West Coast Championships

#21

[quote=“NCFMike” post=79021]Rob,
I finished 4th on track and refused the inspection. After leading every session all weekend then getting knocked off track on lap 1 turn 2 of the Sunday race. I caught back up to the leaders then was knocked off track again while passing for First place. My fuel line was cut and my suspension bent, so i limped around to a 4th place. So when i came in to weigh i was 2688… so 12lbs underweight due to leaking fuel the entire race. Im 25 years old and don’t have the funds to rebuild my entire motor. The inspection they were having us do(since i was underweight not sure why they wanted to tech me), had us pull the head, 1 piston, intake manifold, take apart the entire rear differential. So in order to put it back together you have to rebuild the entire motor. This is after i passed the dyno test as well. I left my car in tech until i found out that the cars in-front of me passed. I know it never looks good to decline a tech, but in my case i just cant afford the $$$ to do it unless i won and got the $4k from toyo. So i was ready to pull it for first place, but i would be left with a car in parts as i don’t know how to put it back together myself.[/quote]

Nice run out there Mike! Too bad about the incidents. Did you fill out any incident reports? If so, what was the outcome?

#22

Congrats to Larry Fraser! That old fucker can wheel! Him and I had some back and force during the East Coast Nationals. Well done Larry! :woohoo:

#23

Darned if Edmonds and I agree, again.
Ranger,too.

Just how did this get off topic?

Thread hi-jack complete. Back to the subject, West Coast Nationals and good race stories.

Got any?

Congratulations to Larry for a great weekend!

RP

#24

There were 4 of us from the East Coast - Mark Issa, Ken Bains, AR Hoshmandy and myself. It was a great experience to come out to the other part of the country and meet the same kind of people you would meet at this point, anywhere in the US that share the same love for SE30. The track is very challenging, very technical, very unforgiven, very little room for error. The competition is fierce and a lot more serious over there, I feel that here in the East Coast we are more focused on making sure the cars are legal or just geeking out on what’s the best part to work with, over there they are really trying to make sure their cars are more competitive within the rule book. For example, the valves, their thought - they are not legal so why would you do that if it doesn’t give you an advantage, machine all the rods to be perfectly balanced instead! - Listen, this is just my perception from talking to a lot of guys out there and getting their opinions, not my own since I don’t know shit about what’s legal and what’s not. I rely on Zintars for that stuff.
Have to give a shout out to our Racing Director Shawn Maze, he ran a tight ship while being super cool! that is really hard to do.

Now, to my personal experience: This whole thing started when Ken Bains was pushing the issue of us going out there to race, I said, no way man, we have Daytona the weekend before, it’s a logistical nightmare, with no room for error, but we decided to go forward with it. Our truck broke down in El Paso, and we lost half a day, regardless it made it Wednesday night and was received by Shawn and Steve Stepanian, at that point our non English speaking driver was confused to be received by such enthusiasm, lol! The next day, we went out for test and tune and I had a radiator leak, came in and Shawn swapped it in about 4 minutes and 20 seconds :slight_smile: Went out for the second session, trying to learn the track, my brakes locked up and ended up in the wall, came in an JP and Larry Fraser changed my control arm in about 15 minutes, got me to their shop and aligned it. I was getting used to the ABS acting up for the only clean session that I ran that day, when I decided to pull the fuse for Qualy on Friday, which made the bias act in a different manner, now locking up the front left, rather than the front right, so I ended up in the wall with another bent control arm and a broken tie rod + my trunk bent about 8 inches :laugh: :laugh:
Decided to rent a car for the race, it felt very different than mine, but I drove it like I had been driving it for months :dry: in a track that I had only done one previous session :ohmy: not the best decision, so I went too deep into T7 and made contact with the NorCal director :sick: I finished 16th from 30th but started from the back on Saturday as well, finished 17th on a 22 minute race, and was really happy about it. Sunday, I started 28th and in the first lap going to the braking zone and the brake pedal went to the floor (brake bias valve seal failed), I jammed it on 2nd gear and turned the steering wheel all the way to the right, slowed down some and hit the tire wall, not crazy damage to the car, the frame rails didn’t get bent, and I was 100% ok, but I have never been this sad at any track in my life. Now that I think about it, I’ve never been any sad at the track… ever. I’ve been hungover which causes depression… but not sad :frowning: just an all around bad situation, mainly because it was not my car, and the guy renting it to me was wanting to sell it, super, super nice fellow named Dan Riley, very helpful, and excited that the car had performed as well as it did friday and saturday. Anyway, we are going to get it fixed and hopefully will sell quick.
An all around great experience, learned a couple of things about getting these cars more competitive, which I’ll share with you all in December. Great group of guys, extremely helpful and knowledgeable. All with that California attitude of sunshine! I can’t wait to do it again next year at Laguna Seca. Thank you ALL for your support and help, specially Shawn Maze and Steve Stepanian, you guys rock :slight_smile:

#25

Sandro, now that’s a story!

