCCA evolved to basically "write no rules for anything you can't physically measure in the tech shed" and the national championships end up with the top few guys taking their engines home in a bin. I suspect NASA will learn why sooner or later, but I see so many people being smug about dyno based rules-sets or asking why SCCA is so shy about turbos and ... well, it's a little funny if you have dug into the history.
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Aug 14, 2017 16:54
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I love all the stories about the ingenious ways people have cheated in the past. If I remember right didn't f1 teams machine their wastegate to stick at operating temp and I think a rally team made a turbo that would open a second inlet under boost?
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Aug 14, 2017 17:19
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 That's for the Toyota Team Europe Celica. Worked such that when you undo the hose clamp, the restrictor pops back into its proper (legal) place. F1 I'm pretty sure were using popoff valves back in the 80s turbo years; I know CART was. Trick there is that if you make the manifold such that the popoff valve mount point is a venturi, well, magically it doesn't open as early.
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Aug 14, 2017 17:23
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mekilljoydammit posted:Sure, just with open ECUs it's trivial to do map switching because it's trivial to figure out when you're on a dyno vs on track, and "he got a better corner exit than me" can look like pulling down the straight. That said I don't know that it's feasible to make a seriously cheaty engine for Supermiata S2 given where the power numbers are, but S1 it definitely would be (... and people wonder why SCCA is leery of turbos for most classes) It's hard to trick GPS data logging. Blaise, hunt me out. I'm PTE 146. My last name is on my windshield if you don't want to be goony about asking people where I am.
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Aug 14, 2017 22:19
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24 Hours of Lemons writeup: One thing Lemons doesn't advertise is that it's pretty much the ultimate Crossfit workout: - sprinting (to find missing stickers and put them on your car so it can start the race) - vaulting (over the concrete barriers to fuel up and change drivers in the hot pit lane) - dumbbell bench press (swapping out driveshafts with the car on jackstands) - farmer carries (toting fuel jugs around) - speed and precision drills (accessing awkward bolts 1/6 at a time) - cantilevered balancing (to unweight the wheelless corner of the car) And that's all before you get into (itself a feat of dexterity, given the door bars) the car and drive. Endurance racing is very demanding off the track, and it was an interesting and welcome challenge to keep up with the scheduled fuel/pit stops and unscheduled repairs needed. It was a good overall experience for our team, all 4 rookies to wheel to wheel racing. Late morning Friday, we pull our rental RV into the infield at Thompson Speedway and setup our home away from home:  The generator and AC would be somewhat uncooperative all weekend, but it sure as hell beat camping in a tent with the overnight rain. Cars were already hot lapping the field during the test session. Here's the Grover Rover 3500 showing some scary-looking positive camber under droop:  The trailer half of our team was late, so Thompson staff were trying to figure out where to put the truck and trailer for our service area when they showed up in the early afternoon. They found us this spot not too far a walk from the RV and quite close to concessions (and ice):  The shiniest the Elvis 280ZX (formerly of Frog Racing) would look all weekend:  The cleanest and least greasy I would look all weekend:  We each drove 20min on Friday before the end of the test session to get used the car. It was point-by optional, the first time I've driven that way, and also my first time at Thompson, so I was extremely conservative, pulling off line to accomodate faster traffic. It's been a long time since my last track day (a few years?), so pretty big jump up in stuff to process. Tire seemed to be holding up well and have fairly even temperatures. Car was running really rich but otherwise fine. Deal with it in the morning. The cool shirt cooler didn't work initially, but it was fixed by my turn, and the blast of cold water caught me by surprise, distracting me a bit from driving. We attended the mandatory new teams meeting, which reinforced the safety and procedure first mindset. Finished some registration procedures and picked up our paperwork, stickers, transponder, and driver bracelets. Found the spot in front of the rear bumper where the previous race team had ziptied the transponder and did it up the same way. Went back to the RV, grilled up some meat, got driven inside by all the mosquitoes, and fell promptly asleep. Saturday 7am: Rise and shine. It rained overnight, but was pretty dry on track by sunup. Wonder how the folks in tents slept. Race was starting at 9am, and we needed to get breakfast and tune the carbs. We popped the air cleaner off, fiddled with Strombergs, leaned it out safely, and let it be. Thought we were all set for the race and sent the first driver (Muffinpox) out. He came back 5min later asking about the sticker. After