NASA MA at VIR

#21

Great.

I heard that the rain should hold off until late Saturday and probably won’t hit until the evening.

Carter

ps. I’m taking my rains anyway…

#22

The rain doesn’t scare me, but my other weekend commitments do. Gotta cancel. Pole position is now up for grabs. Have fun and stay safe out there :evil:

-Vic
SO #325

#23

Saturday’s race from the yellow car…

Carlton was on the pole with a low 1:47 and Chris and I were 1/10th of a second apart at about a 1:48.8…and Brain was between us!

Mike Davidson and others were within a tenth or two as well, just behind us.

We were all gridded together, with the four Sports Racers and the 944Cup cars doing a rolling start behind our standing start. When the green flag dropped, Carlton stalled the engine and Chris got his normal good start, from second place, and led us down to turn one. Mike Davidson shot by me (although I got a fairly good start) like I was sitting still and moved into third behind Brain who had successfully swerved around Carlton at the start.

I was forth on the grid and was still in forth, having made it past the stalled Carlton but having lost a position to Mike.

Brandon Smith was running very strong in 5th but went off at turn two on the second lap and thankfully stopped just short of the guardrail. Whew!

After a couple of laps, I got a good run on Mike and out-braked him at turn one, to the inside. Mike gave room and made a good try to get me back on the exit but I was able to keep the left side of the track and made the pass stick, going into turn three, a left hander. About 6 turns later, Mike had a good run on me but a yellow flag balked his pass. After this I was able to pull out some distance and concentrate on catching Brain and Chris, who were battling hard for the lead. As they slowed each other, I was able to get up to Brain’s rear bumper a couple of times. However, Brain and Chris never made any major mistakes (neither did I) and we finished with Chis taking the win, Brain in second, me in third, and Mike driving to a clean, and well-deserved forth.

Also, early in the race, Mike slowed a little coming off a turn (or I just got a good run) and during acceleration, I nudged his rear bumper with my front bumper. No body damage occured. And if someone slightly nudges my bumper under acceleration and causes no damage, there won’t be a penalty in that situation.

However, just for the record, if I ever cause body damage to another Spec E30 car, I will ask the Spec E30 drivers to pull a name from a hat (I won’t know who it is) and he will determine what the penalty will be, and I will agree to it.

But getting back to the race, Carlton ran some really fast laps and was catching us until a quick spin ended his chances of catching the leaders. Al Taylor turned some fast laps too and thankfully had a new front wheel bearing in his inventory. With some help from JMT Track Cars, I swapped my howling right front bearing between qualifying and the race.

Ken (just completed Comp School yesterday) was disappointed with his qualifying session but was pleased to have run some quicker race laps with Spec E30 rookie Dan Smith. Scott Ferguson was back, after getting his car repaired since Summit Point. It was good to see David Herrington back at the track and Steve K raced hard and continues to lower his lap times.

All-in-all, it was a good race throughout the Spec E30 field and as usual, several spectators who are not associated with Spec E30, commented about how exciting the race has been. Evidently, some of the other drivers are getting to know our cars and are enjoying the show.

I hope some of the other drivers will post with their experiences this weekend at VIR.

Carter

#24

I had a blast this weekend and I’m officially going to nationals with 6 races with points. Saturday’s race was alot of fun and I really got to calm down and run some clean laps behind carter watching brain and cobetto duke it out for first and second. In sunday’s race I qualified 3rd but I was late to grid and had to start in the back of the pack. After gaining 4 positions on the start I put 3 wheels off in turn one and had to regain the 4 positions I just gained from the start. :silly: After battling al and scotty for a couple of laps I went into turn 7 and pushed the breaks to the floor and had nothing. It turns out all my brake fluid had leaked out sometime during the race. I then just tried to finish the race and not get in the way of the rest of the field. Nationals is going to be a blast!

#25

Great writeup. Sounds like it was a blast!

