irish44j wrote:
Any finished pics of the LeMons car, or even better a build thread somewhere?
irish44j wrote:
Any finished pics of the LeMons car, or even better a build thread somewhere?
No build thread, since I was only involved in part of the build (mostly painting and some other minor things) and the guys don't really have my penchant for taking a ton of photos. Nor did they have time. They were working every day for weeks til 5am trying to get it ready for Chumpkins Glen last month....
Basically it's a <$500 nasty old 325e that had terrible paint and interior (both now resolved), stock engine, some suspension stuff replaced (mostly with OEM), cut springs, bilstein HDs (I think), gutted interior, and very top-notch cage and safety equipment. But it's still an ETA engine, so it's not all that quick (at least for an e30).
I'll have plenty of pics after this weekend of it on course, and in the paddock I'm sure......
So, back from LeMons and I'm too tired to write much about it (maybe will later, if anyone is interested). In short, the car did great and we finished all 16 hours of the race with only one small problem (took 5 minutes to fix), and finished in 18th place overall out of 100+ cars. IIRC only a few e30s beat us and they were mostly "i" cars. Overall it was perfect weather, great racing, and just an excellent weekend. If you haven't done LeMons, I highly recommend!
Ours was a 350k+ mile ETA with a non-functional LSD, so that's pretty good.
Not much prep to do for rallycross, we have a 2-day event coming up next weekend so I'll have to get used to driving the M42 car again after a weekend in an M20 car set up totally different :)
Kevin Turner and Matt Rhodes did deliver me a pretty good set of DMacks at hypefest while we were racing, so these will be good for the 2nd half of the season. I'd like to get them mounted before next weekend, but that's not going to happen since I don't have any spare bottlecaps sitting around and don't have time this week to find some....
a few shots from the LeMons race of our car (when I say "our" I mean Jim/Stephen/Chris/Ruffy who own the car....I was just on for driving :) ) Full album is here if anyone wants to see several hundred shots of other cars...
http://s78.photobucket.com/user/irish44j/library/LeMons%20Capitol%20Offense%202013
A few minor things before the 2-day weekend event......
First, I finished wiring up my electric radiator fan override switch. Not terribly exciting, and not worth a picture (I'm using the stock A/C button to turn it on), but I just ran a pair of wires directly to the temp switch on the rad....easier than trying to tap into the stock wiring which is all wrapped up well. Anyhow, works fine.....this will be good since my temp sender has the annoying tendency to turn on the fan right as I'm sitting at start about to do a run.......
Also, got two of the DMacks mounted up. I only have two spare wheels, so will have to score up a couple more in the near future. Since we're running on all three courses this weekend, I'll plan to use my well-worn Yokos on the hardpack Barn Course, and then on the other two courses (more loose stuff, and way more water truck action) I'll put the much fresher DMacks on the rear to try to overcome my penchance for getting the rear end too far out. We'll see how it works out.
Of course, the two bottlecaps I had spare were very very scratched up...and one was silver and one was white. That simply won't do. So....
the actual color is a bit darker. Actually it's a perfect match to the blue in the BMW roundel...
The DC region site is a pain to use. I can see that registration is closed for this weekend but are all spots full? Is walk-up registration available?
One of these days we should plan to crash one their events with us midwesterners. I got a friend who lives near DC so it would be fun to visit as well.
Yea I totally forgot about this event. Thought about maybe doing a last minute trip but I'll probably just wait for a later event.
We hit our 60 driver cap early this week. No walkup registration. email : rallychair@wdcr-scca.org To see if any spots may have opened up he keeps the waitlist.
EvanB wrote: The DC region site is a pain to use. I can see that registration is closed for this weekend but are all spots full? Is walk-up registration available?
In past seasons, wouldn't have been a problem when we usually had ~40 cars (last season) and less before that. This year we've hit the cap at every event, and about 25 people have season subscriptions. Gotta get in fast these days or get left out :)
Did you guys hit the southeast regional last weekend? One of my fellow e30ers that was there (from florida) spoke of a "very fast turbo miata that towed a tire trailer." Figured that was you.
Day 1 of the 2-day "Conquer the Summit" rallycross is in the books. Weather was great, and course conditions were great as well. For this event, which wraps up the first half of the WDCR SCCA rallycross season before a 2-month summer break, we run all three of our courses, and it's comp time from all three total.
"Barn Course" - fast, technical, hardpack: this is my best course where I won earlier this year.
"Gravel Course" - hard sweepers, loose surface usually, lots of elevation changes, and we haven't run it this year. Last year I sucked on this course.
