NorCal UFO Marina AutoX round 10 (are we done yet?)

[SLOroadster]

Sunday August 10th we will be back at the Marina airport for round 10 of the 2007/08 season. I'm hoping attrition will start to play into things and the 2 guys ahead of me will be no shows and I will be able to clinch the title with 3 races to go. I kinda doubt it. This could be the last race of the season for the roadster due to my race tires starting to chunk and I'm not sure if I can get another 12 runs out of them. AutoXing with street tires is useless, so I might bring the red Italian street car to the last 2 with fresh street tires. (Unless a new set of V710s in a 195/55/14 magically appear on my door step.)

Lets see some roadsters out here. I know there are plenty in the south bay. I'll even give rides since I know I can't win class with the tires in the shape they are in. (I cant fall from 3rd unless I don't show either.) I think I will be running in the morning.

www.norcalufo.org

Will

[RC240z]

tear it up Will!

Good luck.

R

[SLOroadster]

tear it up Will!

Good luck.

R

No, no, no, we don't want to tear anything up. I still need to get through at the minimum 12 runs, and still drive another 930 miles (man thats a lot of driving for 3 races) before the season is over. I'm going to try and baby the race tires for the last 12 runs (uh right, I'll tell myself that, but odds are I'm going to run just as hard.) The truth is I really don't want to race the Alfa, its just not that much fun.

As a side note, by the end of the season I will have driven 4030 miles just to go racing. 155 miles each way 13 times. I'd say the car gets its use.

Will

[ppeters914]

Sell the Alfa. That should fund a few sets of racing tires, etc.

[SLOroadster]

I can't sell the Alfa, its got a heater and a top that doesn't leak as well as being a nice freeway car. Women are less afraid of it than the roadster as well. The Alfa will be a portion of my retirement fund since I don't make enough to put anything in a 401K.

I could buy another set of race tires, but I was planning on waiting till next March when I'll be able to use them. Start out on fresh tires and have at it. I just need to survive the winter events in the rain and not finish at the back of the field. I was hoping to get another real track day in with the V710s, but its not happening. Oh well.

Will

[spl310]

Find a used tire dealer and buy some used tires in the appropriate size. Wear them out.

[RC240z]

I think tear it up, falls into the same catagory as break a leg

[SLOroadster]

So far this year, the car has seen 13 races, had 2 drivers for four of them 3 drivers for 1, 2 track days, and a thorough flogging at an autoX school (seriously 40+ runs, 20 back to back non stop. Considering a normal autoX is 4 runs, that was a work out.) The PCA stuff has 6 to 12 runs as well (3 of those, 2 were double driver.) Its been driven to all but 2 events. Its been driven hard and put away hot. Needless to say, after all of that flogging, things are getting a little rattly and loose.
I have a whole list of things that need to be upgraded/replaced in the 1 month of down time I will have in December. I'm also exploring options of taking care of a BIG expense that the car has been waiting for since I got it. If I manage to find a means of taking care of said large expense, the car won't come out to play probably till March or April.

As it stands now, I can't catch 2nd place even if I win the last 3 events (I think I'll be about 20 points shy.) The only way for me to move up is if someone is a no show. I also won't go backward even if I finish last as the other people in the field haven't done all the events. So at this point I can't see a reason to stress about it. I'd rather go have fun, keep the car in one piece and just finish out the season. I would like to spend some time with the Alfa as it should be a better car in the rain with a couple more tweaks (like a larger front Anti-swaybar.) It has less power, more weight, softer sprung, and will have an LSD in it as soon as I have a chance to install it. All of these are a good thing in the rain. If I go ahead with the big project, I can put the new set of race tires on the Panasports I have for the Alfa and I'll run the stock wheels on the street until I am ready to run the roadster again. (Its nice having 2 cars that fall in the same class.)

I'll try and get some incar video this time. My digital camera works ok as a video camera.

Will

[DatsunBucky]

I'm also exploring options of taking care of a BIG expense that the car has been waiting for since I got it. If I manage to find a means of taking care of said large expense, the car won't come out to play probably till March or April.

Could that possibly be "shiny" paint??

[SLOroadster]

I'm also exploring options of taking care of a BIG expense that the car has been waiting for since I got it. If I manage to find a means of taking care of said large expense, the car won't come out to play probably till March or April.

Could that possibly be "shiny" paint??

hmmmm now there is a concept....

[nomadtrash]

KA24DE?

Just kidding.

[SLOroadster]

So I went out and tore it up, literally. The V710s are done! My first run was ok, a bit on the slow side, but clean. The second was a little faster but I could feel the tires going away. The 3rd was bad, I spun once and otherwise had a sloppy run. The 4th was, well, embarrassing. I ended up spinning 3 times, and I might as well have been on the street tires. I even had a fully stock 510 beat me with street tires. That is just depressing.
The car ran great and was making really good high end power, I saw the tach showing about 7300 rpm at one point. The low end is still there as well. I didn't have a single bog issue, and it didn't flood when I spun any of the 4 times. It was just ripping, the 40mm venturis opened up even more top end power. It did however kill the mileage. I didn't change jets, (I tried going richer but it wasn't happy so I went back to where I was and it was hard to beat.) My mileage however went through the floor. I think I'm down to about 20 mpg now. I'll see how it does running empty back down there on Sat for the Historics.

I got some good video from my last run, but I can't get it to upload to Youtube. I'll keep playing with it.

How about some pictures.

http://www.steve510.com/coppermine/albu ... 34_shp.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.steve510.com/coppermine/albu ... 35_shp.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.steve510.com/coppermine/albu ... 37_shp.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.steve510.com/coppermine/albu ... 38_shp.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.steve510.com/coppermine/albu ... 39_shp.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.steve510.com/coppermine/albu ... 87_shp.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It looks like the new site isn't photo friendly. Cut and paste the links. It looks like I need to come up with a seriously huge front sway bar to counter the amount of body roll I still have. The traction bars might have helped, but its hard to say with the tires being as done as they are.

Will

[ppeters914]

It looks like the new site isn't photo friendly.

Not quite. It just limits pics to 640x480. Yours are 799x532. Used to be you could get around that with HTML, but not anymore.

Nice pics. Thanks for sharing.