THSCC Forums

All done at the SCCA Targa Southland. Snagged 2nd place in the Unlimited class behind Randy Pobst and Jason Owens in an Exocet (behind us in the picture). I guess if you have to get beat by someone, then that's not a bad team to come in second to, although no-one can really be happy with second. We were behind Pobst/Owens by 10 points (out of 972) going in to the final event (track-cross at Memphis International Speedway) and he beat us by 2 seconds. I had a really good run almost in the bag, but they removed the brake zone markers for the timed event and I ended up braking too early for the last turn. I don't know if I could have made up a 2 second difference, but I think that it would have been close. At least we beat the guys in the Ariel Atom.

Mike Miller and his son were there too and looked like they were having fun.

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"Every ship is a minesweeper, once."

Well done. Congrats.

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BenchWarmer Motorsports

another one of those damn LeMons heads

just another Chump

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

Congrats guys!

What engine are you running in that car?

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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)

Yes, the Miller Time Racing Team did show up at the Targa Southland. In addition Blair and Justin Deffenbaugh were there in their Integra. My son Eric, affectionately known as Miller Lite, was my co-drive. His first track experience on 4 wheels was at Charlotte Motor Speed Way. He and the Z06 did quite well. Eric's years of motorcycle racing definitely helped him outshine his old dad. As we entered CMS, the crowds were shouting, “ Miller, Miller, Miller”. We found out that all they wanted was free beer. They ignored us and ran to the Duff car. You haven't properly puckered until you've driven 120 MPH in the rain. Whiles Eric was driving in the dry, I looked over to see him on the oval with his hands up in the air, “See Dad, no hands”. On the oval you can give it gas to climb the banks and lift a little to go down. Did you know that the oval is bumpy? I would have thought that it would be smooth in order to support stock cars at 200 MPH. It's also a lot shorter than you would think at speed. The whole course was just at 2 minutes for us. That's with a pretty slow infield. At Atlanta Motorsports Park, Eric was 3 seconds a lap slower than Road and Track writer and former Lemans driver Jack Baruth in a C5 Vette that was pimped up for track with $15K of parts on the Adam Corolla show. In Memphis we could almost hit 140 on the main straights. It was a go like hell followed by some really tight turns. The most daunting was doing a 180 on to the drag strip. There's a lot of concrete in there and that rubber build up on the pavement is not too sticky on an overcast day. If you do it right it's almost like bouncing from concrete wall to concrete wall but not hitting. Overall it was a great time with great people. We drove around 2,000 miles between events and on track in three days. On track the Z06 got 8 to 9 MPG, on the highway it averaged 27.4 MPG. What a great car. Not to rub it in but the Deffenbabaughs and the Millers won our classes. Miller Time had 987.44 points. But, we don't have Randy Pobst as an excuse.

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Mike Miller
AutoX VP 2016/2017
Just a C Stock Miata DD
Mazda Speed 3 Family Car
Corvette Z06 Toy

It's a 2.0L B-series with 8.4:1 pistons that I had built about ten years ago for a project that never got finished, so it's been sitting around between my driveway and the shop for a while collecting dust and wasp nests. It made 178 WHP at the tuner, which is actually pretty good for an 8.4:1 motor, but it really needs a turbo to wake it up. I bolted a window AC unit in to the back seat area so it would be tolerable for a long trip and it wasn't a terrible car choice, way better than doing the event in the Duff car last year. It's just unbelievably noisy inside at highway speeds. We were using ear plugs when we drove between tracks.

Our original plan was to run a really nice E30 318i cabrio in Stock 3 and we spent a lot of time and money getting that prepped and fixed up, but days before the event it started having some kind of electrical or fueling issues that make it start missing after about 20 minutes, so we never got it to the cage shop to get the roll bar installed and had to switch to plan B. I'm a little surprised that Lumpy did as well as it did in the event.

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"Every ship is a minesweeper, once."

Nice work from both THSCC teams. That looks like a fun event. - AB

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

Big thumbs up to all the teams

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2004 C5(415whp,390ft/lbs),
1997C5,1997Trans Am, 1986 C4,
1990 Miata, 1976 MGB,1997 Protege, 1989 MR2

You should have driven the oval at Rockingham. It was incredibly bumpy, made Charlotte look like VIR. I don't think that I like the extra infield turns though, or all of the extra walls.

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"Every ship is a minesweeper, once."

Also, if anyone ever gets out Memphis way, the Memphis International Raceway, which is a drag strip with a twisty little track next to it that links both ends, is actually pretty fun, much more so than I thought it would be. The smooth glassy rubber surface that you come out of the last turn on to is a little weird, and apparently too slick in the rain to use (in the rain you come off track at the last turn and drive single-file down the hot pit at reduced speed until you re-enter the track past the rubber-coated portion), but the rest of it is not bad at all.

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"Every ship is a minesweeper, once."

The Z did a little tail wiggle hitting the rubber laid down on the drag strip and another little tail wiggle crossing the white lane lines. It's hard not to look at those massive walls at MIR. You can see the chipped concrete where someone else kissed them.

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Mike Miller
AutoX VP 2016/2017
Just a C Stock Miata DD
Mazda Speed 3 Family Car
Corvette Z06 Toy

Hayward Wagner posted pictures of the Duff Beer AC system on his FB page.

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George Bright Member # 141
One of the youngest of the old farts.
Yes I voted against you joining the club.

That actually worked okay after we put the hood scoop on the roof to force air through the condenser.

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"Every ship is a minesweeper, once."

Here's the SCCA writeup:

https://www.scca.com/articles/2007582-2 ... -southland

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"Every ship is a minesweeper, once."