"Big Course" - all kinds of conditions and setups, the longest and fastest course.
Today we started off with Barn Course, so for a good weekend I had to start strong here and build a lead. We did 5 runs in the morning and I built up a 4 second lead on class-leader Roberto, but was only 2 seconds ahead of class #4 Chris Nonack, who was driving Nick's e28 since his MR2 is once again "not available." I made a small mistake on my last run and lost a couple seconds so was kind of disappointed with such a small lead.
Here's the Barn Course:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w29rhEi9Z2s&list=UUZDzORFSilgFFHMqcT8uyIA
In the afternoon we ran Gravel Course. I actually drove it pretty well overall I think, and Roberto made a mistake on one run so I ended up building up my lead over him to about 8 seconds by the end of the day, which is good since he's ahead of me in the standings for the season and it gives me a bit of a buffer for the big course tomorrow.
That said, Chris killed both of us on Gravel, making up at least 10 seconds on me somehow. Like I said, he's driving Nick's e28. Nick is a very good driver, and Chris is beating him by something like 30 seconds, and this is the first time Chris has ever driven his car. So that's saying something!
Here's Gravel Course:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOcfLfh3Uzc
So he has a nice lead going into tomorrow, which is going to be hard to recoup. That said, not as concerned with that since I have a nice lead in the standings over Chris.....I just need to make sure to beat out Roberto, really. Guess we'll see.
Not sure exactly what the rest of the class looks like. I don't think any other cars have a shot at top-3 for the weekend other than me, Roberto, and Chris unless someone goes off-course or something. Nick is probably in 4th, and the other e30 boys below him, and then we had a couple other cars/pickups in our class that may be above or below them.
On Barn Course with the hardpack, I used my well-worn Yoko rally tires. For Gravel and it's loose/wet areas I put on the pair of much fresher DMacks on the rear (I really wish I had all four mounted!!!!). They made a big difference I think in the conditions, with better tread pattern and a much sharper outside edge. So pretty pleased with that pick-up.
And I like the blue wheels. I think I may have to do all of them this color :)
I only took a few pics since I was running start today rather than being on course. Hopefully someone got some action shots of me..
me lined up with the GC croo
the grass in grid was about 2 feet tall...
The dIrTy e-tHiRtIeS
irish44j wrote: Did you guys hit the southeast regional last weekend? One of my fellow e30ers that was there (from florida) spoke of a "very fast turbo miata that towed a tire trailer." Figured that was you.
Wasn't me but now I am intrigued.
A few of the guys from our region went down, they said it was a decent event.
So Day Two of "Conquer the Summit" 2-day rallycross was quite the epic rally-battle.
After Day 1 I sat in 2nd a few seconds back of Chris, and Roberto a few back of me. Today we got 10 runs on the full "Big" course. MR ran afternoon and the water truck did a double-pass before us.
The first few runs for me went fine, I just tried to stay out of trouble. Chris made a few mistakes and I caught up to him after 2 runs in the mud. Meanwhile, Roberto is the strongest in the mud and also caught up. So after 3 or 4 runs, all of us were within 2 seconds. As the course dried out and then progressed to getting very hard (all within a 2 hour span), it went back and forth between the three of us, nobody ever getting more than a 1.5-second lead or so, and every run seemed to change the leader, 2nd, and 3rd.
Second to last run Roberto laid down a stellar 77-second clean run, with me running a 79 and Chris a 78+cone. So coming into the last run, here's how it sat (IIRC):
Keep in mind, this is after 20 total runs on the weekend, with a comp time somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,600 seconds....and here we all are within 2 seconds for the top three. And all three of us were driving well....no major mistakes by anyone, a cone here or there but not many compared to most other drivers in the class, and everyone was driving their "A" game IMO.
So.....final run. Roberto was first since he's leading the season points. He just ran a 77, so I assumed only a cone run could get first for me. I think he did too. He ran an 80.xx on his last run (clean)....clearly he was making sure (consiously or not) to not cone. But that should have been enough
I had nothing much to lose, so I went all-out and hit all my trouble spots correctly. For once, my last run was my best run and I hit a 78.xx clean. This put me 0.3 seconds ahead of Roberto with Chris to go. Chris knocked out (IIRC) a 77.xx but coned, so he ended up being about half a second behind Roberto for 3rd.
I may be off a bit on the times, but it was ultra-close for most of the day and we were all tired as hell from the great competition I think (plus, it was very hot....lol).
Nick in his e28 finished in fourth maybe about 20 seconds back (though he was gaining....another 5 or 6 runs and he would have been right up with us).
