CMP - Post race (Page 3 of 5)

Wesleyw wrote:

B&W Racing (one of the MANY red e36's, ours was the one with the fishbowl on the roof) had a fantastic weekend!  Ours is mostly a family affair... My wife, son (21) and daughter (18) race along with Tom and I as car "owners".   The parade was awesome as always.. every year there are many friends and familiar faces, but also amazing new entries that continue to inspire us in work and play.

During the first session on Saturday I was driving and managed to briefly get our car to the #1 position but kept trading places with Questies Racing in their awesome Fiesta.  The two of us had a blast with mostly me following with an occational lap in front.. it was a personal goal of mine to lead and least for a lap (only took 8 years).  The back and forth ended when Questies literally drove the wheels off the car..   Apparently the front left lug nuts worked themselves off or maybe broke the bolts... when they got the car to pit exit the wheel fell off and rolled into the grassy hill area... no harm done but very "Lemony" 

The Questie's (Escort) was great to drive.

I like how the spectator there is already calling for a jack and lugs to be delivered pronto.  We'll need someone just like that to torque the lugs a little tighter next time.

coolhand454 wrote:

Double E wrote:

The Questie's (Escort) was great to drive.

I like how the spectator there is already calling for a jack and lugs to be delivered pronto.  We'll need someone just like that to torque the lugs a little tighter next time.

Been there:

Any chance you were running new hubs when that happened, we think we have narrowed it down to that being the issue. The studs not being 110% fully seated in the hub..

I drove for 2 teams, the #8 black and green camero and the #21 white 88 Thunderbird.  Drove the Camaro Saturday, after having driven the T bird last year.  The Camaro and I took a while to get acquainted, it was skittish hitting curbing and that's how blind folks like me drive.  I realized with maybe 2 minutes left in my stint to avoid the curbs, and things got simpler.  The Camaro ran fine all day, but I never got the confidence to really go after it.  I don't think I went full throttle more than a few times during my stints.

Late Saturday night, I was informed that I'd been traded to the T bird team, for 2 drivers and a driver to be named later.  The Bird was 5 laps out of first place and 1 lap out of second in B, IIRC.  I was to drive the 12:00-2:00 stint..  Morning session, Eric brought the car in maybe 3 laps down in first and maybe 2 down to second.  We knew we could beat the red Firebird (second place car) on pit strategy, as they could run for around 90 minutes.  My plan was to take it easy for a while and pace the firebird, which was the car directly in front of me at the start of the afternoon session.That plan lasted about 2 1/2 laps, as I felt like I was back with an old friend, and we were feeling pretty racey.  I passed on the back straight, IIRC, and was able to keep them back for a few laps.  I felt the tires scrubbing on the long right handers, and didn't want to use the tires up before the last stint, so I pointed the Firebird by and proceeded to lose him in traffic. Brilliant strategy!  I got feedback that the car was  never more than 30 seconds or so in front, so I didn't try to make time up.  As a matter of fact, probably dropped another tenth to save wear.  Drove the track for a while in mostly fourth, trying to pass the green neon after T1, see a yellow ahead, tap the brakes way too hard to avoid a black flag and get all squirrely.  Self report, hear how well we were doing from Judge Steve and he tells me to get back out there and keep looking ahead.

Unfortunately for my team, that was all she wrote.  I believe we finished second in B, 2 laps down to the red firebird, which was well driven and faster than you'd think a V6 4th gen would be. 

There were many times I'd wished there was a camera on board, got to see a lot of good and a lot crappy driving.

Parade was great, BBQ was better, and I was sorry to hear we lost another good person from our quirky, loving group.

For anyone I pulled a dick move on, I'm sorry, and I can't wait to see y'all back at Barber in February!

Skinny D wrote:

Does anyone have any video of the last 30 lap battle for 3rd between the IDS Miata and the Squirting Corona's Mercedes?

We (the Corona's) had our GoPro die earlier in the day, and didn't get any footage of an epic battle that was over an hour.

If you were in a slower car, and happened to get passed by the Miata and Mercedes in quick succession (especially in the last 2 laps), could you please share the video clip with us?

Irritable Dad's, do you have some?

Thanks!

I have some video of the last few laps, had no idea you and the Miata were racing for position as I was locked in a battle with the Burp e36 for the loftiness of 8th place. We got around the IDS Miata just after the beginning of the last lap and past your car through the last carousel. The image stabilizer pooped the bed on my Git2 so I have to run the footage through some software to clean it up some but you might find it interesting..

Adrian
Questies Racing Team
'91 Escort GT

steve wrote:

The decision to pit came after I drove the Second time on Saturday and got out of the car disoriented and dehydrated. I ended up being taken to the tower to get in the AC and get checked out, heart rate was around 140 and I was having trouble focusing.

