Fifth Avenue Forum

If you wanted a pretty enjoyable dive into it and listen to podcasts, this was fun: https://www.dinnerwithracers.com/ep-149-david-kaemmer/

They go a lot into the mapping of North Wilksoboro and Dale Jr's involvement, pretty neat. Newfound respect for Jr from me.

The cars in that video, what a walk back in time.

dodint

Have you ever watched any of these? This one had me in absolute stitches.

Jesus P crikey, what the hell is this.

I got about halfway in replacing the blower on the street Cooper this weekend:

As a MINI owner the prospect of this terrifies me. The BMW is overengineered, but I've got some room to work. The MINI is BMW assembled by the English in a much smaller space.

Cbear, I've been toying with the idea of doing a LeMons team next year. There are always a bunch of R53 Cooper S's on copart that 'run and drive.' I have my hands full of SE46 right now but I may be nagging you next year for help and guidance.

I'll donate some camber plates to the cause. Never got them installed on that one and I don't need to track it since I'll have the B-Spec.

Have you looked at SCCAs new endurance series? They're taking aim at the 'affordable' endurance racing market. Opening race is in Sebring in 2022.

Sebring is my least favorite North American race track, but I might be interested once they go to some real courses.

Have you driven it? Its on my bucket list. It's a crappy part of Florida (and that's saying something for Florida), but there's enough history there that I'd love to do it once.

The beauty of the B-Spec is that its cheap (for a racecar) and I can run it practically anywhere; SCCA Enduro, Champcar, WRL, even Lemons if I remove the suspension bits and theme it up.

No. Not in real life. Plenty enough in the simulator. You alluded to it, Sebring is a parking lot propped up by history, from a time when folks had few other options. Take away that history and nobody would pay money to race there.

I'm getting more tied into SCCA. Heavy involvement with TTNT and I'm on the staff as a coach for TNiA this year. I may go to the Sebring event. Maybe. I dunno. Need to know more about the event details. I'll hit you up and see if you want to come down and drive (in the E46). By then the car will have been to a few events and we'll know if it can take a punch.

As opposed to Riverside, which was demolished and is now the actual parking lot for a shopping mall.

F1 just announced they are having a race in Miami in 2022

Maybe it will be as good as the one they announced in NJ.

That proposed circuit in New Jersey was just....................... like, who did they think they were fooling by proposing that location? It was a largely residential area, 25,000 people would've been landlocked on race weekend. It was a neat layout, sure, but come on.

Had no idea IndyCar starts today. Giggity. I don't watch it live but it's one of my favorite Sunday night thing to watch while winding down from the weekend.

OH MY GOD

I just saw the Miami F1 track a temporary circuit in the parking lot of the Dolphins' stadium. The layout looks like someone free-handed it in MS Paint.

@tifosi77

Here's a nice little nugget for you. When Marshall Pruett ceased being a racer and mechanic he had no marketable skills. He went to a temp agency in California and explained to the owner that he doesn't have a lot of hard skills but is a pretty smart guy and he can figure things out pretty quick. She sent him to Industrial Light & Magic to be an executive assistant.

When he got there he was very confused and thought he was lost. It turns out IL&M has to disguise the façade of their building because Star Wars people are awful and won't leave them alone.

I share that story as a testament to my friendship with you, as it breaks my 'No Star Wars' worldview to do so.

This is the forecourt outside the front door of their current offices in the Presidio.



If you walk up to the windows in the background there, you can see full size maquettes of Storm Troopers and Kylo Ren and the Wampa.

So.......... maybe not the best disguise.

(Also, I have a friend who works at ILM; the moment the syllable 'Star' escapes a job candidate's lips unprompted, they shut it down.)

Well, this was in the early to mid-90s, so....

He said the inside was full of the ****, but the outside had a completely different name on the door.

Anyway, yeah, I regret mentioning it now as you've ruined one of the few threads I actually enjoy almost completely.

Camera settings make this feel like the old PS1 F1 game from the late 90s.

I think I read that that Ferrari crashed during the actual race.

More like it got crashed. There was some great nose-to-tail racing for several laps; Jean Alesi driving the Ferrari in the lead with Marco Werner in the Lotus on his gearbox in P2. Exiting the final corner late in the event, Werner got better drive and when Alesi shifted gears, it looked like he snatched the rear wheels a little bit, and Werner was so close he couldn't avoid clipping the Ferrari's rear, and it turned Alesi into the wall. Werner went on to win, but he was penalized for the incident post-race and ultimately classified P3.

I watched the video the other day. I think Youtube served it to me because I watched the one above. I didn't even realize they were the same car until I saw Shysters post.

I think that's on Alesi. Shift better, bro.

I would suppose in a vintage race however you shouldn't be up somebody's gearbox like that and putting one off machines at that kind of risk.

Did I read correctly that Jimmie Johnson, 7 time Cup champ, is running Indycar this year?

Yeah, kind of. He's not running ovals and he's not good a turning, so...