about 4 times back and forth on which sticker he meant (not the yellow round sticker for registered, but an event-specific sticker, I hauled 100% rear end to find it. Turns it was in the packet of paperwork we'd picked up but had forgotten to work through. Got some packing tape, slapped the new sticker on, and got the car off before we missed the parade laps. 30 minutes later, first driver swap and fuel up. Since we're a rookie team, we wanted to start with very short (as these races go) driver stints until we got used to things. We brought out the jug of fuel and waited for the car to come in, standing by pit lane in our full driving gear. Car came in, we hopped over the barrier, splashed the fuel cell with some gas with the extinguisher aimed and ready, swapped the HANS (we're on a budget) off the driver, handed old driver water, strapped in new driver, and fiddled with the cooler tank, getting it flowing. We went through 4 such rotations and realizde that 1) we're losing a ton of time pitting so often and 2) there's a lot of support work to do each pit stop. We agreed to go up to 1 hour for our shifts to give the crew more break time. Without a race radio, we didn't have much flexibility with schedule. Which is liberating, in a way. The car held up well, with no noticeable changes between my shifts. On my 2nd stint, I saw yellow and then white flags come out, then none at the next station. Came up to two slow cars and passed one only to realize there was another yellow up at the next station. Dammit, passed under yellow and got black flagged. I shamefully limped around the track and pitted out to take a fairly light admonishment, despite someone having already been black flagged on my team! Who? It was maybe a 5min affair and I was back out. Despite my best efforts, I really struggled with the wheel to wheel aspect. I hear driving is pretty wild at Lemons, and if so, that made the weekend a rough introduction to road racing etiquette. In a track day context, I have the entire road to work with to take a corner. I line up on the outside, brake as hard as the tires will allow, and come up and touch the apex before tracking out. In Lemons (and possibly elsewhere?) it seems like the passing tactic is to divebomb from behind and make sure that, at the apex, you're door-to-door with the car that you're passing. Now you have right of way and can take your preferred line out. I felt like I was getting bullied around every time that happened, and of course I wasn't going to make contact and make the situation worse. I kept taking very suboptimal lines to stay out of other cars battling through corners, which meant I had infrequent opportunities at clean runs try to learn good ways of driving corners, which would have helped decrease my closing speed with passing cars. The other 3 drivers had had a few track days at Thompson before, at least. Anyways, I counted several times where I predicted the passing car would run wide and left space, and sure enough, kept out of danger when they slipped up. A few more where I had to actively react to sudden line changes from someone passing in close. I made a few such mistakes of my own, to be sure, but I truly tried my best to pass less recklessly. The wreckers were ready and waiting for anything that might happen.   90% of the time, it was for mechanical trouble, at least. Once, it was from a serious T-bone situation, a spun car getting hit and wadding up its passenger-side door bars. I was out on track and knew something was up when the red flag came out and I saw onlookers around the track run toward the incident ahead of me. Saturday 6:20p: We headed out to watch the cars get checker-flagged.   It's nice to see your team's car rumbling along in a menagerie of other grubby, hard-boiled race cars. The Bazinga 300ZX team next to us asked about our car, and one of them takes a took at our pads, declaring them metal-to-metal. With little daylight left, we put it off for the morning. Wise to the mosquitoes, we ran the Thermacell much longer before grilling and managed to sit outside for dinner. We were a bit low on water and Gatorade, but had enough to get through 5 more hours. Sleep came even more quickly. Sunday 8a: We tried to get up early to deal with all the service work we wanted to do before the 12p flag. The pads were in the condition shown above. We rounded off one of the bleed screws and had to borrow a vice grip from another team. The rear caliper pistons took forever to manually retract, but we managed to get all 4 corners swapped and shakily bled before race start. I took the 2nd shift, and from the first corner, I knew the bleed wasn't great. A lot more pedal travel to access braking power. But at least with new pads, the stopping power still seemed adequate. I was taking better lines and thus managing to prevent people from trying to pass me so hard, so was really looking forward to gelling on the track. But coming out of a hairpin, I suddenly felt the car vibrating a lot more, in any gear. Not sure but definitely not wanting to blow the motor, I limped it back to the paddock and gave the news. Revving the motor in neutral sounded fine, so after some basic plug and carb checks, I went back out. Still the same extra shaking. And way more clanking between shifts. I bring it in again after one lap.  