THSCC Forums

As this is turning into the general thread for this past weekend, I also wanted to say it was good to meet some other people in person who I have only known via the forum. That included Rob, Jason, Andrew, James and Zach (think Zach and I may have meet in person previously). Was Cline on the Silver Bullet team? If so I am sorry I didn't get a chance to meet him. And it was good to talk to others that I haven't seen in awhile!

Richard

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Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

Whheeww.. Finally rested back up after a really fun but exhausting weekend.

Our weekend went something like this...

Friday, we entered the VIR test day since one of our drivers hadn't been in the car since last year and the other never ran Grand. So, just a fun relaxing day of testing and turning a few laps without the race going on. Well, that entire plan fell through after lap 2 with the first driver. Brake lights were staying on and would not turn off. After 10 minutes of digging, we find that a plastic piece on the brake pedal broke and caused the switch to stay open. (More things like this we need to check on the car...) Anyways, back out and 4 laps later, come back in with a slight rear tire rub in spiral. So, slight fender roll and it touched things off nice. Driver 3 gets in for some laps and calls in on the radio to let us know that the car is missing and not running right when turning. Strangely, the rpm gauge would jump all around. Ohh ok... We spent the rest of the day trying to understand that issue and pushed the rest of our drivers through so they could get some seat time.
After 2 hours of chasing wiring, parts, we ordered another new dizzy from advance and the part was available 8am Saturday morning. That morning while Will was in route back from the parts store, we finally found the source of the issue. A loose ground on the back of the engine that we didn't see until we pulled the dizzy. As a safe bet, we swapped to the new dizzy anyway and had the car fired up and ready to run at 9:45. Suited up and we were off for the 24 hours.... Geez.

First few laps everything was running great and settled into a routine. Car was running perfectly! At the end of the 3rd driver stint we were in third place and starting to put some distance to the 4th place car. We came in for a routine pit stop and noticed the car had a strange noise from under the hood. We swapped drivers and inspected under the hood. Geezz..., alt was just sitting on the structure with a broken bracket. We pulled the car behind the wall and got to work. After 15 minutes, we swapped the bracket and we were back underway. Thanks to Simon Say's for the bracket!!! While half the team worked the alt issue, the other half took the time to double check everything else on the car since it was in the pits.

After that we started back in 32nd and just executed our strategy and clicked of clean pit stops and laps. We had a slight bump issue with another e30 when the lost control. Tried everything to avoid it but ended up with a slight bump on the left front which caused us to spend an extra 4 minutes during the next pit stop to fix the loose headlight bracket.

Towards the end a little race luck fell our way for a change when the 5th place car had to come in for an extra pit stop. That gave just just enough time to get ahead of them by 30 seconds and hold off a top 5 finish.

Overall it was an amazing weekend and I thought VIR and chumpcar did an excellent job of managing the race. We only had 1-2 full course cautions, otherwise they hot pulled everything which was great! I thought the racing was great and not anywhere near the craziness of last year. Such an awesome feeling to compete for 24 hours and finally cross the finish line.


And yes, Mike is dead right. Our team as a complete collection of soft spares but a minimal set of hard parts. Organization and being prepared for the things to go wrong is what will get you to the podium at the 24 hour. Almost everyone ran into some sort of issues and the ones that cleared it up within a pit stop made it to the front. Booksmart owe's you guys a round of IPA's at the next event!

Off to buy a car to eventually put it in a box....

-Scott

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THSCC Timing & Scoring

The leaders were dropping some very fast lap times. Simon was the only non-bmw or v8 trans-am to drop a 3.18. Whheeww! SRI had a few in the 3.14.... Dang cheaty bmw's..

-Scott

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THSCC Timing & Scoring

Randy had the ability to bring two 50 gallon drums that he could pump from to fill our gas cans, but didn't because there was a rumor floating around that there would be just a mild uplift for the gas prices at the VIR pumps. When I can buy gas in Danville (93 octane) For $3.39 a gallon, I don't see $4.85 a gallon at VIR as a "mild" uplift. That's a 46% uplift. Regardless, we only ended up using about 10 gallons of their fuel during the practice and very little during the race

How much fuel are you allowed to bring there? I know that a couple of years ago they put a limitation on it. - AB

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'14 Toyota Sequoia Platinum 4WD
Super Westerfield Bros - '93 Integra - LeChump Du Jour
STX 93 - Scion FR-S

http://virnow.com/about-vir/fuel/

They specifically prohibit bringing in outside fuel in 55g drums. They specifically state that you can bring "up to 20 gallons of fuel in acceptable containers to the track without penalty."

Fuel at VIR has ALWAYS been a good bit more expensive than the local gas stations.

I guess you could bring in a 55g drum of fuel and claim it was 93 octane ethanol-free fuel to take advantage of the "VIR will not enforce any restrictions against fuel grades we do not carry" clause......

I thought that was the rule, but I saw more than one team with 55 gallon drums.

As for VIR raping people on all prices, that certainly is not news, it's the norm.

