Pit Bull Brawl Smack Talk Thread

#81

Steve, thats funny, if you were wondering why there were two splitters in the exact same spot, the other one was mine from February. :wink:

#82

Speaking of splitters, mine is probably still buried in the T3 tire wall from February. The Beast must be fed, I guess!

#83

Steve D wrote:

[quote]

PS - IndyJim’s prediction finally came true. I left my splitter somewhere buried in the sand/gravel on the outside of the Caroussel. I miss the downforce, but the car is much easier to load on the trailer now. :blink:[/quote]

::laugh: :silly: :laugh: :blink: :dry:

Been there done that… I’m on spoiler #3 (or is it 4)

#84

My motor is hosed, my windshield is smashed, I crunched some sheetmetal for the first time…

Friday 3hr enduro. Lots of fun, but I was rusty and slow. And there were some oil pressure problems that were worrisome. 28psi @ red line. I was running out of traction in front for the last hour of the race. We would see later that I had one front almost corded and the other front corded so bad that we were almost thru the first layer. Hmm. Guess I should have put on better Ebay tires.

Saturday Qualification. Desparately hoping my low oil pressure problem wasn’t caused by bad bearings, I changed my oil to something really thick and swapped out my oil filter. Oil pressure improved a bit but I was still frustrated about being 3sec off my old times. But each time I pushed the envelope and tried to take turns harder, my rear end would get out from under me. Grumble grumble.

Burning thru 2 tires at the enduro had been unexpected, and a 3rd tire ended up being flat, so I was low on tires.

Saturday race. I had the greatest start of my life. Everyone just seemed to be asleep at the switch and I caught the green flag just right, an opening appeared in front of me and I roared thru the pack. I must have passed 6 people by the time we got thru turn1. It was glorious.

10min later, to my surprise, my rear end got out from under me on the exit of turn 1 and I went flying off of the track into the infield. There were a lot of spectators along the cyclone fence and they went running off in terror. The big sand trap slowed me down in a hurry. Fortunately I didn’t get stuck and I roared back out to the track.

A couple minutes later I spun on turn 12, and that too was a surprise. In both cases the rear end started going out from under me altho I really wasn’t asking that much of it. It should have stuck. I then did a perfectly competant correction to tuck it back in, and then I was backwards. Was irksome.

5min later I was hauling ass trying to catch back up to everyone and my rear end got out from under me on turn 8. I did a good correction that, once again, didn’t work worth a shit and next thing I know I was headed across the track towards a tire wall at 80mph. Backwards, of course. The tire wall was approaching in my rear view mirror godawful fast. I was so screwed. I pressed my helmet back against my seat, clenched my teeth together and thought, “God don’t let my car get all smashed up”. Here comes the tires, here comes the tires and WHAM.

No. Not really a WHAM. It was more of a “bink”. My tense shoulders sagged with relief.

I figured that after 3 spins, God was telling me to call it a day. So I started driving towards the tower, in the grass, backwards. Which is when BillZ lost it on 8 and ended in the outside dirt fighting to stay in control.

The geometry of the situation was clear. If Bill lost it, he was going to plow into me. I hit the gas to get out of the way (backwards) faster, but that just caused dirt and grass to spray. So I started sending Bill warm thoughts “Come on Bill, hold it together, hold it together”. And just when it was looking like he was going to launch across the track into me, he got it together and roared by. With my best wishes, I might add.

I did bend some sheetmetal, but not much. I went to the ambulance and got a bandaid for it.

After those inexplicable spins I checked my rear tires with a durometer and it turns out that my rear Ebay tires were 20% harder then my front Ebay tires. Not good.

My oil (50W + STP) pressure was 35psi@ redline. Also not good.

Saturday night a big storm blew in. My EZ-Up, was blown over with such force that it’s corner smashed my windshield glass. Dang. That windshield didn’t last long.

Sunday’s qual. I did awful. I was slow because I was rusty and my tires sucked. And I was slow because yesterday’s spins had sapped my courage. Every time I hit the brakes to set my turn entry speed, I was thinking of the previous day’s spins. But I did put both of my crappiest tires on the same side of the car. That way my traction issues would at least be predictable.

I was able to work myself up from 3 secs slow to 4 secs slow.

Sunday’s race. They started the Miata’s right behind us and I was tail end charlie of the E30’s. Folks got tied up at turn 1 and I got by someone. Then there was some chaos in the turn 4-7 complex and I used it to get by another car or two. Fred and I then raced fiercely against each other for about 4 laps or so. We battled our hearts out turn after turn. Goddamn it was fun. He got ahead of me, by cheating of course, but I had a good turn 8 and I roared thru the kink with balls of steel, held it together and came up abreast of him on the inside. We were heading into turn 11 side by side, both trying hard to come up with some way to take the turn that would defeat the other.