Glad to hear you were OK.  Did you use a cool suit?  What hydration system do you use while in the car?  I'm surprised at how many teams don't pay closer attention to driver hydration and comfort.  We use a cool suit of course, re-filled with ice for every driver, and we use a 1 quart thermos-type container with a tube and bite valve for driver hydration during the stint.  I drink ALL of my water, and when I get out after two hours, I really have to pee, meaning I'm staying hydrated.

Biggest mistake that I think i made was not taking time to eat something for lunch and that we didn't have any kind of hydration in the car or a cool suit. Things will be done differently for the next race for sure.

VKZ24 wrote:

steve wrote:

The decision to pit came after I drove the Second time on Saturday and got out of the car disoriented and dehydrated. I ended up being taken to the tower to get in the AC and get checked out, heart rate was around 140 and I was having trouble focusing.

Glad to hear you were OK.  Did you use a cool suit?  What hydration system do you use while in the car?  I'm surprised at how many teams don't pay closer attention to driver hydration and comfort.  We use a cool suit of course, re-filled with ice for every driver, and we use a 1 quart thermos-type container with a tube and bite valve for driver hydration during the stint.  I drink ALL of my water, and when I get out after two hours, I really have to pee, meaning I'm staying hydrated.

Biggest mistake that I think i made was not taking time to eat something for lunch and that we didn't have any kind of hydration in the car or a cool suit. Things will be done differently for the next race for sure. All in all though we had a blast, we got the organizers choice and even won the under 2.0 liter race for Alex's lemonade stand. Biggest thing is we brought the car home in mostly one piece, (minus one side pipe) but overall in really good shape. Thank you to those that were giving us a bit wider birth than usual I would have hated to see all of that Body filler and expanding foam scattered all over the track.

steve wrote:

VKZ24 wrote:

Glad to hear you were OK.  Did you use a cool suit?  What hydration system do you use while in the car?  I'm surprised at how many teams don't pay closer attention to driver hydration and comfort.  We use a cool suit of course, re-filled with ice for every driver, and we use a 1 quart thermos-type container with a tube and bite valve for driver hydration during the stint.  I drink ALL of my water, and when I get out after two hours, I really have to pee, meaning I'm staying hydrated.

Biggest mistake that I think i made was not taking time to eat something for lunch and that we didn't have any kind of hydration in the car or a cool suit. Things will be done differently for the next race for sure. All in all though we had a blast, we got the organizers choice and even won the under 2.0 liter race for Alex's lemonade stand. Biggest thing is we brought the car home in mostly one piece, (minus one side pipe) but overall in really good shape. Thank you to those that were giving us a bit wider birth than usual I would have hated to see all of that Body filler and expanding foam scattered all over the track.

My team makes fun of me ruthlessly about cooling and hydration, but 3+ hours of consistent fastest laps in the car usually shuts them up pretty quickly.

If you don't have a coolbox, I recommend getting Vince (VKZ24) to build you one. He has a damn good design, and built ours for this race. He charges $299, and that includes everything you need except for the shirts themselves. His boxes have 3 important design elements that set them apart from the commercial ones you might buy, aside from just being cheaper.

1) He uses a strong pump that doesn't need priming, and lives *outside* of the cooler. This is really important because the crappy blue, red, and white bilge pumps that the companies making these put in the boxes are fragile, and can get broken off their mounts by sliding ice, as well as requiring a minimum depth of about 2" of water to get started.

2) He has a bolt mounting system where the box is hard mounted to the floor of the car, but it's still easy to remove if needed. This seems a lot better and easier than the ratchet strap method we were using in the past, and doesn't cost an extra $60 for a mounting plate like the commercial companies charge.

3) His boxes have a rubber clip/strap to open and close, which is faster and easier during a pit change.

Anyway, the only issues we had was that the pump was so strong I could only run it for about 6 seconds before it got too cold on my skin, and that it shot one of the plugs for the shirt off the line from the box! His new designs include the speed controller for the pump to make it run slower, so that shouldn't be an issue.

And I second having water in the car. It makes a huge amount of difference, especially for people who aren't used to an endurance sport in hot weather. At some point, someone is going to crash a car and say "I was hot, and dehydrated, and I couldn't focus." I say don't let it be you. For drinks, we use camelbak bladders or those red and white thermoses with the hose, and put them in a cut out 1 gallon water jug or a flower pot which is zip tied to the roll cage either near the driver's left knee or over their left shoulder.

Let me know if you'd like any more info on this, as I'm kind of a cooling and hydration nut, being Skinny and all.

- D