09 prod fest

[albert gast]

got the car done for the race at vir this past weekend . there were 30 cars that started the race in our group . there were four roadsters in the race . randy carter's 2000 bob roland ,1600 jim rielly came from new york with his 2000 and my 2000 with grayson upchurch driving .
sat. practice and qualifiing were run in the wet . one of my rain tires went flat in practice , so grayson qualified 10th on slicks .
sunday was sunny and cool for the start of the race . clean start . grayson was third by the end of the firist lap . randy had to start at the rear due to being over the sound limit . he installed a larger muffler to solve the problem . by lap five grayson had the lead ,and randy was 4th . then randy got the black flag and was out . not to worry , never been over sound before . right ? got the flag on lap eight , pulled in on lap nine of a ten lap race . done!!
can't cry too much . the car was great all weekend .ran strong ,not quite as fast as wanted , but still a good run . four roadsters in one race , how good is that ? the diesel truck tranny worked fine also . now i got all winter to work on the sound system plus find a couple of hp for next year . stay tuned .
regards ; al gast
p.s. bob roland got the hard charger award for his run !!!

[notoptoy]

Very cool, you guys are close. We'll have to hook up. I've heard about VIR a bunch, but never gone. Maybe next year, once I get my 1600 back on the road! Probably won't track it though - but sounds fun, I'd at least enjoy watching.

[SLOroadster]

Good write up Al. I'm happy to hear you guys had a good showing. I wish we could get that many roadsters running at once out here on the west coast. I'm bummed Randy got booted, especially that close to the end of the race. If someone is going to get black flagged, do it at the beginning of the race, not the end. That sucks.

Sounds like everyone went home with healthy cars, so that is always a plus at the end of the season.

Will

[albert gast]

hey notop ; you are right next door , check the ncrscca web site for the schedule and come join us . there are likely some roadsters entered in the races .
wil ; you do pretty well yourself , driving your street car and doing well at auto x at same time . i wouldn't do it without a trailer and a pickup ! you do ok though .
there are a bunch of roadsters on the left coast ,tell them to come out and get a little brake dust on their wheels and scrub some tire rubber , they may even have a good time and be surprised at how well a roadster can handle when driven a bit hard .
regards ; al gast

[SLOroadster]

Al,
Trust me, every time I take the car down to Monterey (155 miles each way) I kinda feel like I'm rolling the dice. When I'm done racing for the day I feel less nervous because the trip home is easy. Pretty much a constant 4300 rpm all the way home. If I didn't blow the thing up at the race, its likely good to go for the trip home. The other thing about racing a street driven car is that I keep up on everything. There are no real surprises because I drive it all the time.

That said, there is a reason I don't do many track days with it. For those unless I'm running Sears Point that is pretty much in my back yard, I'm a little stretched to run Laguna Seca (160 miles away one way, and I don't think I'll pass sound restrictions.) or Thunderhill, about 150 miles one way the other direction.

I wish I could get more roadsters to come out and play. Its not that I haven't tried.

Will

[notoptoy]

Thanks For the Tip Al, I'll keep my eyes open for events.
Checking the roadster registry shows quite a few Roadsters in NC. Any idea what the "largest" gathering has been around here?

[fixitman04]

at least you guys have tracks reasonably close to you, closest one for me is brainerd mn(about 250miles one way), and it has been on the might close permanently list for the last 5 years. wish i lived closer to the racing hobby. cant wait for the roadster to be runnable as i no longer have the triumph so no race car for me right now