Then, I think simultainiously, we both exclaimed “F*******K!” as we saw 10’ worth of Johann’s exhaust system sitting on the track right in the middle of turn 11. I had room to get by on the inside but Fred was screwed. Fred reacted by tapping the brakes early and tucking in behind me. I reacted by howling with laughter. That exhaust system peeled Fred off of me just perfectly. I was still chortling over this when I exited the turn backwards into the grass.

Shit.

I got back on the track and hauled ass after the pack. I was pushing as hard as I dared but my lap times were sucky, and I was also noticing that my oil pressure was falling again. When it started peaking at 15psi@ red line, I decided to call it a day. I figured that it was going to be a hell of a lot harder to rebuild and swap out motors if I blew up the engine and therefore couldn’t move the car.

It was great to see everyone again. I sure missed y’all. Johann paddocked next to Fred and I so we got to hang out with him more then usual.

Nobody brought girlfriends for us to leer at, and that was a problem. And every single mofo-left my ass when the storm blew in. There I was in the howling rain getting soaked holding down Fred’s EZ-Up, and watching all the SpecE30 trucks race off over the horizon. Pussies.

I’ll be working on my motor every night for a while. I am learning a lot, but they are expensive lessons. Sigh.

#85

Steve D wrote:

[quote]Short version:

Saturday. Qual 5th, DNF thanks to a 944 in the Caroussel. http://www.vimeo.com/4465528
[/quote]

ugh, that really sucks! that guy was really hosing up the race with patton, you, and jones…then he took you out of it completely… :frowning:

i lobbied as hard as i could to get us in front of that group at the start…

#86

On the TV coverage of the VIR grand Am, they showed a BMW DP car loose its splitter several times, doing the agricultural thing…

Ranger, I was on the fence at 1…good work!

Al

#87

Is it true that “Ranger” impersonated “The Gasman” at the podium of love? :wink:

#88

Ranger wrote:

[quote] He got ahead of me, by cheating of course, but I had a good turn 8 and I roared thru the kink with balls of steel, held it together and came up abreast of him on the inside. We were heading into turn 11 side by side, both trying hard to come up with some way to take the turn that would defeat the other.

Then, I think simultainiously, we both exclaimed “F*******K!” as we saw 10’ worth of Johann’s exhaust system sitting on the track right in the middle of turn 11. I had room to get by on the inside but Fred was screwed. Fred reacted by tapping the brakes early and tucking in behind me. I reacted by howling with laughter. That exhaust system peeled Fred off of me just perfectly. I was still chortling over this when I exited the turn backwards into the grass.
[/quote]

Serves you right. I’m pretty sure that was an illegal pick. Oh wait, that’s basketball…

#89

Steve D wrote:

[quote]Short version:

Saturday. Qual 5th, DNF thanks to a 944 in the Caroussel. http://www.vimeo.com/4465528

:[/quote]

That does suck…Do you have any more video from the weekend?

Anyone else? I’m a spec e30 video junky.

Don

#90

Steve D wrote:

[quote]Short version:

Saturday. Qual 5th, DNF thanks to a 944 in the Caroussel. http://www.vimeo.com/4465528

The hit was in front of, on, and behind the rear wheel. Bent the rim (and probably the trailing arm) but we were able to get it down to 1/8" toed out, so I stayed for Sunday. Oh yeah. Jones also got hit by the 944 when he took evasive action to the outside.
[/quote]

Update: Yesterday I received a check for the damage from the 944 driver (Jon Gearhart). In spite of my childish cussing/shouting at him in the paddock (“That was the dumbest God d@#n thing I’ve ever seen on a race track! You should lose your f*cking license!!”) after the incident (followed later by my apology for acting like an a$$hole – and a request for him to pay for the damage), Mr. Gearhart followed up with me by telephone and reminded me to get him some figures for the damage.

98% of club racers would probably have told me to pound sand, 1% would handle it like he did, and the other 1% would have out-roided my roid rage and put my silly a$$ in the hospital.

I just thought his gesture was such a nice display of sportsmanship, I had to share it.

Steve D.

PS - I raced against him in his red 944 at RA and he is wicked fast on the straights. I now know to give him a bit more room in the twisty bits.

#91

For the record I would have told you to pound sand.

And Jones would have 'roided out.

FYI

#92

IndyJim wrote:

[quote]For the record I would have told you to pound sand.

And Jones would have 'roided out.

FYI[/quote]

:laugh: Maybe we should form a team: “Two Percent Racing”

#93

By the way, the comic relief after that incident was provided by Jones. I offered to show Gearhart where he hit Jones and neither of us could pick out a “new” dent. BeerTech paint scheme FTW.

#94

FTW indeed. Body work is the kiss of death!