I used to watch Nascar, but I haven't in at least 15 years. I used to go to the Bristol and Charlotte races. Those were fun 2-3 day benders and ending in very hungover drive home. One spring race in Bristol, it snowed. We were camping in a tent. Some dude didn't have boots to keep his feet warm, but he found some size 22 sneakers to wear over his normal shoes. His feet had to be the warmest feet in world that weekend. Some people obviously didn't check the weather and I'm surprised nobody died of hypothermia from being under dressed. Daytona is April 11. I actually just booked our room. My wife and kid travel with me, so I have get our accommodations instead of sharing a room with one of the crew.
More racecar build pics. These are from the Wednesday when Joe and I were trying to finish it up. Cockpit before we put the windshield in it. The cage was put in by professional cage people, that's about the only thing Joe didn't design or build himself. The starlink mount on the passengerside, and the escape hatch on on the driver side The engine. You can have one just like it if you have an internet connection and a credit card. In a few weeks, that will not be the case. This race, we just made a steel mesh to go over the intake, because it was quick. It will have a costume panel that will bolt down over it. The hood will also get louvers, and the nose a splitter to help our aerodynamics. That is an actual closed loop fuel system you see in many professional racing series, where the license plate would be on a street car. Each jug can dump 5 gallons of fuel in about 4.8 seconds. To my knowledge, we were the only team using a completely closed loop system. Joe had experience with it from his truck racing days. The huge majority of teams just refuel with typical nozzles, but much larger, for speed. It's finicky system, and you have to be just right or it will spray fuel everywhere. Our fuel man did an amazing job. The wing uprights will get some metal cut out of the middles for weight savings, but it is already very light. Joe designed and built that wing. The actual wing is, I think, fiberglass. It is built very light and actually very fragile. The Nine Lives racing guys, people that make aero for race cars and sponsor the race, came over looked at it and Joe told them he better not see a copy on there website. Those wheels are very heavy. We're looking for lighter ones. They were cheap, and they were bought months ago because they needed something on the car for it to roll.
The car went to the dyno this morning. I know I said it was getting a new engine, but plans have changed. The stock engine we ran at Road Atlanta was torn down, inspected and just got the same head and valve train upgrades as the new one, and we're running it until RUD, or we see other signs of needing a rebuild. The championship race is in December. The car and the Yates engine will go to the dyno sometime before then, just make sure it is tuned right. We think the car is strong enough, for now, to run up front with the upgrades we did. They took multiple throttle bodies and played with tunes to find which one got the most out of the engine. I didn't get to go because of I was traveling to DC with my kid. It's laying down 240 whp. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, compared to modern muscle cars, or even modern family cars. We're not racing against stuff like that. The absolute newest car we'll ever be competing against is 15 years old. Every year, whatever is 15 years old is what we could possibly race with. Then the cars we face are also limited by the VPI. That 240 is a big increase from the 170-195 that Google says they had back in 1993. It's also now 12hp more than another foxbody team that could pull away from us in straights at Road Atlanta. They're some of Joe's coworkers and the other team that started pitting with us after the Eddie Vetter car blew up. And remember, the engine was never really running right at Road Atlanta. It wasn't even getting WOT until we were already about 9.5 hours into the race. I think very few cars will be able to outrun this car now. Joe put a ton into this car since its debut race. Overall, we probably cut between 2% and 3% off the weight it raced at in February. The engine work. The struts, replacing the rockauto set that we started out with. Lighter wheels. Made the switch from glass to lexan to save weight. Completely rebuilt the fuel system with a new tank and reservoir to eliminate our pick up issue. Put the aero on it, and lightened it up in other areas. New rear end, better geared for Daytona. Better muffler and new exhaust because the old got pretty beat up when we were spun into rocks. When you build a Champcar, you do a tech sheet. It starts with the Vehicle Performance Index number for a stock version of the car. That generation of Mustang starts at 225. You can add performance, and the points associated with whatever you do, until you get to 500. 