Team Valley Motorwerks sweeps the podium!

#1

Valley Motorwerks cars swept the Podium in Sundays NASA event at Infineon Raceway.
Rookie Driver Carl Chiu was on pole with veteran Tommy Lo in the 2nd grid position. Carl had a family emergency so Kevin Borchers drove in his place. Tommy suffered a mechanical in qualifying and was not able to get a good run. Scott Neville qualified 3rd with the rest of the field close behind. There were epic battles throughout the entire race in all the classes in the race group and it showed on the cars afterwards. Most had some evidence of good hard close racing. Scott Clough’s bumper mounted camera was lost while bump drafting Adam Lazur ALL over the track… what stories that video camera would tell! Adam, Scott and Elliot Taylor were running hot and heavy together with no one giving any quarter. Elliot ran off track and did an awesome job chasing back up and get back into the mix. Ron Harness had an RX-7 steal the apex in turn 1. The RX-7 was carrying too much speed and checked up causing his rear to step out. Ron had to drive onto the dirt to avoid a bad accident. He was able to keep it going in a straight line and get back on track as a testament to his car control! I was in TT with our latest SpecE30 rental car and was able to run a 2.06 in a car fresh off the assembly line with a passenger. We should have it ready for Thunderhill in August.

The start!

#2

Sounds like some great racing! Scott, want to buy a roll cage camera mount? :slight_smile:

#3

Age wrote:

YOU are not allowed to part out your car… :stuck_out_tongue:

#4

Was it that obvious? :slight_smile:

I upgraded to Chasecam so have the extra IO Port mount. If I sell it to Scott C, I can get footage of my back bumper to check for roll.

#5

Nice A.J.

You just wait two more races after this weekend under my belt before you return, I’ll be mounting two cameras, one on the side to catch you as I go by and one facing backwards to watch you fall back. Well at least talk is cheap and easy. I personally can’t wait till you’re back racing.

Scott

#6

I think “bump drafting” assumes that the car in front is going fast enough to generate an aerodynamic advantage. I appreciated the speed assist, but I think I’d prefer having a transmission that would reliably go into 3rd gear when I wanted it to :wink:

#7

I would not call what went on as bump drafting either, more like uh oh he’s parked in front of me again under full acceleration with passing traffic on one or both sides, slam whoops! Sorry Adam. Not again! I’m sure after the fourth time and first time out of turn 2 which just so happened to be the hardest “bump” and when I lost the camera, punched the grill in, it was just get past already. All in all I had fun. Sorry again Adam.

Scott

#8

First, Paul and I want to thank Walter and Kevin for the fantastic support all weekend. Arrive and drive is freaking awesome, almost as awesome as battling Kevin on Sunday. Once again, it was a pleasure to race with you guys. Carl, we hope everything is OK. See you at the next event.

Just to let you guys in on a little secret, we have been testing the world’s first product set of Cobalt race pads for E30 in #37. The wear is phenomenal on both pads and rotors, they should last at least 25 hours…hint hint.

#9

Here’s another Kregg Miller photo of Sunday’s start:

#10

Thanks for asking, everything is fine now. Was a bit of a scare for my Dad and a trip to the ER.

Wish I could have been driving on Sunday - I had a feeling there would be good game on going and I felt a fight in my bones. Sounds like everyone had a good time, and it’s going to be a long wait before THill. I am going to need to do some track time and Karting or I am going freak out and need Adam to pick me up in his 80’s era ambulance.

Cheers,
Carl.

#11

Thanks Scott - you know I’m just goofing, you’re obviously getting to be a much faster and better driver and I appreciate the fun since I only get to “forum race” now…

Tommy / Scott / Kevin, nice work out there - sounds like some great racing and happy to see a different car/driver win (no slam on Donny/Carl/Kevin, you’re the class of the class and give the rest of us something to shoot for). Carl, glad to hear everything is ok on your end with your Dad.

A quick update on #93 for the group that’s interested - the body work is completed over at Evil Genius and John says it looks great, I have the motor out at my place and plan to do some maintenance items before next event - once it’s all back together will do a few track days in July/Aug to sort it out. I should be TT in August, probably not racing with you all til after Nationals. I may take it down to Willow Springs in Aug for TT since I am going to crew for the #98 E0 enduro car of Tim Bringman once again.

Big props to Steve K. (where are you?) came up HUGE with a donor car (a BLACK one no less!) Walter and Scott N. for all your support and assistance and willingness to help if I needed to do a parts swap or whatever. It’s one of the things that makes this series so great, and I really appreciate all your support. See you guys soon.

#12

My video from Saturday is up at http://vimeo.com/1271600

My camcorder turned itself off before the spin over T3 that should’ve been at the end :frowning:

I fixed the turning off thing (I think) by padding the battery so it doesn’t vibrate. I’ll try to upload sunday’s video of the race as well.

#13

Very cool to see the growth on the left coast.

Great race reports.

#14

That’s good news AJ… get back onto the saddle! While we were hard at work over the weekend I heard that Steve was in Monterey deep sea fishing… er uh working.

#15

I need the usual, who was in what car for what team on each day? Thanks.

#16

Elephant4 wrote:

Sat:
Brimstone - Donny Edwards
Valley Motorwerks - Kevin Borchers
Valley Motorwerks 2 - Paul Ko
Sun:
Brimstone - Elliott Taylor
Valley Motorwerks - Kevin Borchers
Valley Motorwerks 2 - Tommy Lo

#17

Hey Simon,

The course that we ran over the weekend was the Long Turn 7 version (7A on the map). You can click on the link for a blow-up of the map.

http://www.infineonraceway.com/images/facility_web.jpg

Cheers,
Scott Neville
#44 NorCal SpecE30

#18

I didn’t like the change. It broke up the flow from the exit of 6 through 8. I was wandering way out onto the steel plates looking for a fast way through… as it ends up just slow the car and get it pointed downhill, patience was the key.

#19

vmwerks wrote:

I totally agree with Walter…the standard Turn 7 is better IMO. Jerry Kunzman mentioned in the driver’s meeting that they toss a coin to see which configuration to run. I hope for the season finale in October we run the standard Turn 7. One of my goals this year is to join the sub 2-minute lap club. B) This was a great race weekend. The weather was perfect…and the air clean to breath (no wildfire smoke).

Cheers,
Scott Neville
#44 NorCal SpecE30

#20

Thanks guys.