We decide to put up the rear on jackstands to try to simulate running the drivetrain. Something sounded mechanically broken for sure. We got distracted from that diagnosis, though, by noticing that the rear wheels wouldn't stop rolling in the air even with the brake applied. We decided to rebleed. In the process of doing that, we noticed we'd managed to run one of the brake fluid reservoirs dry. Yikes. Then decided to top off the rear diff, which needed it, as it turned out. While crouched behind the car post-diff top-up, I finally saw it -- the driveshaft wobbling way off axis, clanking into the exhaust and making that singular banging I was hearing on shifts. We ran to get the manual and spare driveshaft. After a couple of reads, it sounded like a pretty easy job, fortunately. We had 2 hours of racing left at this point. Still only halfway peeled out of my driver's suit, I climbed under the car and started unbolting the pinion flange. That took a while but at least nothing was rusted stuck. The U-joint had left part of itself on the field somewhere.  Were those big bangs I heard flying down the back straight not rocks but bits of U-joint instead? As I pulled the splined end out of the trans, someone plugged up the hole in the trans. I brought around the other driveshaft and held it to be slid in. Started off ok, but didn't go in far enough to let the other end mate to pinion flange. I had to use the old driveshaft as a hammer to budge the replacement in. But everything assembled tidily enough, and we got the car ready 90min after I pulled in. We sent the next driver out. I hosed myself off as well as I could, which isn't well given how water repellant grease is. Ambling over to watch the race, I saw it was already yellow flagged. At the far end of the course, I saw see the white profile of a Z sliding onto a truck bed. After no more than a couple of laps, the right rear hub failed. No contact or injury on the course, at least.   Pained me a bit to see pads that I had put in fresh not but a few hours ago be destroyed. The race was over -- we didn't have spares or time to fix it. DNF for our first race. Sunday 5p: We got a lot of volunteers to push the wounded 280ZX back onto the trailer, using a combination of manpower and jacks to keep the wheelless end off the ground. Took a furniture dolly hacked down to be narrow enough to roll on the trailer to push the car off the trailer back into its garage spot. A long day, to be sure. I think as a team, we're still very proud of what we did get done. Our repairs were reasonable. To fill the diff, I found a small funnel and some rubber hose in the parts bin to gravity feed in gear oil. I picked a rugged spot on the driveshaft to do the hammering -- having just lost one to a failed U-joint, I didn't want to break the bearings before we left the paddock. Finally, it's refreshing to put trying to stay in the race above all else. When you get out of your shift, you don't have the cool shirt to help you, so you immediately start heating up. Normally, I try to stay modest in public. But here I had no problem sagging the driver's suit halfway down my underwear just to try to cool off. We'll let this event settle down in our memories, rebuild the car, and plot the next race. kimbo305 fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Aug 15, 2017 |
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Aug 15, 2017 00:29
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FatCow posted:It's hard to trick GPS data logging. Look, I'm not going to belabour this point too much since it's unlikely I'll ever run NASA given the lack of nearby events, and I don't have enough attachment to plastic trophies to make an illegal car, but there's a much wider line between "big enough to notice" and "small enough not to matter" than you seem to think, and all the data has to be analyzed by humans who are, in the end, volunteers. Anyway, I really want to try one of the endurance type races; I could probably slap one of our FBs together for relatively cheap. And yeah, kimbo, divebombing everyone you can is kind of the done thing. Trick is that it will really screw the exit speed of someone doing that, but capitalizing is easier said than done obviously.
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Aug 15, 2017 00:50
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That was a great read Kimbo even with the not so great ending for you guys, thanks for posting. Thompson is a pretty challenging track. Did they let you guys on the banking by the oval or was it marked off limits? There are a lot of workable lines there.
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Aug 15, 2017 01:51
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Only the lower half, which is still plenty to go three wide. Seems like you can go outside, brake harder, and dive into the apex, or trail brake through the middle, tuck to the apex, and balance your grip until you're out. I kept getting distracted by watching cars lifting and locking their wheels. FWD cars' RR on trail braking and RWD cars' FR as they powered out of corners or all the way through. Yesss, someone snapped the errant wheel: 
kimbo305 fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Aug 15, 2017 |
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Aug 15, 2017 03:39
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Sounds like a good event even with the failures. How bad was the rest of the grid driving? I've heard stories. Also, if whoever owns that red Saabaru ever gets tired of having a hood, fenders and bumpers.. call me.