Jason and Pat (and Roberto's co-driver in the RX7) stacked up behind Nick, but I'm not sure of the order. There were a few other cars (Supra Celica, a baja-style pickup that was very fast in the mud but not in the dry, etc) that finished at the back of the pack.
I'll be interested in seeing the final times just to see how MR did against stock AWD and mod AWD, who were running at the same time as us.
Anyhow, good times. I used my drop event for the first event (where I finished 6th thanks to a few spins), and assuming Roberto drops one of his, right now we are both sitting with 1st, 1st, 2nd at the season midpoint. Chris and Nick are right behind us too, so it should be a competitive rest of the season, especially if Jason and Pat get their car sorted the way they want it and/or continue to gain experience.
Will post up some vids in a while - both in the mud and dry - of what turned out to be a really fun, fast, and long course today. In the meantime, a couple photos just because I can't not post photos, right?
Roberto and me...
the enemy
our crew
Stephen showing off. I might mention here that Stephen won PR class in the ETA, and his co-driver Chris Helgesen took second in PR by 0.6 seconds, so another tight battle, both of them beating usual top-dog Shawn Roberts. This may be the first time in a couple seasons that no RX-7 has won either PR or MR at an event.
Needs to add 2012 SR champ as well.....
Cones, cones, and more cones. That is about all I can say about my runs this weekend.
moxnix wrote: Cones, cones, and more cones. That is about all I can say about my runs this weekend.
Yeah, so I saw. You never did that last year when I was in your class 
Though your MR driver in your car had more, I'd guess, judging on him taking out 5 cones in the finish gate in one run, lol.
Here, to make you feel better.....you were running this section damn nicely this morning...
irish44j wrote: Though your MR driver in your car had more, I'd guess, judging on him taking out 5 cones in the finish gate in one run, lol.
I think Aure had a +8 on one run? Chris P also hit a few in my car in MR.
Yeah that section was fun coming down the hill this event. I wish there had been a little more room at the bottom so I did not have to shut down so early.
moxnix wrote:irish44j wrote: Though your MR driver in your car had more, I'd guess, judging on him taking out 5 cones in the finish gate in one run, lol.I think Aure had a +8 on one run? Chris P also hit a few in my car in MR. Yeah that section was fun coming down the hill this event. I wish there had been a little more room at the bottom so I did not have to shut down so early.
we tried to convince them to open the outside cone up a bit, but it was sketchy. Beats the afternoon....that section REALLY sucked once they gated off the grassy area that all of you guys were using/jumping off of at the end of that turn.
So here are final results posted.
First one is a little analytic comparo I did of the top three in class, all within 1.5 seconds total time. As you can see, I dominated Barn Course (which is my favorite, and which I also won earlier this year in a single-day event), but was 3rd fastest in raw time on both other courses, though not by as big of a margin. Since Big Course we did 10 runs on (versus 5 on the other courses) that is a bit of a disadvantage for me, and I wish I had built a better lead on Barn to start the weekend, but what can you do....
In the end, it was the cones that carried the day. I had the least cones, so I won. Chris was actually the fastest car on course, but his cones put him in 3rd. Take the cones away and the standings flip.
and the total MR results (12 total cars). Hope you have a magnifying glass, if you actually care...
A few pics from the event from Miller Roberts...
Can't wait, as usual for AJ (the pro photographer) to post his shots up. Apparently he took 2,500 photos at the event :)
Spencer and Jesse
Chris driving Nick's car
Pat on a scout lap
Fastest car on course+biggest car on course=all the cones
Not much new to report. Been doing some minor things on the e21 and some other projects in the last few weeks.
With the midseason WDCR season break, thinking about some things that I want to do with the car this year. This summer I'll do some gauge work and a few other things, but this winter I'm thinking of doing a full cage in the car, so when I'm ready I can jump into some rallysprint and some low-level stage rally perhaps. I know an e30 can't really be competitive in the 2WD classes these days, but if I do it, it won't necessarily be to win but to have fun (since I can't afford to do much of it). Anyhow, we'll see how that goes. With a cage I could also do hillclimbs and track events too, so that would be cool.
I think the e21 is going to be for fast street/trackdays only, with full interior, since it's such a complete car that I have and really an e21 isn't as good of a motorsports car as an e30 anyhow. So the e30 will serve as multi-purpose racekar from here on out.
Next weekend there is a non-points WDCR event at a new venue that we're trying out to see if it's worth using for season points events. 40 car cap, and it's on a driving range (and some grassy area next to it), so I'm expecting it to be a tighter, slower autocross-style course as opposed to the mini-stage-rally style stuff that we run at summit. The site is about half the size of any of the three courses we run at Summit, so we'll see.
