Houston Regional – GrandSport Speedway
Last weekend we made the trip down to GrandSport Speedway to run with the Houston SCCA. Road course based autocrosses aren’t our favorite, but at this point we’re doing anything we can to get some good seat time! Both of us drove fairly well and ended up 2nd and 3rd in PAX, about a tenth of a second apart. I won’t go into the woes of the event, but neither of us got the official runs that we should have, so my fastest was my 1st run and Todd’s fastest was his 2nd! Nonetheless, it was a good event to get a feel for the car and after a week of reflection, it was good to go to, even if it was frustrating in the moment!
Fellow CP driver, Tony Espinosa was there running with Alan & Donna Bartling, along with Gene and Barbara Beaird. Todd and I ran X-Class in the afternoon, but these guys all had fun in 1st heat! Here’s a little video for Tony for your enjoyment!
I ended up standing on my 1st run; however I didn’t get any of the side camera on that one. My 3rd run, by Data Acquisition was my fastest (60.029), but unfortunately the timers didn’t pick it up! Since fast videos are always better, here it is!
Todd’s fastest run was officially a 60.009. By data acquisition it was 60.032 for comparison against my run. Too bad data doesn’t count!
Both of us felt the car had better runs in it and you can see that from our driving and most of all from the data!
2015 Lincoln ProSolo and Spring Nationals!
Well this post is very late, but doesn’t mean it’ll be lacking for some good stories! About 2 weeks ago, we made the long trek up to Lincoln to do a double header – the ProSolo (a first in the Camaro) and the Championship tour.
For those who aren’t familiar, ProSolo is a hybrid of autocrossing and drag racing. It’s an event we’ve not attempted in the past it is VERY unfriendly to Prepared cars. The main reason is the launch. You have a burnout box and then a drag strip style launch. This isn’t very kind to small clutches like we run. The other is that since so few Prepared cars run it, you get lumped into a catch-all class with other cars. With our big slicks, they take a few runs to come up to pressure, while the smaller car/tire guys can be hot after only 1 run. This means fewer competitive laps.
Nonetheless, the Camaro performed flawlessly during the Pro! It was Todd and I who didn’t, ending up 7th and 9th in R2 respectively! Even then, we had a blast. We ran a set of well-used bias-ply tires, so we weren’t in any way planning to challenge for the win. The goal of the Pro was #1 – don’t break the car, #2 get some seat time, and #3 have fun! I would say that we accomplished all 3! I have lots of video from the Pro, but the most entertaining have to be Session 1 for both Todd and I. Getting used to the tree and how a Pro works, was just entertaining. (more…)
Texas A&M Spring Autocross 4 – 1st and 3rd in PAX!
Following up on our success at the College Station Tour, we took the Camaro out for some more seat time at a local Texas A&M Sports Car Club event. The course was a blast, put together by Ricky Crow of SASCA. It followed the Tour course basic shape, but added some additional technical elements which were both fun and challenging.
The car performed really well with no adjustments needed other than watching tire pressures. The gear change we made after the Tour worked out really well, putting the motor up in the powerband a lot more which made the car a lot more responsive.
Todd took the win over me by 0.6 seconds. I was followed by Wayne Atkins, Chris Cargill, and Tony Espinosa who all made the trip to get some seat time on concrete!
My best run. Felt really good, but didn’t go as aggressive as I could have since I’d coned and DNF’d 2 prior runs.
Todd’s 3rd and 4th runs. You can really see Todd getting his elbows up which we all give him hell for!
After our runs were done, we started swapping rides. Wayne took a run in our Camaro and had a blast. Unfortunately I forgot to turn on the camera for that! After that, Todd and I took runs in Tony’s cars. Our runs are mixed together in the video above. Sorry about the brake lockup Tony!
An unfortunate casualty of the weekend was our front splitter. The bumps at the Annex were taken at high speed and in corners which finally took out one corner of the splitter. A chunk of concrete left behind by another car took care of the middle… We’re looking into alternate materials, but for the time being will be cutting a replacement for Spring Nationals. Hopefully it lasts through that weekend!
We have a little work to finish up before Spring Nationals. Stay tuned for more information in a few weeks!
Drive TV – Sand Bullitt
I had to smile when I came across this in the Drive TV feed on YouTube.