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Aug 15, 2017 04:18
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kimbo305 posted:24 Hours of Lemons writeup: Sounds like a typical race weekend. Sucks about the DNF but car almost made it the whole race which is pretty drat good for a rookie team. Agree about it being a workout, I'm always useless the day or two after a race weekend. As far as drivers Lemons is supposed to be the worst (never done it), Chump is decent to good depending on region and WRL seems the most serious/experienced. Chump started off very much like Lemons and we stopped running with them for a while but we did an event with them last fall and they had really cracked down on contact and the overall driver quality was greatly improved. So when is your next race?
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Aug 15, 2017 11:55
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Gonna see if we can field a team for Louden in October. But primarily I'm concerned about helping put the car back together, which is gonna be time. I've heard it's tough on the cars in the cold weather, so better to have an enclosed trailer.
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Aug 15, 2017 16:15
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Gigi Galli posted:That was a great read Kimbo even with the not so great ending for you guys, thanks for posting. Thompson is a pretty challenging track. Did they let you guys on the banking by the oval or was it marked off limits? There are a lot of workable lines there. They coned off the banking. I drove the start of the race on sat which is supposedly the worst part of lemons so here are my thoughts: The driving isn't really that bad, but extremely intimidating. No one wants to make contact with you and get black flagged or damage their car, but it's a two way street. If you leave a door open someone will probably try to take it and then you'll have to contend with being door to door with them. The best way to drive is just be consistent, either yield or be assertive but don't flip flop mid turn, slamming a door in someones face will cause a wreck. There are also an unreal amount of cars on track at the beginning, Thompson is 1.7mi long and there were 110 cars. I did 4 full yellow laps before the cars all got on track. It took 10 minutes to get all the cars on track at race start. The race also doesn't officially start until all cars are out and then the green flag drops. On the first day we rushed to get the car into line and first into the staging area by 9am (Kimbo really did hustle for that sticker) but it doesn't actually matter when you go out as long as you're out when it's yellow. It's nice to get a bit to warm the car up but we moseyed the car out on Sunday rather than rushed it for the noon deadline. The green flag dropping is loving bananas. The race eventually settles into a nice flow of big open sections with fast/medium speed cars in a one/two wide car conga line and then one or two rolling masses of slow cars somewhere else. At the beginning everyone is mixed and everyone is trying to get position, so any space that there is enough room for 2 cars has 3 cars jammed in there. This is actually probably the most hilarious fun I have ever had in a car and least stressful part of driving during the race, it takes a lot of situational awareness but everyone is packed super tight so everyone dials it back a bit to give a safety net if needed. poo poo will go down, but I think the opening laps only really had some minor door to door bumps and a few cars exploding immediately for full course yellows. I had an audi blow a turbo and spew a smokescreen for most of a lap and then saw several cars sitting on the grass waiting for the wrecker to come bring them home. Comparatively, my second/third stints were far more aggressive in terms of driving and actual risk since everyone thinned out and it became more small pack battles. There was a large speed gradient in terms of driver skill and power/lap times. Our 280zx wasn't the slowest car out there but there were a couple far, far faster cars. The slow cars stuck with each other and had it out but would mostly let the mid-speed/fast cars get by. Fast cars didn't need your stupid midpack bullshit and would use you as a high speed slalom or you would appear at end of straights with 30mph more straight line speed and just hustle by. Most of them had pretty bright front ends so it would catch your eye when they were approaching and you knew to just let them by, but there were a couple of times where the car literally just appears at the last second. Everyone would give those cars an open line where possible so they could scoot by. I'd say the riskiest parts were having it out trying to pass a cars that were slower in the corners but had more power that didn't want to let you by since they would try and eke out that edge to keep up or keep in