RP

#26

WTG Sandro for writing up the story. Now we have to get Ken, Mark and AR to do a write up too.

#27

Hey Sandro, you forgot the part where I slipped by you on the final turn of the GTS1 race. :whistle:

Just kidding, good to meet you bro! Had a ton of fun in that race.

#28

BTW - Larry, JP, Mike and Brad can wheel the hell out of a SE30, daaaaang! Congrats to Larry “El Chapo” Fraser for a win well deserved, the guy works his ass off trying to get everything out of his car, resourceful as hell and very friendly :dry:

Also, thanks to Brad for providing a mobile frame machine :laugh:

#29

[attachment=2070]10599296_10152878790893653_8057131313582945651_n.jpg[/attachment]

#30

Sandro,

I was great meeting you and the other East Coasters. Me and a few of the other West Coasters watched your Road Atlanta race…your drive was epic! One of the best in-car racing videos ever!

Unfortunately you and I had a secondary meeting of sheet metal in Friday’s race. I very much appreciated your attitude about the contact we had. You’re a stand-up guy for sure.

Sonoma is a hard track to learn and it will bite you hard in several spots. Turn 10 especially as we have had several SE30s over the years instantly turned into a “yard sale” of parts there. Turn 3A is unforgiving too…as you found out the hard way.

Luckily we had great weather for the weekend…a wet race would have been a whole new adventure as you can imagine.

I hope we meet again…maybe Laguna Seca in 2015?

Glad you had a good time despite the “car”nage.

Cheers,
Scott Neville

#31

Here are some pictures of the awesome BBQ we had on Saturday night. https://www.flickr.com/photos/68220092@N06/sets/72157648817396177/
It was great to see all of our racers, but we missed Sandro and his buddies especially the Tequila he was suppose to bring LOL. Overall it was a great weekend. I got DQ’ed for a allegedly non OEM Valve guide. I tested on the TFB dyno at 156HP. Now I just hope I can head my head back from NASA. They can keep the guides, but not the head in my opinion.

Congrate to Larry for the win. He definitively put in a ton of effort this season with testing, racing and building multiple cars.

Cheers

Brad

#32

[quote=“BTM” post=79046]Here are some pictures of the awesome BBQ we had on Saturday night. https://www.flickr.com/photos/68220092@N06/sets/72157648817396177/
It was great to see all of our racers, but we missed Sandro and his buddies especially the Tequila he was suppose to bring LOL. Overall it was a great weekend. I got DQ’ed for a allegedly non OEM Valve guide. I tested on the TFB dyno at 156HP. Now I just hope I can head my head back from NASA. They can keep the guides, but not the head in my opinion.

Congrate to Larry for the win. He definitively put in a ton of effort this season with testing, racing and building multiple cars.

Cheers

Brad[/quote]

Brad, both you and Ray did an amazing job with the BBQ and the T-shirts. It was one of the best get togethers we have had in a long time and really a highlight of the weekend. Crazy in that the evening felt like a springtime event at Thunderhill rather than November at Sonoma (global warming is a good thing right? Besides we all know that chicks dig guys with big carbon footprints B) ).

The video projector was great to have as well…thanks to Larry Moore for bringing and operating the video gear. I’m still laughing at the video of Dan Riley’s Turn 11 tire wall “event” from last year.

Cheers,
Scott

#33

I did fill out an body contact report, but after watching my videos I agree with the officials that the contact was a racing incident. I will post the video sometime this week!

#34

Event photos are up from the official track photographer HeadOnPhotos. Here is the Group C link: http://headonphotos.net/gallery/NASA/NASAWC14/Group%20C/index.html

#35

Hey everyone, my car is for sale by the way, already fixed the fuel line and fixing the suspension tomo! The car won every race all weekend except the one that mattered. Mental mistakes by the driver are what stopped this completely legal rocket from having a real good shot at winning that weekend!

