This the younger brother I spoke about. Dominant. He's been flown around the country to ride different team bikes. I'd bet he'll be a factory rider before long, he's already kicking some of their asses. Hoping he stays healthy and injury free, knock on wood.
I see this 9 months later because the thread pops up, but daaaaamn, better late than never. That was one hell of a finish.
https://champcar.org/register/events.php Nett will probably appreciate this. I got called and picked up by a team for this series. One of the drivers is a friend I used run hare scramble races with. We'll be doing races at Road Atlanta, Daytona, Watkins Glen, Sebring, VIR and COTA and others. Definitely looking forward to traveling to Georgia and Daytona while it's still cold as fuck here.
I'm not driving, I'm pit crew. I imagine that will not change as long as all the drivers stay healthy. 5.0 Mustangs, class D. They might be entering 2 cars in each event. One is a 6th gen, and one is 3rd Gen. I don't have all that many details at the moment. Meeting with them after Christmas to get my fire suit and other gear.
That is awesome! It's a fun class to run, for sure. By far the cheapest class that gets you to some fun, famous tracks. I don't care if it's miatas or F1, racing is fun, and I'm sure you'll have a blast.
This is a new team started by some guys with deeeep pockets. They sent me the events we've entered and we'll have one of the highest race counts of the entire series, if last years standings are any indication of expected participation. They are chasing wins and championships, and they're well funded. One owner, I know, is a rich guy that poured everything he had into business in his 30s and 40s. Now his business is pretty much on autopilot and he's chasing this dream. If he tastes success, it will be like crack. The chase will really get insane then. I saw him do it in business. There is no telling what cars he'll buy and what series he'll ascend to, if he has success in this series.
There is a classic old saying in racing... "How do you make a small fortune in racing?" Spoiler "start with a big one" Or drugs. So many drug dealers went racing, it's not funny. The 1980s IMSA drug smuggling scandal involved several prominent drivers, including the Whittington brothers (Don & Bill), Randy Lanier, and John Paul Sr. & Jr., who used profits from drug trafficking (especially marijuana) to fund their high-profile sports car racing careers, leading to major investigations, arrests, and convictions, tarnishing the sport's image but also revealing deep connections between racing and illicit activities of that era
I recall a report years & years ago that summarized if you were able to magically remove 100% of the drug trade, removing that much money from the global economy would trigger a global recession. At the end of the day drug kingpins are still in essence businessmen and they need to dump that money somewhere.
The one guy is at the beginning, with the big one. He can go pretty wild, for a good while, before he starts sweating the costs.
So many offshore power boats teams in south Florida were run off cocaine money back in the 80s. One of the Cocaine Cowboys was actively racing while being a federal fugitive
Just here to update how our first race went, and the days leading up to it. Nettdata, and anyone else familiar with the endurance racing format, will recognize the difficulty we faced, and the effort it took to pull off the feat that we did. The two owners/drivers picked and brought together 5 other guys. I knew one of the 5 and 1 driver, a pair of brothers that only knew one of the drivers, and an older gentleman that knew the other driver. All from different areas of NC, we would not all meet until the morning we loaded up the car to leave for our first race. We tried to get together, but we really do live hours apart, in normal driving conditions, and we've had winter weather turning those 3 hour, one way drives into risky, all-day slogs across a snow covered state. Wednesday, at 5:00pm on the dot, I pulled up to a shop not much larger than mine here at home. I walked in and met Joe, and older man in his 60s, a former local truck series champion. He has worked for Ford Racing for a long time, and been building Nascar spec cars and trucks, for various series under the Nascar banner, for 30 years. Joe and I would work late into the night finishing the car. The tasks were typically small but crucial, and individually, not too time consuming. The list, though, it was long. Exhausted, we would leave a few items for the morning, so we could get a few hours of sleep. Thursday morning, I wake up to another coating of snow and slick roads between the cheap motel room I got and Joe's shop. I get there around 7am to finish the list with Joe. I would meet the rest of the team as they would arrive to help load the car hauler. Joe and Jason, the other driver/owner, agree that morning that I should be crew chief. I'd known Jason for over 20 years, but I quickly proved to Joe that I didn't need to be babysat when working on his car, and he chose trust my decisions during the races. We pushed the car onto the trailer early in the afternoon. Later than we wanted, but only by an hour or so. The trailer brakes would lock up after we left, a few miles from Joe's shop. We could unplug the connection between the truck and trailer, the brakes would unlock, but you know... no lights. The team stopped in Kannapolis, NC and fix the wiring that