Race Car Stuff

I have been away for at least a month. I have been in hell at my “real job”. I am not 100% free, but I should have some time to put up at least a few articles. Then I promise I will post something as often as possible.

Charlotte Tire Test Still Troublesome
The new surface at Lowe’s Motor Speedway is still troublesome to Goodyear. Last year it was apparent that the repaving and grinding of the surface would not get along well with the tires Goodyear had to offer. In a tire test the last two days, Jimmy Johnson was one of 4 drivers and teams that participated in a tire test. After 20 laps Johnson crashed because of a tire failure. It has not been released if the failure was from a puncture or the tire just failing. Terry Labonte said his speeds approached the 193 mph record set in qualifying last year. Tests tend to be much slower than qualifying speeds. Some have guessed that this might turn into something in the 197mph range for qualifying trim. The record in 1993 was in the 177mph range, so this obviously makes Goodyear’s job very tough.

In fairness, Goodyear will spend every resource in their arsenal to solve this problem. Building a race tire for a Nextel Cup car is one of the most difficult tasks to accomplish. The combination of speed, centrifugal force, areo-downforce, heavy cars, and relatively small tires all just add to the problems. There are some amazing people in Goodyear’s R&D department.

Dreams Sometimes Turn to Nightmares
I don’t know what has not already been said about the tragic death of IRL driver Paul Dana. It is just one of the most tragic events in racing in years. My prayers are with him and his family. Peace.

Bill Lester, What a Story!!!
I ranted a little about an online acquaintance who made it to the big time. He deserves every moment of the rant! He finished the Golden Corral 500 in Atlanta in 38th place 6 laps behind. His goal going into the race was to gain respect. From what I saw, he accomplished his goal with flying colors. He finished with an undamaged race car and drove well. There are not many drivers that finish their first race. Not bad for a 45 year old rookie who spent most of his professional life in a suit and tie in an office at HP.

The cool thing is, that he read my blog. Check out the comments to the post about him attempting to qualify.

Iraq War Vet Returns Home to Surprise

39-year-old reservist Spc. Bob Metcalf, returned from a one year stint in Iraq to a surprise gift from friends and relatives: his basket-case 1967 Plymouth Barracuda restored in gleaming, patriotic style. The once rusty and fender less muscle car has been reworked featuring a sparkling blue paint job with red and white stripes. In Overhaulin’-esque fashion, volunteers worked for six months to realize “one soldier’s dream.”

Autoblog has the rest of the story.

Bristol Thoughts
The Nextel Cup race at Bristol always causes heated tempers. To me this years Food City 500 seemed to be rather uneventful compared to years past. The only thing that seemed to happen just happened to tow of the guys that are normally not controversial. Jeff Gordon pushed the mild mannered Matt Kenseth. Yawwwwwn…..
The other thing that was predictable was the combination of the strongest car the past decade or so at Bristol and the driver that has a knack for winning there. When Kurt Bush got in the Penske Miller Lite Dodge Charger, it became a hard combination to bet against. If I were to place a bet in Vegas, I would put my bet on the #2.

Daytona Prototypes Look Better Each Time I See Them
Why do I like the appearance of the Daytona Prototypes every race I see them. I have finally grown to like them more than the IMSA Prototypes of the 80’s. I have always loved their concept, cars that have the swoopy prototype race car appearance, but have some cost controls designed into the rules that govern the cars. They have hints of the production cars that supply their engines in roof shape, lights, etc. But the cars have really grown on me.

Until next time…. Thanks for reading.

History was made today with the turbo diesel powered Audi taking the overall victory. There are already other teams planning to race diesels next year, I guess it will be the wave of the future. Here are the class winners.

P1 Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish, Rinaldo Capello - Audi R10 TDI
P2 Liz Halliday, Clint Field, Jon Field - Intersport Racing Lola
GT1 Jan Magnusen, Olivier Beretta, Oliver Gavin - Corvette C6.R
GT2 Sebastian Bourdais, David Brabham, Scott Maxwell - Panoz Esperante

Here is a complete writeup
Sebring 12 Hour Story

For those of you who don’t know, Ford SVT stands for Ford Special Vehicles Team. They are basically the “in house speed shop” at Ford. They develop the enthusiast’s cars that everyone here is interested in. Lets face it; nobody really cares about a Tarus. The people who buy them do so just because they fit their needs, they don’t want a Tarus, their life just “sticks” them with a Tarus. But people want a Mustang Cobra or a F-150 Lightning.

SVT did much of the development of the Ford GT, and that took a great deal out of the department, even thought the car is not listed as an “SVT” product like the Lightning or Cobra. The upcoming 2007 Shelby Cobra GT500 (however it will be named) is going to be an SVT car when it hits the market. But unfortunately it has been announced that this will be the last SVT car. As of April 1, SVT as we’ve known it since 1992 will cease to exist.

That’s right, there will be no more SVT. This is a bleak day for Ford performance enthusiasts. We know that this may be the beginning of the end of the run of performance cars we have all grown to love from Ford. Ford is doing things to eliminate the red ink that has appeared on their balance sheets. We all remember what happened at the end of 1970 that did not turn around for a decade. Lets face it; there is not a Ford from the 70’s that gets any respect from enthusiasts.

Here is what Edmunds.com had to say about it.