Carter wrote:

Carter,
This is not a logical solution, and is a very strange twist on "modified 13/13." Why don’t you let an experienced organization, such as the good NASA folks handle these calls? They have already set a penalty process up that is clearly defined in the official NASA CCR.

The Spec E30 rules for car preparation have stayed consistent, which has been a great selling point for our series. Let’s please keep it the same with the rules as they apply to the drivers!

-Vic

#26

MikeD wrote:

[quote]It turns out all my brake fluid had leaked out sometime during the race.[/quote] So that’s what was dumping out of your car down the bridge straight between 6 and 7. :huh:

I’ll post thoughts and videos soon…

suffice it to say, leaving the stock exhaust and cat intact means that everyone else will pull away from you like you’re walking. (And after 21 heat cycles, chuck your RA-1s in the circular file – mine had 31 by the end of the day on Sunday and were like bricks.)

#27

sharkd wrote:[quote]
suffice it to say, leaving the stock exhaust and cat intact means that everyone else will pull away from you like you’re walking.[/quote]
Hmmmmm, it would never happen because of the (much appreciated) stability in the SpecE30 rules, but it would be nice to make DME software legal for cars where the owner/driver has left the full factory exhaust system on the car (cats & everything). That would even the power issue out quite nicely.

Post edited by: mrussell, at: 2006/07/31 09:54

#28

mrussell wrote:

Nah, it’s much easier to just pull the stock exhaust (I’ve got the parts, I just didn’t have time) than to police DMEs.

Post edited by: sharkd, at: 2006/07/31 11:42

#29

MikeD wrote:

Well, that must have been fun…which one was still on the track??? B)

#30

nasaregistrar wrote:

[quote]MikeD wrote:

Well, that must have been fun…which one was still on the track??? B)[/quote]

RF – you can see it in my video.

#31

In-car videos from #59.

Saturday’s race: Started 11th, finished 12th. I blew the start, mis-judged the room I had to go around Carlton on the right and then bore witness to an amazing grass pass when Carlton pushed the power to pass button between turn 6a and the bridge. After catching up to Ken’s orange E30 and some pretty good racing for 11th place between the two rookies I got caught behind the tow truck, twice.

At the 8:22 mark in the video, you can see the black and green 944 drop its exhaust pipe in the passing line of turn 1.

At the 13:45 mark, pushing too hard, with extremely old RA-1s, I blew the first apex in Hogpen, pushed out onto the curbing, the fronts hooked up and I snapped in towards the guardrail, corrected the skid, but held it too long, tank slapped it to the right and put both feet in as I went off to the outside of 17a. :pinch:

Quicktime:

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Google Video ([color=red]now live[/color]):

click image to play

Sunday’s race: started 11th, finished 6th(?) due to attrition.

A much better start - I got the jump on Al, who missed a shift, and began to pull on Scott Ferguson, until he hit the powerband and my asthmatic exhaust choked the engine. While I could keep the pace through the turns, when flat on the throttle, the other cars just walked away from me. A much cleaner, smoother race on my part, I had to tiptoe through Hogpen to avoid the 31 heat-cycle RA-1s from sliding off.

At the 10:55 mark, you can see Mike Davidson spilling brake fluid down the inside of turn 7 (which is unfortunate, given Team Davidson’s wheel bearing change less than an hour before.

A couple of interesting passes by 944s, including a pass under yellow in turn 4 by the orange 944 (16:25) and my 4-wheel grass cut into rollercoaster (17:10), in order to keep up my momentum while rejoining the main track.

Widescreen Quicktime:

click image to play

Google Video:

click image to play

Post edited by: sharkd, at: 2006/08/01 09:07

Post edited by: sharkd, at: 2006/08/01 19:19

#32

Dan

I have plenty of "i" downpipes, $35 a set, you can install these on you car and have the local muffler shop mate them to your system, or build a nice 2 into one open system from these pipes, that way you can keep your Cat in case you evver need it.

Al

#33

BTW, I uploaded the group shots from Sunday into the Photo Galleries, as well as a few racing shots.