caused the issue, while I drove ahead to secure a pit paddock spot with electricity. I arrived at the track just before 5pm, when they opened the paddock for all teams. I parked in front of a 30 amp plug and stood outside in the freezing cold telling people, "No, I do have a trailer coming and we're using this plug. Please find another one." The team and car arrived later, with about 1 hour before series officials would close tech inspection for the night. We pushed our car off the trailer. For the first time since before they bought the non-running fox body off marketplace 14 months ago and drug it out of the field it occupied, it moved under its own power to get in line at tech. That's right, this car has never moved under its own power since it was stripped down to a tub/frame and rebuilt as a racecar. A racecar that was just finished that morning. I even hesitate to say finished, because it still doesn't have the splitter or some of the upgraded suspension that was bought for it. But, time was up, it had to race that weekend, or we would also miss Daytona. Because Daytona can't be your first race, it's a rule that neither an unproven driver or an unproven car can compete at Daytona. Tech shut down when we were four cars away from it. Inspection would have to happen in the morning. Late that night, we all went to the hotel for as much sleep as we could get. It wouldn't be much. We needed to get back early and in line for tech again. Joe kept coming up with things that needed to be done to the car before it could actually go out on the track. It was another long night, after a long day. The car, once again, moved under its own power to get back in line for tech. It passed. It got so many looks and compliments, and other teams lined up to look at it. Joe had really engineered an amazing car and it was probably the cleanest build out of the 105 cars there. Yet, we still didn't know how it would actually work out on the track. Everything was new, but it was untested. Practice time came and we got it out there for brief periods before some asswipes would spin and practice would be cut short. If I had to guess, we got in about 12 full speed laps, a handful of off speed laps with each driver just feeling out a car that neither of them had ever driven. The reigning 2025 National Champcar Champion team members are friends of Joe, and used to work with him at Ford Racing before leaving for a position with General Motors. It's the team of Eddie Vetter. If you watch the Champcar Live youtube video of the race, you will hear a lot about them. They're well known and dominant pair of drivers in a very fast C4 corvette. Dan, the top driver of the Eddie Vetter team, is the most talented driver in the series at this time, and possibly many other times as well. We shared a pit box with them. Their guidance would be invaluable on Saturday. They let us use their tools to keep the box less cluttered with multiple tool boxes. We set our car and race monitors up along side theirs. I would talk with and learn from them throughout the race. The Eddie Vetter team would experience engine failure while leading at lap 29. They would stay in the pit box with us and another Ford Racing employee and friend would start pitting their car in our box, too. There was a whole lot of cooperation between the friends and three teams with connections to Ford Racing. Joe started the race in the 15th position and spun on the first lap, just sent it a little hard on the cool tires. We would drop back to last in class and about 48th overall. We started to work our way back forward, and quickly discovered a couple of issues. While monitoring the car on our pit computer, I notice the throttle position sensor is showing only opening to 82%. Joe and I discuss over the radio and we think it may be a calibration issue with the TPS sensor. We would later find out we're wrong. Joe lasts about an hour and 15 minutes before coming into swap with Jason and fill the car up. He burned right 10 gallons of fuel. Joe had to pee, he would do longer stint later in the race. The next issue would show itself after Joe is out of the car. Jason starts his stint. He is faster than Joe. He's also younger and determined to last the whole 2 hours before he is forced to swap. That's the rule, 2 hours of driving, max, then at least 1 hour of rest before he can drive again. He wouldn't make it that far. The car starts sputtering in turns. I bring Jason in the pits and get Joe back in the car. He built it and he has 30 years of building experience, maybe he can narrow down the issue with what he feels during his driver stint. We also fill the car up. Joe earns a black flag for driving aggressively, and he gets fussed at and serves a brief penalty near the beginning of pit road before going back out. The car isn't sputtering. He's in the pits, might as well get Jason back in the car Jason gets spun by another car in turn 1. He is stuck in the gravel pit, but didn't hit anything. He is well off track, so they throw a caution instead of a red flag. He has to wait for a tow truck, while cars steadily pass him and there isn't anything can be done. I bring him in to check the car over. The field was already back under green flag, but we needed to know if we had damage. Luckily, it's nothing major, a little wrinkled sheet metal and some black marks in front of the right rear tire. The sputtering shows up again . Right about 11 gallons burnt out of the fuel cell and I notice that