Bill Lester just made the field at the Atlanta NASCAR Nextel Cup race. He is the first African American driver to make the field on 20 years, the first 45 year old rookie to start a race since Dick Trickle in the middle 80’s, and the first guy in a long time that gave up a mundane 8-5 office job in his late 30’s to persue his racing career dream to make a race in many many years…..

Many moons ago as we were all discovering the wonders of the internet (before there was a World Wide Web page) there were many e-mail lists. On these lists I found other sports car racing nuts like myself. It turns out that many of us were computer geeks as well as racers (more participants than fans). One of these lists was called the wheel2wheel list that was basically compromised of SCCA club racers. The list has gone by the wayside long since replaced by literally hundreds of web based discussion forums.

We discussed all of the usual stuff, passing tech, racing lines, car prep, etc. One of the people I got to know on this list was a fellow named Bill Lester. All I knew about him was that he worked at Hewlett-Packard (I could tell from his email address) and that he was pretty good at finding funding for rental rides with professional teams in a few TransAm and other pro level races each year. We talked online often, as I was racing a club racing GT1 car and was hoping to find a miracle and get a chance in the TransAm series. I also learned from our emails back and forth that Bill happened to know Willy T Ribbs pretty well. Ribbs was an incredible racer that worked his way up through the Formula Atlantic series eventually to some great rides in TransAm in the DeAtley Chevrolets and later with Jack Roush in his Capris and Mustangs.

Well I never got my TransAm chance, but I did see Bill Lester race a few times on television coverage. I followed his career paying attention to everywhere I saw his name. I lost touch with him and others on the wheel2wheel list, but I followed the exploits of Bill and other racers from the list as they made media coverage from time to time. Bill always seemed to have his eye on the ball though. Somewhere along the way I happened to see him interviewed and I discovered that he was a black guy. Not only was this guy good at pounding on doors and getting rides in good racecars, he was also a good driver, happened to still be doing well in a career at Hewlett-Packard, but he was also helping bridge the racial gap that unfortunately exists in racing for whatever reason. All of these are great accomplishments. Even though I had lost touch with him, I felt somewhat connected still, I (and others from the wheel2wheel list) were going along for the ride in spirit.

A couple of years later I hear that Bill Lester has a full time ride in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. I later find out that he and his wife took the big gamble on his racing career. He quit his good job at HP, and took the dive at the age that many drivers are retiring from NASCAR. Talk about going against the odds. By normal practices, he was too old to be getting into the top levels of NASCAR racing, he was coming from the road racing world as opposed to the usual short ovals, he came from the white collar “professional” world, and he was also the “wrong” race typically. He was really taking things his own way. I was even more proud to have gotten to know him a little online years before.

Bill has had a pretty good career in the NCTS with 3 career polls, and two top five finishes. It is nothing that is setting records, but he finished 14 in the points last year. That is not championship contender, but I am sitting in a recliner wishing I were on a racetrack; Bill is making a living doing what we all want to do.

Well this weekend Bill Lester will attempt to qualify for his first NASCAR Nextel Cup Series race. He is being sponsored by Waste Management and will attempt to qualify this weekend and in six more races this season. Much media hype is being made of Bill being the first black person to attempt to qualify since his friend Willy T. Ribbs last ran in 1986. But to me the more important story is the fact that Bill has actually made a career from being a “normal” guy and working hard to get the chances necessary. He is living the dream for all of us amateur racers, but he made the dream come true by working hard and taking the chance that many of us were unwilling to take.

Good luck Bill, you have already made us all proud in so many ways!!

I am still swamped with other demands, but someone showed me something that I think is a great source for explaining the basics of handling and how one might go about suspension adjustments to correct handling problems. The source if this is very interesting, and I think it makes a great resource as a learning tool. Remote Controlled cars today have gotten so they have very sophisticated suspension systems. They are a great resource for leaning what makes a suspension on a full sized car work. One of the electric 1/10th scale kits has enough suspension adjustments to make adjustments and actually see the difference.

To learn the basics to be able to learn how to speak suspension adjustments, read this site:

RC Car Handling basics

If you understand everything there you are ahead of most of the people at a typical local autocross.

I am sorry I have not posted new things lately. I have had a demanding project otherwise that I have been attending. I have not forgotten this site and when I am done (very soon), I have lots of good stuff that I will be posting. I am working on a series for someone wanting to get into the most grassroots types of racing. I have a great idea with how I want to focus the articles. I am sure you will enjoy it. In addition I have the first track events scheduled, with some great first hand reports. It is going to be a great season…. keep watching. I promise I will catch up!!!

The last car produced with the Healey badge was the Jensen-Healey in 1976. It is a name with great racing tradition from Donald Healey’s Bonneville land speed record of 203 mph 50 years ago, the numerous specials in various forms of racing, or the club racing staple of the Austin-Healey Sprite.

HFI Automotive has acquired Healey Automobile Consultants Ltd (HAC), owners of the Healey brand, with the intentions of returning the Healey name to sportscars. Plans are well advanced for a high performance sportscar with the DNA of a Healey 3000 - in convertible and coupe derivatives, as well as a modern affordable replacement for the much-loved Healey Sprite. Further down the line, the range will include several other niche-market performance vehicles.

For more information:

http://www.hfiautomotive.com