Duff Car utterly fails to blow up at Sebring, wins.

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Sun Jul 06, 2014 10:40 pm

I didn't see any of you all at Sebring, but you should have gone, unless you have a Class B car, in which case you should have stayed home, because we would have crushed you under the unbearable weight of our awesomeness, and I like you guys and would hate to see you crushed.

I think we won by 11-12 laps, or maybe 15(edit, just looked it up, 18 laps), but for the last 50 minutes we were just hooning around the track until the checker dropped. We were 3rd overall and were on the lead lap at the checker on Saturday (it poured down rain for a couple of hours, which let us jump out front), but Sunday the track was dry and the fast cars ran away from us. The only real scare was a very fast Focus, but they had transmission problems and dropped out after a few hours on Sunday. The next car back was an E30 that we stayed comfortably ahead of all weekend.

Sebring was fantastic, very fast and with lots of grip. There were only 28 entries, so only a handful of yellow flags and lots of wide open track. I had several occasions where I didn't see anyone else for minutes at a time. It made me wish we had a car that goes faster than 100 MPH.

steve remchak · **Posted:** Mon Jul 07, 2014 9:33 am

Congrats.

Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while. :lol:

Seriously though, good job. :thumbsup:

Rob Keehner · **Posted:** Mon Jul 07, 2014 10:12 am

Sebring is a favorite of mine. Good for beater racing because it is relatively wide. I love all the bumps and texture changes in every corner. It's a very challenging place to race.

Experience pays off. :thumbsup:

clinehall · **Posted:** Mon Jul 07, 2014 11:46 am

Great job! I was "watching" via Judge Phil's reports on face book and bragging on you guys yesterday!

Mark Barnes · **Posted:** Wed Jul 09, 2014 7:46 am

Congrats and welcome to "A" class. We had all 3 cars registered for the race but all had to back out due to the cars not being ready. If they do Sebring again we will be there.

RickyBeam · **Posted:** Wed Jul 09, 2014 3:27 pm

Phil already said, "this doesn't count." So we'll be back to Class B lameness again in Sept. The only reason we ran away with this one was the lack of traffic (and the runway sized corners to zip around people.) Anytime we have to slow down due to traffic, we're dead -- no power, and no torque. The top speed of the car appears to be 108.9mph in 4th (rev limit), and 106.2mph in 5th (drag limit)

clinehall · **Posted:** Wed Jul 09, 2014 3:44 pm

RickyBeam wrote:

Phil already said, "this doesn't count." So we'll be back to Class B lameness again in Sept. The only reason we ran away with this one was the lack of traffic (and the runway sized corners to zip around people.) Anytime we have to slow down due to traffic, we're dead -- no power, and no torque. The top speed of the car appears to be 108.9mph in 4th (rev limit), and 106.2mph in 5th (drag limit)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Already sandbagging!

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Mon Jul 14, 2014 2:32 pm

We have a Power Point presentation with pictures and charts about why we are slow and shouldn't be put in "A" class that we have printed and bound for each event, plus some $18/bottle imported Scottish beers for bribes. Although now that we have won class B, we may have to ease up on our "we're slow" rhetoric. Phil did tell us specifically that he'd leave us in B for CMP because there is a much bigger and more competitive field of class B cars that generally shows up there, although I'm guessing that since we won it at Sebring there will be much whining from the other teams to Jay and Phil about leaving us in B, so we may accrue some penalty laps.

RickyBeam · **Posted:** Mon Jul 14, 2014 3:31 pm

Indeed. Sebring (w/27 cars) was a TT. The car (any car, actually) can be 10/10th fast when you don't have to brake for traffic, and have large sweeping turns to manuver at speed around people.

If you've never driven Sebring, I highly recommend it. ('tho the 700mi trip there, no so much.)

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Fri Oct 10, 2014 3:14 pm

Footnote: By the time CMP arrived, Phil had totally forgotten that he was going to put us in class B, and only after copious whining and skillful lying were we able to get back in to B with a 3-lap handicap. I anticipate more whining and lying at Barber if we want to stay in B.

RickyBeam · **Posted:** Fri Oct 10, 2014 3:40 pm

It was Jay who did our BS, and it was 2 laps -- unless Phil changed it later. And it took very little to get him to put us in B. (he remembers the quality of the car and it's drivers.) We finished second in class, one lap up on Psychobilly. (unless they broke, I only passed them once.)

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Fri Oct 10, 2014 4:18 pm

Ah, I wasn't there for that. I just talked to Phil about it later.

RickyBeam · **Posted:** Fri Oct 10, 2014 4:33 pm

Yeah, you were stuck in Friday rush hour traffic in Charlotte getting the one set of brake pads for the race...

The ones Robert promptly incinerated Saturday. Literally incinerated. White ash on the exposed edges. And the data shows I out brake (higher g-force, shorter period) him in half the corners, but did nothing to them.

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Duff Car utterly fails to blow up at Sebring, wins.

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