Last year I raced my 1990 RX-7 in SCCA's STU class, and this year I made the switch to E Production. This race took place the weekend of Jan. 26-27, 2013 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. This was my first race weekend on slicks with the car, and I'd just installed a dog box transmission -- my first time using that, too.

On Saturday I got the pole and finished second. Here's footage from Sunday's race, where I qualified third and finished first. I'm pretty slow on the shifter in this video as I had a couple of missed shifts earlier in the weekend (grabbed 1st instead of 3rd), and hitting 10k+ rpm scared me.

 

Great racing, I love the mix of road course and oval. We don't have any ovals down here in NZ. Your car looks really nicely balanced through the tighter stuff compared to the guys you were racing against.

Keep the videos coming.

 

Man, awesome video and I love the dogbox setup. It looks like you killed them cones on the second to last lap and did that RX3 go around the Opel on the grass to pass you back on the last lap? Freakin' wild and woolly stuff going on there. Great win and way to go as that RX3 had the legs on you.

Eric

 

You ran right there with Runoffs front runner Aaron Downey and beat him Sunday and took 2nd on Saturday only 3.5 secs down in your first EP race. Nice job!

 

Yes, Aaron in the RX-3 did do a four-in-the-grass attempt on the final lap. He was not going to give up without a fight.

I did hang with Aaron, but I think his car was off a little. He consistently would set a fast lap of 0.5sec to 1sec faster than me in the races, but he said his car was almost undrivable at the end of the race. Through the tight turns it looked like he had the wheel at full lock (then again, watching his videos from the 2012 Runoffs, it looks like that's how that car is.) Looking at Aaron's lap times on MyLaps shows his car being fast on lap three but fading big time, while I was turning laps within 0.5sec of my fastest time for the entire race. I just need a long enough race to catch back up.

 

Awesome video! Do you have any pictures and/or specs of your car? I have a few videos from Auto Club Speedway as well but theyre not as intense as yours and are just HPDE days. That RX-3 was sweet too! I havent been to that track in some time but I could feel the track's surface by just watching your video. Thanks for sharing!

 

Here's a pic from the 2012 SCCA Runoffs, where I ran the car in STU. I have no pics of it right now in EP trim, but it's very similar looking.



As for specs, here are the basics:
13B, street port (by Lucky 7)
Electromotive TEC-GT engine management
Racing Beat header and exhaust
Fuel Safe 12 gallon fuel cell
Bilstein shocks and Speedway front swaybar (from ISC Racing)
Hewland dog box gears in RX-7 trans case (from Jesse Prather Motorsports)
Hawk DTC-60 brake pads
Keizer 15x7 aluminum wheels
Hoosier 215/580R15 slicks (last year ran BFGoodrich R1-S 225/50-15 R-compounds)

That said, there's a lot of voodoo magic that has also gone into the car over the last year. For instance, the shocks, while pretty much a bolt-on with non-adjustable Bilstein inserts, has been customized to get enough suspension travel, and the Speedway bar doesn't fit the FC unless you get creative. But generally, the car is typical of what you'd find in an FC E Production car.

 

Nice to see so many rotaries on track.

 

Nice driving! Definitely looks like you need a bit more juice, but the handling makes up for the lack of power. Was it just me, or was everyone else trying to destroy their tires chopping their way through the corners?

 

nice! Thanks for posting the video.

 

Great video! Thanks for posting it up. And congrats.

Regards,
Crispy
- misses his racecar immensly

 

Good job. Way to stay with it!

 

Awesome FC! Thanks for the info on it

 

It was fun to watch from the stands as well!

 

Time to slap some EP stickers on the side and go Prod racing! You'd undoubtedly have a top three car around here. Last year with a stock ECU, stock trans, and R-compounds I was running times fast enough to finish on the EP podium.

 

Is your camera mount moving or is that your entire roof flexing on the oval sections!?!?

 

It's one of the problems with GoPro cameras. Apparently, if you wedge some paper in the protective case it stops doing that...but I never remember. It's something to do with the vibration.

 

Hmm, is it an older GoPro or the new GoPro 3?

 

It's the GoPro Hero2. I've had the same issue with the original wide angle GoPro, the Hero, and now the Hero2.