front. I chased some shitbird in a slower car through an entire lap, poking the car out to get around and let him know I was there, then having to tuck back in for traffic before finally getting a better exit on the inside for the main straight and passing him there. Since we have 14 hours of racing and I know I'm the faster car, I can wait a lap or two for a clean pass. He then decided to be a hero and try and late brake dive bomb to get position on the inside, except he hosed up, locked up, and almost put me into the grass when he overcooked the corner and couldn't maintain the line he wanted. This was the main danger later on in the race. I tried to battle some cars for position for fun, I got into a three way z battle with a 240z and 300zx for a lap or two and gave them a friendly wave when it was over, but if someone was going HAM on it I would back off and let them go to the black flag that was probably looming. Passing later in the race also was really fun. There were a couple of strategies I'd use to get through, the fast cars would punch a hole and you could just follow through with them if you tucked in on their tail. I don't think I've ever had a more satisfying experience in a car then watching the Porsche 928 approach the s curves behind me, everyone seeing him coming and starting to make room for him to pass on the left, then tucking in behind him with 2 or 3 other cars who all had the same idea and going through a 10-15 car block of traffic in a little 4 car train while listening to the unmuffled porsche v8 scream off infront of you. Cars also tended to slow down for the safety margin when they bunched up and got door to door, so a lot of passing could be done on really weird lines if you could get on the gas earlier than them and stay clear. My favorite passing spot was coming under the bridge behind a pack a bit slower than them, but getting a tight exit line and running up the the wall, hugging the cones blocking off the banking of the speed bowl, and hugging the other wall. You could pass huge packs fairly easily that way, even if they were three wide in the bowl. The only problem was if a slow car moseyed on the outside. Speaking of which, pit exit was essentially unrestricted so trying to drag someone down the straight and hoping the car exiting pit in front of you sees you in their mirrors and doesn't pull out in front of you is real and very unnerving. I spun the car in T3 and earned us our third black flag of the first day 10 minutes away from the end of my third and final stint, which really surprised me. The car didn't feel as surefooted in the third session, things I could do easily in the second stint felt a bit more risky in the third. I wasn't even going really hard, I think just a combo of slowly fading tires and exhaustion finally got to me. It happened really fast, and there wasn't much traffic around so I finished the loop into the grass and waited til it was clear to pull off. That spooked me a bit and had I driven on day 2 before the car exploded a hub, it would have been in my mind the entire time. Your brain definitely gets slow towards the end of an hour stint. Other thoughts: 1) The people there are really awesome. I grabbed a guy from another car to help kimbo sit on the hood for leverage and in about 2 minutes there were probably 10 random people attempting to help get the car back on the trailer. One dude was really insistent we use his new winch he just bought and wanted to try out. 2) Breaking stuff sucks but also is really satisfying to fix. Watching the car drive off towards the track after replacing the driveshaft, bleeding the brakes, etc made me feel proud of our team. 3) Driving that 36' RV was honestly the most nerve wracking part of the weekend, leagues worse than being 3 cars wide through any turn at Thompson. It's super wide, GPS takes you down dumb roads, and people are dicks. That being said that thing is awesome when it's set up. It's a mini-house. Despite receiving a 45 minute primer on how to use the TV, we barely had time to watch tv. Also it had a laundry hangar which meant you could hang wet nomex in the sun and it would dry off before the next stint. 4) Endurance racing sucks and is tiring the first time. It's really a game of tiny details to make life easier/less lovely. Having to carry fuel instead of having a fuel cart made my triceps look hella jacked and I could see all the miata boys taking a gander when I'd walk by but gently caress lugging those around again. 30 minute intervals for driving was more tiring on the crew than the driver. 5) Speaking of which there were almost 0 miatas. I was stunned. E30/36 are the track rats. 6) Speaking of which there were a bunch of turbo 5 audis and it ruled because they sounded like the group b/IMSA 5 cyl cars. 7) The cool shirt feels like someone is dumping a bucket of iced water on you when it runs. It's really, really, really nice. I'm glad I bought one.