While doing other stuff today, took a break to paint all of my wheels, since I rather liked the blue on the "new" set.
also painted the chrome rub strips blue, just for the hell of it. That's the last of the chrome.
Had a nice day at our non-points "tuner" event today. With a field of around 20 cars (many people autocrossing or on vacation this weekend I guess), that meant tons of seat time.
The venue was a still-operating driving range. It's about to be converted to a moto-cross course or something (I guess the range doesn't make enough money) and this is a possible future venue for WDCR points events it look like, maybe next year. Who knows.
The part we used was about half the size of any of the 3 courses at Summit POint where we usually run, but there's a lot more room there if they mow the other half of the field. As it was, the course today was set up on nice grass, pretty smooth, and the AM and PM courses were tight and technical, with average times around 45-50 seconds. Also cool that the site, instead of having the red clay underneath that we're used to, it was nice loamy DIRT. Much softer than the clay and instead of getting concrete-like ruts, it just kind of piled into these thick, soft fluff piles that bogged everyone down and made for some big dirt-roostertails, lol.
fluffy!
Anyhow, we all got 30-35 runs (depending on session) total, so that's a TON of seat time! The people at the Autocross in DC probably got 4 runs :)
The event was timed, but the courses were constantly changing to accomodate a few ruts that formed and also to improve the lines. Only three MR cars were there - Roberto, Me, and Russell in da Supra. Not sure who won, and it's not for points so doesn't much matter. All three of us were pretty close in times it seemed, but whatever.
and I flexed, yo
Oh, and the other thing. This being and old driving range. THere were thousands and thousands of golf balls buried in the dirt. As the day progressed, they started getting dug-up. Occasionally one would shoot out behind a car. But most of the time they were banging off floorpans and making for some interesting corners. Actually I much enjoyed it, as it made it pretty easy to slide the rear end around hairpins :)
outside of a turn, what kicked out...
Anyhow, have a few little projects to do here in the near future on the car and trailer, so will keep it updated. Also some e21 stuff in the other thread.
a few other random pics I took, mostly of GRM people who were there..
....and Jeffrey Amman was nice enough to shoot some nice shots of the ride with the new blue wheels at today's event. And I'm even kicking some dirt up for once, lol...
Though the event last weekend was a "tuning" event and not for points, they did keep times. However, the course did have some tweaks here and there that may or may not have been directly between run groups. Though Roberto, Russell, and I all pretty much ran in order so I don't think it was much of an issue for us. Who knows.
Roberto and me also got 3 more runs in the morning than Russell did for some reason, so I tallied up the times using only our first 14 runs from the morning and 11 runs from the afternoon just to get some relative comparisons.
I'll also note a few things: On one of Roberto's runs, he somehow forgot to put his helmet on (it was 95 degrees, I can see why) and noticed about 1 gate into the course. He stopped and put it on. So he lost like 10 seconds on that run. He also had an off-course at some point that cost him about 15 seconds on his overall time. So for the sake of a more valid time comparison, I decided to subtract 25 seconds from his total time to see how we ACTUALLY matched up with those two SNAFUs taken out. Again, since this was a non-points event.
For mine, I ran pretty much straight-up except one run in the morning I did in 1st gear only, just so I could hoon sidewayz the whole way around the course. It was a pretty slow run compared to all my others, by about 5 seconds or so.
Russell was closer to us last weekend than usual. He's learning the car better and maybe he liked the tight, technical courses. I know I did, and it showed in my times. When the courses are tight I tend to be faster than Roberto, and when the courses are wide-open (or muddy) he tends to be faster than me..
So, unofficial results that don't matter for much of anything other than for future reference if we run at this venue next year or something (and yes, I made note of my tire pressures on the surfaces there, since they differ significantly from our usual stuff at Summit).
Josh morning (first 14 runs): 619.920 + afternoon (11 runs) 550.282 = [B]1170.202[/B] Roberto morning (first 14 runs): 674.111 + afternoon (11 runs) 557.938 = [B]1232.049[/B] (-25 seconds as mentioned above) = 1207.049. Russell morning (14 runs): 642.136 + afternoon (11 runs) 606.893 = [B]1249.02[/B]
On the day, cone count. Because there were a lot: Russel: 4 morning + 18 afternoon = 22 Josh: 4 morning + 5 afternoon = 9 Roberto: 6 morning + 15 afternoon = 21
So, whatever.....I'll call it a win for me, in a completely meaningless way, because hey, this is my build thread :)
Nothing much to report, just a lonely and naked M42, in the garage on a Saturday night
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