A beautiful replica in an unexpected place. It has a lot of the same features as my own ’67 Mustang! Enjoy!
Accelerate
This was too cool not to share!
Originally spotted at Autoblog.
College Station Championship Tour Report!
What an event! With only 1 event on the car in the dry, we didn’t expect to be at the top of our game, but things turned out pretty well!
The event had some stiff competition. Like in years past, Robert and Tracy Lewis made the trip all the way from Florida to come race with us. Having a top competitor like Robert come to the event is great for us since it gives us a yardstick for how prepared we are for Nationals. Robert was also showing off his killer new fender extensions on his Mustang, I need a set for my ’67! (more…)
It’s April Already? Splitter, Goodyear Radials, and National Tour testing!
Wow, time flies when you aren’t racing! After a slow start to the year with only one event in the bag, we finally got to do some dry weather racing. With the College Station leg of the SCCA’s Championship Tour coming up, we had to get some testing in. In the run-up to that though, I wanted to cross another project off our to-do list and that was installing a CP legal front splitter.
Per the rules, you can install a front splitter, but it cannot extend past the shadow of the front bumper, nor can it extend rearward past the front of the wheel well. Thanks to some excellent advice from Neil Roberts of Think Fast Engineering and author of Think Fast Book we had some good tips to start with.
Neil often writes for NASA’s Speed News magazine. December 2013’s issue has some great aero tips. While we didn’t follow everything to the letter (more on that in a minute), the article has some good guidance to getting started. (more…)
eGarage : Monterey Motorsports Reunion
I’m sure some of you have already seen this, but for those who haven’t, enjoy!!
Daytona Coupe Nose Job
One project which I haven’t featured much recently is my Dad’s Factory Five Type 65 Coupe. He’s been making steady progress on it and a few weeks ago I came by and assisted with a few projects that required an extra hand.
It took a bit of work, but we finally got it mounted in a rough state!
The whole hood tips forward on these sliding brackets which use rod ends for adjustment. Nothing in a kit car is ever “bolt-on”. As my Dad likes to say, everything “almost fits”. In this case, even though these pieces all fit fine, some adjustment will be needed.
As you can see, the mounts have the hood misaligned front to back. We could get one side to line up, but then the other would be off by 3/8″. Likely what we’ll have to do is break the gussets at the front hood mounts, bend them outward to get the hood aligned and then re-weld. Not horrible, but annoying.
The second project was hoisting the differential into place for mockup and driveline angle measurements. This is a Ford aluminum 8.8 IRS chunk. You’d think being aluminum it’d be light, but you’d be wrong! Monkeying this thing into place was not fun, but was a necessary step to getting some critical measurements and parts ordered.
My Uncle sent my Dad some garage decor. Fitting don’t you think?
No work to see here, but just a cool part to share. This is a variable fan speed controller. Rather than running the cooling fans at a fixed speed, it’ll let you ramp them up or down as the need dictates. Pretty cool!
It was a short workday, but got a lot done. Can’t wait to get this thing on the road!
Cold and Rainy Shakedown
February is shaping up to be a frustrating month! The first two TAMSCC events were forecast for rain so we didn’t really get the car ready in time and the weather was perfect. Then, we make the trip to Austin to run with Spokes at COTA and it rains!
You’d think that after doing this for almost 15 years I’d learn to dress a little better for 50 degrees and rain…
Todd even washed the car for the event! It didn’t matter though with the muck. Not that our lack of flares or a rear window were going to help in the looks department… We didn’t run the data logger at the event due to the rain, but I did try out a new mount for the ReplayXD.
Using a Go-Pro suction cup and a 3D printed adapter, it worked out pretty well!
The course was short but fun. The rain made throttle control a major factor!
One of the goals was to put the camera on the rear tire and see how much the sidewall deflects. We’ve currently got spacers on the rear axle as we thought the tire would deflect and rub on the trailing arms. From the video though, the sidewalls hardly move at all (the door was flexing a lot which causes some of the motion in the video) so we’re hoping we can remove the spacers! The above isn’t all a single continuous run, but sure looks like it, doesn’t it?
At the end of the day we ended up in 12th and 15th positions for Todd and I respectively in the X-Class. Not really the result we were hoping for, but the car worked pretty well and nothing broke, so we’re going to call this one a success!
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