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Vincent Keene
'06 Ford Mustang GT (track rat)
'15 Dodge Charger R/T (yeah, it's got a HEMI!)
'07 Ford Fusion SE (205,000 miles and counting)
'98 Chevy Z-24 (retired)
'93 Acura Integra (Team SWB 24HOL Car)

They certainly weren't enforcing the 20 gallon rule at all, as we bought 30+ gallons just after the start of the race off track and had no problems with entering. That said, I did bring some 87 octane gas that was ethanol free for my generator, so we could play that game. - AB

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'14 Toyota Sequoia Platinum 4WD
Super Westerfield Bros - '93 Integra - LeChump Du Jour
STX 93 - Scion FR-S

Good job Scott.

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BenchWarmer Motorsports

another one of those damn LeMons heads

just another Chump

we are an Autocross Club Dammit............

I ran a comfortable 3:16.5 on lap 24.

I got absolutely hammered by other cars door to door. There was fluid everywhere, abysmal driving really. Mercifully my stint ended when my fuel pump died on track out at south bend, I lost the car momentarily and recovered narrowly missing a SAAB. I had the car in 5th, the brakes were good and the tires round. I would not recommend a fast black car that is really low. People just don't see you with no roof. My team was no better and worse. I saw a bump in pit lane, pitt maneuver in the Stevie Wonders, and the front got totally bashed in when we were excluded.

Here is my second stint which caused much controversy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iscdKda ... ata_player

All I can say is they need to require some track time. Or before the race let people who have never been on track before take exploratory laps. I'm not doing that shit again. I would honestly recommend thscc members to not participate. Our track program is good, safe, friendly, this is not. I think it is negligent.

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2006 Civic Si - #24 HS for 2015

2005 GMC Sierra
1991 318is Garage Ornament

I'll own up...I blew up the Silver Bullets 240SX. Moneyshift coming out of Hogpen. I thought I was grabbing 4th, but I grabbed 2nd. It ran for a few laps after that, but eventually the bent valve broke and grenaded the #4 piston.

Yes, I feel like a first class a$$hat. Apologies to the rest of my team members - Remchak, Cline Hall, Randy Melton, Aaron Buckley, and Kurt Bishop. Randy has already pulled the motor and has the car on the way to recovery, hopefully in time to make CMP.

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Tom Freeman
'98 M3/4/5 | '93 Spec3 325i | '12 TSX sport wagon | '03 Tahoe
Team Silver Bullets '91 240SX

Hey Rob, what race were you at this weekend? We're talking about the ChumpCar VIR 24 here...

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Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

Forgive my ignorance. My experience in W2W consists of years of watching racing on TV. I have seen various purposeful taps and pushing in some professional racing series. It seems to be more common (even expected?) in NASCAR and Grand-Am, and less or not acceptable at all in other series. I have to admit, I haven't watched much incar in amateur series like SCCA, NASA, etc. Is that type of pushing along (bump drafting?), purposeful contact or whatever you call it that you did with that one car something that is considered acceptable in LeMons/Chumpcar? Just curious. I am just trying to understand how this stuff works.

Richard

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Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

Watch the video and look ahead at the car as I approach it. This person is causing a train. Off line and dangerous. This is a race and while not nice corner workers generally accept it. Look in my mirror and watch the headlights of the guy I'm holding off. For multiple laps he catches me and I hold him off cleanly. He is very sportmanlike and does not poach me with his superior straight line speed out of cautions. You can see he even takes the position and gives it back under local yellow once. But he's right up my ass with a clean run and we were doing 55 in an 85 mph portion of track. Your right I pushed him up to speed, the gentlest reminder I could give that people are actually racing on the track too.

John Condron came and talked to me while serving the penalty. He asked me why I hit the bmw and I said I was helping them. He laughed his ass off and I have it on video. Certainly not the quote his worm running the event was telling everyone.

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2006 Civic Si - #24 HS for 2015

2005 GMC Sierra
1991 318is Garage Ornament

I hope by "worm" you don't mean Mike Chisek....

If you crossed Mike you are most likely in the wrong here Rob. Mike is a stand up guy. And bump drafting is specifically not permitted in this series. No wonder John laughed.

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BenchWarmer Motorsports

another one of those damn LeMons heads

just another Chump

we are an Autocross Club Dammit............

I assume you're talking about the bit around 27min? (it's a 41min f'ing video, a time reference would be nice) One car is not a "train". If you had waited 2s you'd be clear of the esses with a short straight to get around him. This is textbook Red Misted Driving(tm). You are a good driver in a fast car; we have no idea what's going on with that car or it's driver. (or even if it was the same driver) John laughed because it's funny; everyone at the podium laughed as well, again, because it was a comical comment. That doesn't make it acceptable. That was the exact behavior last year that saw a lot of cars punted into walls. You appear to have forgotten there are fast cars and slow cars, experienced drivers and inexperienced drivers, and most of all dog-f'ing tired drivers out there. If you want to race with similarly spec'd cars and drivers, chump is not where you should be looking.

Don't blame the corner workers. They radio in what they see. It's the guys and gals upstairs in race control that say when and if you get flagged for any actions. (I'm surprised it took 7min to flag you. At Lemons, you'd've been flagged before the lap was over, and you would not be sitting for 5mins.)