number is right where it started last time. I can tell it's 11 gallons from my computer. Joe added a program that measures injector open time and multiplies it by the flow rate of the injector. It is impressively accurate. We have a fuel pick up problem and after those first 11 gallons, the car ain't running right. I keep them running, early pitting, tried to time it with cautions. Any caution hits 1 hour after last pit stop, drivers know to come in, crew knows to fuel and I try whatever Joe and I have planned to fix the issue. Caution timing only worked a time or two, most fuel stops and swaps happened under green because that is when the car started acting up. This strategy is keeping us slowly climbing back to the top 30. Not ideal, but we're faster than the cars we're running with, but they have to pit less, because our issues still aren't fixed. This is where we take advantage of the Eddie Vetter engine failure. Dan, top driver in the series, takes over Joe's driver stint at about 4:30. Joe, the builder of the car, the man that knows it like back of his hand, now has extra time to think up a fix. He figures it out and fixes it while Dan and Jason swap again. That will be three straight stints that Joe and I have been able to fix car issues. With Joe's extra time we even fix the throttle body issue. We actually puĺled the intake and found we could adjust the throttle cable shorter and get WOT. With five hours remaining in the race we have the car running really good. We're in about mid 30s overall, I think. Dan, during his run in our car, runs the fastest lap that our car had run all day. Yet, he only beats Jason's fastest time by 0.22 seconds. This gives Jason and us all a little boost of confidence. Jason is fast, the car is getting faster. But, even with the car running much better, the sun is down in Jason's eyes and dark will take over soon. I'm not expecting lap times to go down any more at this point in the race. I am expecting most drivers to slow down at night, with very few exceptions drivers will be slower in the dark. It's complete dark, a little over 3 hours remaining. Joe gets in and does his longest stint of the race. He's a few seconds slower than his daytime pace, but we are picking up positions. By this time we're around 26th position, but I get Joe to stay out until I know Jason can make it to the checkered flag on a full tank of fuel. At this point, there are only about 3 cars on the lead lap. The rest of the positions are really spread out, and laps down. The lead cars are all C class with small engines and long fuel windows. They have the fewest pit stops in the race. Horsepower doesn't win these races, staying on the tracks does. We get up to 23rd position overall, and we're kinda stuck there. When I look at scoring, it isn't likely we're catching 22nd, and we're way ahead of 24th. Jason is in a pack of cars that cause three spins and cautions in quick succession. I tell Jason to roll pit road to get out of that pack. Our position won't change unless he stays where he is and he's the next one to get spun. Our car is still in one piece, let's just run out the clock. Jason takes the checkered flag for 2nd in class and 23rd overall. I'm so proud of that accomplishment. Joe built a racecar that went untested and then was pushed very near its limits for 14 straight hours. That, in my mind, is amazing. Five other guys that mostly didn't know each other, worked together and put together some very good pit stops. Jason drove the wheels off of it. Joe and I worked out bugs throughout the day and continually made the car better every stop. Our team and car survived its grueling, 14 hour shakedown. They better watch out at Daytona. We have throttle body that opens fully and we should be able to get real close to that two hour maximum driver stint. I figure we had at least 5 extra green flag pit stops, maybe more, because of shortened fuel range, checking after spin, the black flag. I know the third place car, after 10 hours, only had 5 pit stops. We probably had 10 by then. There is a rule for 5 minute minimum pit stop time when you fuel. It's for safety, forces teams to slow down and fuel smoothly and safely. You take those extra stops away, all that extra time, and if we continue to mostly stay out of trouble, we're running near the front overall. We worked our asses off, slept 4 hours a night and relied on white Monsters to keep most of us going. And I'm proud what Joe built, what we did with that untested car, what we learned and how we finished.
Fucking. Awesome. Dude, you guys killed it. Welcome to endurance racing! Thanks for sharing. Great write up and pics!
Oh, yeah. We also did all that with an off the internet remanufactured, stock 5.0 engine. Jason complained of a lack of power, complained less late in the race, the closer to right we got it. Joe didn't comment on power. Jason's other, newer mustang has way more power, but it would be an Exception Class car under champcar rules. The actual balanced, hand-built Yates race engine with aluminum heads for the foxbody, was not ready. It will be ready well before Daytona. Joe will go thru this engine for a back up for that weekend. But as soon as that weekend is over and we have time to do it, it will go for the same rebuild and treatment. They'll be in rotation going to Yates for refresh as needed between races. Hopefully we get a little test day at VIR, Carolina Motorsports Park or somewhere, when new engine goes in the car.