#36

From Walter Ford of Kontrolle Engineering:

My one and only message regarding SE30 rules for HP etc…

First off THANK YOU to the entire NASA crew for putting on a great show. Things went smoothly and when you’re herding cats, it’s no small task. I really enjoyed holding the BBQ for the guys on Thursday evening. As most of you all know I started the SE30 series in NorCal in 2006, at that time I was hoping to have 10 cars to run around and have fun with. With Scott Neville and Donny Edwards we were able to build a series that IMHO ranks among the hottest in NorCal.

I met Shawn Meze on Thursday and had an interesting conversation regarding engines, valves etc. I am, and always will be, an adherer to the rules. We DO NOT USE ANY parts, or process’s that are illegal in our engines, PERIOD. However you can always pass a rule that makes an engine or component illegal after the fact which is what happened here. A rules change or update must have a primary driver. That primary driver is either ambiguity or to solve a problem. There was no ambiguity with respect to the engine restrictions / rules. We ONLY use OEM or OEM equivalent parts, no funny valves, port matching or extrude honing. These are all things we’ve found when a customer brings us a motor built by someone other than us. I was told by Mr. Meze that the illegal back-cut valves were being allowed. When I objected pointing out that the rules specifically forbade it he responded by saying that “we all use them”. Not true, we have NEVER USED any valve other than an OEM valve from BMW directly. If we all ran 225/45r15’s would they turn a blind eye? And even if it were true how does that make it right?

A choice needs to be made SpecE30, it is either a rules or dyno series. You cannot be both – EVERYONE made the dyno requirements that were torn down. How is this fair? The rules say build an engine within this rule set and the rule of thumb is the dyno. So why the teardown? What was the reason for it? All you do is prove that despite some VERY MINOR errors in builds none of them resulted in an increase of performance.

Engines are no different than chassis. Over time they get tweaked and prodded, improved and perfected. If the engine is illegal because I developed it over 6 or more years then everyone’s chassis is also illegal.

Scott Neville asked why we were not going to pay for trophies anymore, or even contingency dollars. It’s a simple business decision, the engine ruling cost me a lot of money. I cannot continue to spend hand over fist supporting a series that does not support me as a vendor in return. In SoCal I helped bootstrap the series, they had a shop involved which boosted their numbers. It was clear to me years ago that support of that nature is REQUIRED for a good vibrant series. Here in NorCal we have other shops now supporting it. If they all went away overnight the series would soon follow. I can go away with little to no effect and I am actually proud of that as the defacto founder.

NASA – Scott Neville, Will Faules, Shawn Meze, Jeff Mohler, et al have the BEST interest of the series in mind. My point of contention is the lack of care – at least to me – that is given to the needs and wants of the competitors. I challenged Shawn to give me ANY car in the field and I’d put a driver behind the wheel who would end up on the podium. He agreed that the driver makes the difference. We do all agree on the basic tenants of safe and fair competition. Where we do not agree is on how to insure that it stays that way.

The top ten drivers will always be in the top ten. You cannot regulate good hard work out of a series. That is how they get there, there is NO other way to do it. The top guys work the hardest, practice the most and develop ther chassis’s the best.

#37

Shawn, is this your recollection of the conversation or is there commo confusion?

Maybe Shawn was describing “shiny” valves not back-cut valves? That is to say, no removal of material, just a different finish applied by the mfr.

#38

I thought the tear down was based on a protest by another racer and would be at the expense of whoever was wrong (owner of the car if illegal, protester if not). Or is that a different organizations rules that I’m thinking of?

#39

CCR 17.2: "Tech inspectors have the right to inspect anything at any time for any reason."
SE30 rules: "…may elect to inspect any component of a suspect engine…

So, CCR clearly says it can be done, but SE30 rules would seem to give hope that dyno is primary, and teardown will only be done for a suspect engine.

Cliff

#40

[quote=“Tow Mater” post=79028] And the details around a DQ are not really all that secret once results are finalized.
[/quote]

I didn’t realize it was so easy to get official details on the DQs - could you share them, please, as well as the process for obtaining them? As a MidWest racer, all I’ve seen so far are comments posted here, so official details would be welcome and perhaps educational. Most of the championship DQs I’ve heard about seem fairly clear, but there seem to be different takes on the allegedly noncompliant valve(s) - either back cutting or just a different appearance. Perhaps we’re talking about separate occurrences?

Thanks,
Cliff