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Aug 15, 2017 18:45
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Muffinpox posted:...unmuffled porsche v8 scream off infront of you. I surprised out team with a rental cool shirt setup one of our races. They all laughed and said it was pointless and a waste of money until they used it, at which point they ordered a complete setup. It really does make that much of a difference
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Aug 15, 2017 22:18
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Muffinpox posted:Having to carry fuel instead of having a fuel cart made my triceps look hella jacked and I could see all the miata boys taking a gander when I'd walk by but gently caress lugging those around again. 30 minute intervals for driving was more tiring on the crew than the driver.  Seriously, love this post (and Kimbo's too) for real-world experiences. One of these days... ...it'd be easier if the Firebird Lemons race hadn't been a one-and-done 
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Aug 15, 2017 22:48
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Oh yeah -- I misunderstood our drivers discussing gearing during the test session on Friday, and took "you can drive around the track in one gear" extremely literally. Those two were using 4th on the back straight, and there I was blithely sitting at 7k in 3rd just letting everyone fly by for all of Saturday. Only a chance discussion about the redline of the car revealed my error.
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Aug 15, 2017 22:53
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IOwnCalculus posted:/ Inde 
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Aug 16, 2017 02:49
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Did Dominion Raceway in VA last weekend (Audi/VW Dub Deliverance event). Again, i think Dominion is my fav track even though it has lots of sketchy areas. This is one of my faster laps (yellow group, im prob the slowest of them): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_fuquudLWw
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Aug 20, 2017 12:31
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I'm curious to know what other tracks you've run. I think you are the first person I've heard who even likes DR.
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Aug 20, 2017 16:46
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that's why i mention it. I heard a lot of bad things before i first did a day there in May. I've done dozens of events at summit main, shenendoah, VIR, and jefferson (all local virginia tracks, nothing super fancy). I just like it. It's very satisfying to get the line right. Dominion is my most fun at track track. I think it's an up and comer you'll see everyone will see
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Aug 20, 2017 20:12
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My mind can't accept the fact that you like DR over VIR.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:23
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my mind is dumb and stupid.
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Aug 20, 2017 22:46
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SCCA weekend at Road America crewing for my dad - Saturday wasn't off to a great start after he put the car off in turn 6 during qualifying and tagged a concrete barrier. Bent tie rod and bodywork damage (and no spare parts) meant we trailered it home. Torch and gentle persuasion to straighten the tie rod (yeah, well, we couldn't get parts on a Saturday) and bodywork fuckery and we were back on Sunday. Personal best of 2:52.17ish during the race, but need to work on consistency plus more speed. And the hardtop needs to get here because that probably is worth, no joke, about 2 seconds a lap.
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Aug 21, 2017 02:40
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Last weekend there was a club race on a nice local track. Here's an in-car from the second "Roadsport B" start with an action packed first couple of laps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Woj-H9YCp4g The blue Starlet broke his front suspension when he was passed for the lead and had to retire. Here's another in-car from the wet first "Roadsport A" start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1RJ9DYVsb4 From the same race:   
DoLittle fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Aug 27, 2017 |
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Aug 22, 2017 17:56
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Got around to mounting my 6pt harness tonight with the help of some backing plates-800x800.jpg) I mounted the sub belts back a little bit from the opening in my Sparco Evo to replicate the recommended ~20* from vertical and I spread them as far apart as I could given the floor area of the S2000 (about 4"). Everything seems comfortable right now but it seems like the sub straps ride a little far away from my nuts, is that normal? I'd imagined something like a climbing harness, but that's not the case. Haven't tried it with my HANS yet, but there was collarbone pain when cranked down like I expect, but maybe that will be mitigated with the HANS since it's got 2" shoulder belts. Perhaps I need to crank down my lap belts more. Next trackday is the 9th for me, just need to replace my windshield since tech at the last event told me I could't come back unless I fix it  To be fair, it took a decent size rock >100mph a couple months ago at Inde.
BlackMK4 fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Aug 27, 2017 |
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Aug 27, 2017 06:53
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A little space to the sub straps should be ok- they are there to hold the lap belt down in place more so than to catch you by the inner thigh/crotch.
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Aug 27, 2017 07:11
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Don't use unknown origin shifters folks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iSyGxVMgmA Extra short throw baller shifter. 
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Aug 28, 2017 23:07
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Happens all the time with knock off Subaru shifters. especially when some genius decides to make an exact copy of a steel part out of aluminum.
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Aug 28, 2017 23:35
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Yeah, this was an aluminum one we got as part of a deal for some shift linkages. Broke right at the start of the threads and the broken piece showed signs of fatigue. Next shifter will be steel from a reputable brand. I didn't think anything of it because BMW linkages are aluminum, but they aren't threaded.
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Aug 29, 2017 01:19
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