Anyone close to VIR should come out and support your fellow FD's! Fritz and I will be there Friday-Sunday. GRM UTCC on Friday and NASA Time Trial on Saturday and Sunday. This will be my last time at a VIR most likely for a long time... going out with a bang!

 

Any update on if you two won?

 

Not sure what you are asking? Fritz and I both received official invites to the event. The event is on Friday. I assure you, neither one of us will be the overall winner. There will be some really REALLY nice machinery there with some ringers driving them. I saw a 700hp superlite on the roster as well as a Riley. Fritz and are are just trying to run some respectable times for the RX-7... and look good in the magazine

 

Good luck again guys, do us proud! Also, keep a watchful eye on those temp gauges this weekend!

 

Thanks Matt!

 

I guess the invite is a win...the results of our votes

 

 

Congrats man, AWESOME

 

Nice! Congrats.

 

AIRBORNE

 

Nice! Can't wait to hear the full story and read the write-up in the magazine!

 

Hi Matt,
WILD and crazy event. Incredible cars like a the RILEY that won the event which is basically a lemans prototype (cost 300k).

During the warm up/qualifying there were probably 6 offs and even some metal to metal which is the result of 72 cars or so all trying to squeeze in a fast lap.

I was put in the 1st group (faster qualifying cars) and didn't have enough time to prepare so I went out late and had susp trouble followed by loosing 3rd gear and never got a timed lap. After putting on my good tires the R rear camber alignment bolt slipped a 1/2 turn and caused some minor handling issues hehe so I came in jacked it up put it back in position, tightened it down w/ just enough time to go back out and blow up 3rd gear . This all happend in a 20 minute session that I was late for and basically was a carbon copy of how my entire prep work, registration and everything else went, chaotic and rushed. If I run in the UTCC again I'll be much better prepared. The paperwork alone is a full time job lol.

PS Brent's car is so awesome it's a shame he has to go back to work and can't enjoy all the fruits of his labor. Seriously it's probably one of the better setup track FDs in the country and he along w/ his track mates/tweak it racing deserve some huge props for putting that beast together

 

My brain and body are fried! Two students plus my sessions and 100+ degrees!

"Almost" Racing:


The Riley that won:


Cool entry:


This morning:


I'll have a full run down in a day or two. Hate that Fritz had issues. Would of been interesting to see what kind of time he ran. Just ain't the same without you man!

 

 

Brent,
You're my hero!
Regards,
Crispy

 

The cars look great. Sorry to hear about your troubles Fritz There's always next time! How was the heat the rest of the weekend, it was brutal up here? I've got a cool shirt system going into my car -- best invention ever. Probably will need it for next weekend down there. I remember that truck (LSx powered IIRC) from the Lemons CMP race we both went to.

 

Congrats on 3rd and hopefully w/o me there you still won your HOO HOO

Really sorry I bailed on you but after suffering from the agony of defeat along with sinus issues the heat etc....etc... I was like F... this noise it's supposed to be FUN not WORK.

OK so who's going to the PCA potomac event at SPR next month

 

THE HEAT; after packing up all my stuff and loading the car I got back in my truck w/ plans of going home and driving back in the GT3 but starting feeling bad and got a whopper of a headache. So bad I went back to the hotel to lay down. After about an hour I felt better but still called Jeff and told him I would not be instructing. It's the 1st time in 7 years I've left JC hanging w/o an instructor but again I'll REPEAT that THIS STUFF SHOULD BE FUN.

 

Just ran a new personal best of 2:05 this morning.

 

AWESOME lap time in that heat

How is Eric doing?

 

Just got home finally. I have videos, but they are hot garbage unfortunately. I have to get this camera stuff sorted out.

Eric cracked his manifold and was leaking boost. I don't think he raced today. Thunder race ended under caution Sat. And Sunday. Danny put like a minute on the entire field,one of the world challenge or grand am mustangs was busted for cheating, and that bumped Justin up from 3rd to 2nd in ST2.

Wish you could have been here. Not the same without my fellow track rat. More tomorrow...

 

Here's the first video(non HD). Like I said, it's really bad. I'm not sure the new camera is going to work. I have to do some digging. I also have a couple of other things to sort with the traqmate as it isn't tracking my gears and my data synch is about 1 second off(which is super easy to fix... and I will fix on the next one). Bear with me guys:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLrAJIreVcQ[/youtube]

 

Sorry to hear about Eric (turbos are a bitch) and yet again just one more advantage to running an LSX.