500 is where you start being penalized, they start handing out penalty laps. You can still race over 500, but whatever laps you actually run are getting changed according to the rulebook. You can build a damn good race car with 275 points to spend, over something like a 1996 corvette. That car starts at 550, so you're already penalized when you start the race. Now, finally, after all the upgrades being done since Road Atlanta, this car will be what it was meant to be on paper, on the VPI. All the engine and throttle body upgrades, and the aero and suspension that was meticulously planned and chosen before the build was started, it is all on the car now. It comes in at 495 on the tech sheet. The first race, it added up to 270. I know it looks far from a stock Mustang in the pics I've posted, and it is. Much of what you've seen on the car before now, doesn't cost points to use. It's all stuff that doesn't add power, or increase grip. It's all ergonomics, required safety stuff, lighter components, or it isn't on the VPI list, so it's fair game to modify it. Examples, the driver's seat is fixed 18" further back, and lower, than a stock mustang, for weight distribution and lower COG. The pedals are are adjustable with a switch because of the height difference of our drivers. The steering column and mounting brackets are lightweight alloy, for weight savings. It's stuff that makes it a safe racecar, and through weight savings and balance, does make it faster, but it didn't cost VPI points. So, now the car is probably as light as it's going to get, fully modded/built to plan and running amazing. We're all really excited to see what it will do now. It should be one of the best cars in class across the country, getting really close to a front runner, overall. Jason also hired a professional driver coach and booked the championship track for two private test and practice days. The date for that is after the next three races, so won't see the improvement from that for a while. The drivers are doing a lot of sim time for Daytona, something that they didn't get to do for Road Atlanta because of the time put into building the car.
If you want an intro to Ross Bentley, author of the Speed Secrets series of books and pro driver coach, let me know. I drove with him at the 24hrs for a few years. He’s a fantastic coach.
This is Ross test driving our new Porsche 996 Cup Car that we just bought. We rented CMP for a week to shake it down and train our new drivers how to drive a 6-speed sequential. It was a blast.
He also loved to drive my old race car. It was a really well sorted old 911 with a twin-plug beast of an engine with insanely high compression, 9.5k red line, and took 110 octane. It had some serious power to weight math going on.
I'll forward that to them. I'm pretty sure they've already picked a coach, based at Virginia International Raceway. Which is the track that the championship weekend is being run. I forget the name they told me. I'm new to this format of racing. I could name a ton of MX coaches and former riders, a good amount of 90s and 2000s stock car drivers, but I've just never followed endurance. I can't remember who they picked. I do remember has over 20,000 laps around VIR, and Jason and Joe are very impressed with his driving and coaching accomplishments.
Not sure if you remember the old ALMS series. There was a Porsche team called Alex Job that cleaned up in that series. Jeff Gamroth was the Crew Chief for Alex Job. This car is one of his special creations that he did out of his private race shop. A dentist told him to build him a series-winning race car, whatever it costs... budget was not an issue. Well, apparently, budget was an issue, so he couldn't pay for it. I ended up getting it for a steal... pennies on the dollar. It was an incredibly well sorted race car, and still has the Portland class record for when I competed in the Rose Cup years ago.
Man, I miss that car. I had 2 engines for it... one was the balls to the wall race engine, the other was a track day engine. It took 4 bolts and a few quick-connects to switch out engines, for the most part. Literally could swap between the 110 octane beast and the pump-gas funtime engine in under an hour. And I lived 10 minutes from our local track. I really, really miss that car and that time in my life.
I'm now living vicariously through you, @Fiveslide ! Keep posting! Live the dream for the rest of us!
I will. It's funny, we're all dudes mid-forties or older and getting all into this sport. Every one of us old guys, complete noobs. Joe is the only one that has done a single road course, in a nascar truck. That's why the cockpit looks so much like a stock car, and not like the newer Porsche you posted. Jason and myself raced dirtbikes. He raced a long time, well into his late 40s, vet classes in arenacross and local outdoor tracks, until his wife finally put her foot down because of all the injuries. She underestimated his need for speed, but she's pleased he's in a car, at least. 1 crew has been helping Joe in his truck career, and the 2 others were just never involved in racing. I wish I lived closer and got to work on the car more often, and learn from Joe. I'll go down if they have a good, full day of work, but it's just too far to drive to go down and work for a couple hours, then drive back. The others live so much closer to him.
The Porsche looks so much like every other car we race against. The foxbody is such a departure from the way people normally build cars for this series. That's why I got so much attention from tech officials and competitors.