NORCAL UFO AutoX 9-30-07

[SLOroadster]

Just thought I'd post it. I'll be there, anyone else interested? Its at the Marina airport near Salinas and Monterey.

Will

[SLOroadster]

Well, the race went off without a hitch. On my trip down I picked up a nice sheetmetal screw in my right front tire, spent 2 hours finding a place to fix it only to find the screw didn't penetrate all the way through, so it was a waste of time (better safe than sorry however). I got back to the race and started doing my prerace check over and tune, only to find a timing cover bolt that holds part of the alternator mounting bracket jumped ship. I tightened all of them yesterday. After much thought (about 5 min) I decided that I was good to go without the bolt (I couldn't stand driving 6 hours round trip not to race.)

The race went about as I thought it would, lots of drifting through corners (still not the fast way to do things). I thought I was faster than I turned out to be as everyone else had lousy first and second runs, where as I was ok on the first run, faster by over a second on the second and slower on the last 2 (almost the same time as the first) The rest of the class on R compounds beat me by about 5 seconds. I think I placed 5th. However 5th in class was still faster than the AS (A stock) classes Honda S2000s, who were slower than the CSP (C street prep) miatas.

Unfortunetly I managed to rip half of my airdam off on the first lap on the second corner. When the car was in the body shop last year I told them they needed to weld the mounts for the airdam to the fender. Their idea of welding? JB weld. The body shop was sure they had the fix, but I guess not. The mounts are still attached to the airdam, right where they should be, but buried under a mound of JB weld. I don't know if they will warranty their work. The car hasn't seen 1000 miles this year, (more like 700). I really hope they will fix this the right way. They have a month.

Will

[RC240z]

Glad to see that you got back out with your car Will.

Some good, and bad luck. Good luck getting the airdam fixed.

Best,

Ron

[SLOroadster]

I looked on tirerack.com this morning. They have 195/55/14 Kuhmo V710 on sale. Uh oh. Do I really have the money? Yes, do I want to spend the $? No. However they don't get any cheaper, and I think this is all I need to be compeditive in class, and not too far off TTOD. I have the second set of wheels, I'm frustrated that I can't get any closer to winning class on street tires, and they are too good of a deal to pass up.

Will

[RC240z]

Will you should be able to get a 205 under your car and the extra tire would help you out quite a bit.

Ron

[albert gast]

hi wil ; glad to see you made your race . the tires will make a huge difference , its up to you . if you could go to a scca race that has a lot of IT racers you can some times find decent used tires at good prices .
when we started autox we always ran take offs .my son took a lot ftd's on these tires . good luck . !
al gast

[SLOroadster]

Will you should be able to get a 205 under your car and the extra tire would help you out quite a bit.

Ron

205s would be wonderful, but I can't slip a small screw driver between my tire and fender. My rear tires have some light rub marks on the sidewalls. I have rolled the fenders, taken a large motivational tool (sledge hammer) to the fenders where they rub and still can't clear anything bigger. I'd have to buy different wheels, and I don't think I can sell my Libres or Hayashis for enough to buy a set of Panasports with the correct offset and backspacing. What offset and backspacing do your Panasports have? My libres have a BS of 3.75 and an offset of +13. However they are only a 5.5 wide wheel. The Hayahsi are BS 4 inch and +9 offset, but they are 6.5"s.

Currently Tire Rack has V710s in a 195/55/14 for $130 each heat cycled. They dont get any cheaper than that.

I did have one failure yesterday. The mounts for my airdam on the left fender came off. I told the body shop they would need to be welded on, but they knew better than I did, and used JB weld. I didn't even hit anything. I will be taking the car back to the body shop that did the work back in March. I doubt they will fix it, but I might get lucky. If I had a MiG welder and a lift, I'd just do it myself and know it was done right, but I don't.

Will