Danny is a bad dude. Watching him fly up those esses is priceless.

Glad Justin did well, good man and a good driver

Dude I'm soooo suffering from the agony of defeat but I'll get em next time

PS Once again congrats on the 2.05 that's an easy 2.02 in better conditions. Glad you had a great weekend and nobody deserves it more. Seriously you are sooo committed and really push the envelope from the drivers seat and the grassroots car setup. AWESOME AWESOME JOB!!!!!!!!

 

Thanks again for all the kind words guys. So, the weekend....


Regardless of how much ahead of the game I try to get, it’s always a last minute thrash to get the car ready. I’ve had a lot going on in my life the last month and it’s been a bit of a struggle all around. However, Like the the Beatles song goes, I get by with a little help from my friends. We worked on my car last weekend and then I had to head back to Georgia. Dan worked on my car after work for like five hours on Tuesday and then took a day off of work on Wednesday and worked from early in the morning until late at night. I arrived back in TN around mid-day and met Dan at the shop and continued to work in the scorching heat. Over the weekend, we finally had sorted the brakes thanks to Dan. The Penske’s went on, put it on the scales for corner balancing, and then a fresh alignment. Brian and Tara came by and made some new graphics/decals for the car. We finished up around 9pm and I headed straight to the hospital to spend the night. My girlfriend had a major surgery the previous week. Luckily she was released Thursday morning and I headed immediately to VIR.

I finally arrived at the track around 7:30pm. I checked in and did a quick around the paddock to see what other cars were there. There were some really heavy hitters: a Riley, a 700hp Superlite, Radicals, etc… I then went to work finishing up the last few things I needed to do to the car and adding the mound of sponsor stickers to the car. Fritz had a busy few weeks as well and finally arrived at the track around 9pm. We get a little more prep done and leave the track around 10:15pm. I made a Wal Mart run and then finally make it to the hotel around 11pm. One of my Southeast buddies was staying with me and arrived around 11:30pm. We stayed up a couple more hours talking car tech, looking at shock dyno’s etc…

I wake up at 6:15am and after a quick shower and breakfast, I arrive at the track at around 7. Hit the standard all hands meeting and then the UTCC meeting. There are 75+ cars in the UTCC. I know it’s going to be a zoo on track for the first session(which is a warm up session and doesn’t count for anything). I grid towards the back and have some really old tires on the car. I just want to get the car and driver up to temp. I’ve never seen that many off’s in a session, let alone a warm up. A couple of cars actually went metal to metal and were sent packing. I took it easy and adjusted to the car and the changes we had made.

By the time we had the first session, it was 11am and it was pretty close to being 100 degrees out. I put on a better set of used tires and reported to grid. I knew that this would be the fastest timed session of the day and needed to get a lap in early. I was able to find some mostly clean track and lay down a pretty good lap. Fritz had a camber bolt come loose and then 3rd gear blew out and he never got a timed lap  Of course this would happen at this event. I hated to see it happen to him.
I ended up going out in one other session and my time became slower due to the heat. I called it a day and just walked around and caught up with a bunch of my track friends. The car felt great and, more than anything, I need to erase muscle memory and brake later and throttle input sooner. Overall, I’m really REALLY happy with the car right now. It’s finally starting to really come together. I ended up running a personal best on Sunday morning of 2:05. It was a cooler session as it was at 8:30am and I experimented with downshifting into 3rd gear in turn 1 and again in turn 4 opposed to being in 4th. It paid off. I now think I can also pick up some time being in 3rd going into roller coaster. I think on some fresh tires and a March or October day, the car is a low 2 car. With someone like Fritz driving, prob. A sub 2 car.

Two more track weekends left in the next two weekends. Both at Road Atlanta. Hoping to run a pretty quick lap at Road Atlanta at the NASA event. Time will tell(pun intended).

To all you guys building track/time trial/time attack cars… stop messing around and get your cars out here! We need more FD’s on track!

 

oh yeah! Traqmate was trackside and helped me resolve a few issues I had. They also attached 3 go pro's to my car to get some promotional video. I had one on my helmet, one on my fender, and one facing the rear on the bumper of my car. Hopefully they turned out ok.