Motorsports (non-NASCAR)

Postby **CBear3** » Mon Sep 09, 2019 10:11 pm

Vettel’s career is interesting. His last year at RBR, Ricciardo had the better of him. Now talk of going back to RBR and Leclerc is getting the better of him. Is the possible departure a distraction, are teams giving more support to the #2 ahead of him possibly leaving, or is he thinking about leaving because a teammate is getting the better of him?

Postby **tifosi77** » Tue Sep 10, 2019 12:43 am

I would presume so. This is where Stroll came to a stop from his slide:

Looks like he 'was' indeed 'on' to me. Tough to 'rejoin' the circuit when you're already well on it. His only action, if he didn't want to wait for clear track, would be reverse and actually leave the circuit, directly into a gravel trap.

Half of his car - including both drive wheels - was still hung up on the kerbs, and he was perpendicular to the racing line.

Should a car leave the track the driver may re‐join, however, this may only be done when it is safe to do so and without gaining any lasting advantage.

He never "re-joined" until he powered himself fully back onto the track and cut off Gasly.

:wags_finger:

Postby **dodint** » Tue Sep 10, 2019 12:58 am

Yeah. You can keep rephrasing it however you want, the basic fact won't change.

Drive wheels.

Postby **tifosi77** » Tue Sep 10, 2019 1:05 am

I mean if he hadn't been penalized, I could maybe see your point.....

Actually, no. I don't see that point.

Postby **Shyster** » Tue Sep 10, 2019 3:03 pm

Postby **mac5155** » Mon Sep 16, 2019 10:57 am

B-e-a-utiful day for some NHRA eliminations at wonderful Maple Grove Raceway in Mohnton, PA. Always a great time, especially when the weather is great like it was yesterday. I just really like going to that place. They run an amazing show. The crowds are always HUGE but you never seem to wait long for anything... in and out is a breeze, despite it being in literally the middle of NO WHERE.

The spotted lantern flies were freakin EVERYWHERE. how do you people deal with them? I killed 8 myself in like a 4 hour time frame. One was in my jeep too, must've flew in while the hatch was up and we were tailgating.

Postby **tifosi77** » Sat Sep 21, 2019 3:17 pm

Three poles in a row for Leclerc. Is the der Seb experiment over?

Postby **tifosi77** » Sun Sep 22, 2019 5:26 pm

Also, when did IndyCar go back to Laguna Seca?? This time of year in Monterey is beautiful, I might try to talk Mrs Tif into a weekend next year.

Although, the last time we were at LS was her birthday in 2006 for the A1 GP race. We were in Monterey for her birthday, and my friend that I did the Newman/Haas stuff with was promoting the race. So she comped us tix spur of the moment and we went...... and it was absolutely bucketing rain. Like, 100 yds viz. I have a picture I took of her at the top of the hill by the Corkscrew, and the look on her face.................................... that's probably the closest I've come to death, and I had a guy try to stab me with a screwdriver once.

Postby **dodint** » Wed Sep 25, 2019 10:40 am

This was their first time back in 15 years or so.

I'm going to the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park this week to compete in TT Nationals. I have a good shot at a class win if I learn the track quickly and stay disciplined. I've already beaten half of my competitors but some of them were at Kansas where weather was a factor. I've never been on track at NCMMSP so it's going to be an awesome learning experience. Andy Pilgrim is doing a trackwalk tomorrow at noon, will be my second time meeting him. Stoked.

Postby **CBear3** » Wed Sep 25, 2019 10:43 am

Name drop a little more, would ya?
Good Luck, Kick Ass, and remember it's a racecar only come Monday so battle scars are allowed.

Postby **dodint** » Wed Sep 25, 2019 11:22 am

Oh yeah, I already bought the Z4 so this car is no-consequences at this point. It's fun just throwing **** away rather than fussing over it. I needed a BMW wiper system motor real quick, deleted the whole washer system in the blue car and used the parts I needed in the Z4. Now I have saved a few pounds and have more room to work. Woo!

I bought a second set of wheels and new race rubber. Should be a great time. Two full days of practice and then the competition on Sat/Sun.

When I get back the car isn't even coming off of the trailer, it's going right into the country house garage until November when I can gut the interior and remove the body harness. Then off to the cage builder...

Postby **CBear3** » Wed Sep 25, 2019 11:26 am

Oh yeah, I already bought the Z4 so this car is no-consequences at this point. It's fun just throwing **** away rather than fussing over it. I needed a BMW wiper system motor real quick, deleted the whole washer system in the blue car and used the parts I needed in the Z4. Now I have saved a few pounds and have more room to work. Woo!

I bought a second set of wheels and new race rubber. Should be a great time. Two full days of practice and then the competition on Sat/Sun.

When I get back the car isn't even coming off of the trailer, it's going right into the country house garage until November when I can gut the interior and remove the body harness. Then off to the cage builder...

Hey wait, you don't have a roll bar you can't delete things to save weight! Cheater!!!

Postby **tifosi77** » Wed Sep 25, 2019 11:39 am

The Nedvedmobile.

Postby **dodint** » Thu Sep 26, 2019 10:29 pm

It's possible I'm just a **** spaz:

Cbear, Tyler threw a rod in the C4. He wants to try to source and swap one tomorrow. If that doesn't work I've offered him a co-drive spot in my car.

Postby **dodint** » Mon Sep 30, 2019 3:14 am

Despite blowing two motors that was far and away the premiere motorsports weekend of my life, so far.

Postby **CBear3** » Mon Sep 30, 2019 9:18 am

Rough weekend, but it looked like a lot of fun! Tyler is incapable of a full day at the track isn't he?

Also, it's nice to know I'm not the only one who shakes his head at himself in car (At least you didn't slide off, saw an unusual amount of bent sheetmetal on Facebook)

Postby **dodint** » Mon Sep 30, 2019 9:31 am

*I* didn't have anything much more dramatic than that video above. It was raining that day and everything was very slide-y. But I had two Miati's crash in front of me on track through the weekend. The heat killed my camera or else I would've had some really priceless video of a Miata spinning in front of us going down the sinkhole. Luckily he was tracking out so the car I was closely following, and I, just kept our feet in it and powered on by.

If you mount a GoPro to the roof of a black car on a 95F day in direct sun it will die in about 15 minutes, which is unfortunate because I was in grid for about 20 minutes (also dying).

Postby **tifosi77** » Mon Sep 30, 2019 11:57 am

**** Sebastian Vettel in his stupid entitled German ear holes.

Postby **CBear3** » Mon Sep 30, 2019 4:31 pm

Oh man, I know you're not one to complain, but P1 going into the last session that you didn't get to run because the car done blown up? Thats ruff.

Postby **dodint** » Mon Sep 30, 2019 6:40 pm

Oh man, I know you're not one to complain, but P1 going into the last session that you didn't get to run because the car done blown up? Thats ruff.

*sorta*

And, no complaints from me, this event was something of an affirmation in a lot of ways.

When the BMW blew up on Saturday night we still had two time-attack sessions left to go on Sunday, the best time of which would count for our total event time. I posted on the Facebook group "it was a great weekend, good luck everyone!" Four people walked over to my garage and offered me a co-drive for Sunday. A caged BMW M3 in T3, a caged BMW SpecE46 build in T4, a Ford Fiesta, and a Ford Focus ST. The last two offers were in-class, which meant my time would count. Because the Focus driver was from Pittsburgh and I was familiar with him I took him up on the offer.

It was an incredibly gracious offer that ultimately contributed to him being given the Spirit of TT award at the end of the event, which was really great. It let me off the hook a little bit because I hopped in his car and took second place, knocking him off the podium. I got 4 total hot laps in the Focus spread over two sessions and I came within a second of the owners time in the car, which was good enough for 4th in class for that day (2:37). I've never tracked a FWD and/or turbo car before so it was an all around new experience and challenge for me. I'm really grateful Dan gave me the opportunity.

The Focus, you can vaguely see the '93' chalked onto the back windows:

The red Corvette in the background belongs to Luke, you may remember him, he garaged next to us at Heartland too.

Tyler and I were doing some video review, shot right before the session he took it out and experienced the oil pressure loss:

I ran the fastest lap of the weekend in class with a 2:33. Tyler jumped in the car on Friday morning after blowing up the Corvette Thursday afternoon. He was able to get down to 2:38 which was faster than two of our class competitors; he also had the fastest in-class TrackSprint (point to point) time, which was great, his auto-x background shone through there.

It stung a bit to have the win slip away because of a mechanical, and I'm not coming back to that class again next year, but the program is experiential and I went through a wide range of scenarios and emotions this weekend. It was formative, for lack of a better word. I've been improving all year and I very often wonder if I'm doing very good, or very bad. Getting to co-drive two completely different cars and wheeling them both very well went a long way to validating my skill and potential. This was my first time ever at NCM and I was ahead of some guys that ran this event last year. It was fun coaching Tyler and Dan and collaborating with them on strategy and setup.

You REALLY need to circle it on the calendar next year (especially since Heartland isn't on the schedule, yet).

Postby **tifosi77** » Tue Oct 01, 2019 5:16 pm

Hopefully this will not be stupid.

Postby **dodint** » Wed Oct 02, 2019 5:12 pm

That was the fastest S4 time of the weekend. I set it on Saturday in my last session with the car, the Focus ST I had wasn't nearly as quick.

The first half of the lap could be improved, the second half was pretty smooth though.

I've learned so much this year and I'm really proud of myself for how far I've come. I can't even picture what next year will be like; the car is being built into a proper race car and will compete in T3 next year. It'll be quicker and I'll need to continue my development to keep up.

Postby **CBear3** » Wed Oct 02, 2019 5:14 pm

Will you be ready for some spec E46 action next season, or sticking to TT?

Postby **dodint** » Wed Oct 02, 2019 5:22 pm

Sticking to TT. That was the plan for next year all along. Which is sad because it will prevent me from going to Runoffs at Indy.

I'm about to heavily modify the car. Cage, strip interior, new motor (out of necessity), new ECU, new suspension, racing clutch, and a bunch of other bits. Basically everything except the exhaust and LSD. I can't budget that and competition school, and the race entries on top of that.

Postby **CBear3** » Thu Oct 03, 2019 9:30 am

Gotcha.
Not looking forward to replacing the clutch in the future Bspec Cooper. Mainly because it involves a lot of space clearing at the shop to be able to reach the lift for its intended purpose.