dude, thats amazing! how did you get into cars? wish I had the money to do stuff like that.
dude, thats amazing! how did you get into cars? wish I had the money to do stuff like that.
Making a slow come back since 2008
I've been looking through this thread from the first page now and many of the pictures are broken
everything is wrapped in gray
i'm focusing on your image
can you hear me in the void?
Hey drift, my family has always been into cars, so I just grew up with it. It's certainly not cheap, but the best suggestion I can make is to start by doing all the work you can yourself. Invest in tools and knowledge. You can also start with things like small autocross and gymkhana events where you can run your street car with very very minimal investment, or just volunteering. There's plenty of amateur race teams out there looking for a helping hand, and probably wouldn't mind showing you the ropes. Also the clubs themselves need volunteers constantly to run the flag stations, grid, tech shed, and other areas. We live and die by our workers! It can introduce you to the atmosphere and the events and let you see if it's really something you enjoy being around.
Sorry Mirage. I didn't think anyone really cared about going back through the thread, so I'm flattered. I think I fixed most of the links for you.
smurf yeah, racing!
Hey remember when I raced? Still do!
So here's a team update.
Back in the beginning of March we took dad's car to an event at Virginia International Raceway (VIR).
We'd spent the off months doing some more development on his car, and it was running quite strong. So we drug it up to the track, and on the first session out it started running poorly during the first lap.
So we packed it in and drove home. Turns out it was some sort of internal failure in the car's computer. So dad built the car a new computer, and we uploaded the turn for.....
...the next race at the end of March.
I'll just copy what I put on the ol' website.
Like I said, the only video is a little bit of me qualifying. It just so happens to be at the same track we always seem to get video at. Sorry.Originally Posted by website
EDIT: I just noticed I had a picture of my tires. The one that finally went flat naturally decided to give out on me right as I was set up to enter a 95mph turn. I was fighting them the whole race, and it was hilariously bad. I would turn, but the car would just keep going straight.
Last edited by sharkythesharkdogg; 04-20-2015 at 10:13 PM.
We're off to the Jim Stark Double SAARC at Roebling Road raceway.
This time it's just dad's car. We fixed the rest of the bent suspension issues from the last race, so let's hope for no more contact incidents and no more teething problems with car reliability.
Later folks!
were you actually bumping that guy in the rear in that video? it looked that way
everything is wrapped in gray
i'm focusing on your image
can you hear me in the void?
I think I bumped him once or twice.
If you have speed, but not enough speed to get around the person, you give it to that person. They go faster, they pull you along in the draft. It actually helps with lap times a good bit.
Especially since it's qualifying, I'm not going to try to pass him unless I know it won't slow me down. I can probably help both our lap times by just pushing him along.
How gentlemanny of you. But doesn't it scratch your paint off?!
everything is wrapped in gray
i'm focusing on your image
can you hear me in the void?
Paint isn't really a huge concern. If the car is too shiny you're too worried about messing up how it looks to get in there and race hard.
Last week I spent part of the afternoon using old gas to get melted tire rubber off the sides of the car that was left there after other cars "leaned" on me in corners.
EDIT: Totally forgot. Took dad's car down for testing on Friday, and it broke during the fourth practice session. This was a driver error, so at least the car seems to finally getting be getting reliable on it's own. It also showed good speed potential.
We'll get the motor torn down and see what all is bent up.
Last edited by sharkythesharkdogg; 04-26-2015 at 05:43 PM.
We've been busy with shop related things, but an update!
We figured out what went wrong with dad's car, and it appears it wasn't driver error after all. There's a weak point in the car's throttle that doesn't show up under normal driving conditions. The part had failed a few times in the past, and we created a modified part. It lasted much longer than the factory design, but also eventually failed. So now we've come up with redesign 2.0.
When you start to push the car past the original limits of its design things like this come up.
We didn't quite get dad's car running again before the most recent event, so we only took my car. It handled terribly.
I couldn't get the car to stop sliding around all weekend. If you're sliding, you're not able to get back on the gas transiting through and exiting out of corners. Less time spent accelerating per lap means going that much slower. I qualified third for my first race on Saturday, but I was annoyed because I was around 2-3 seconds a lap slower than I felt I should have been. During the race the car continued to handle worse and worse. I finished fifth in my class and a disappointing 6 seconds a lap off of my typical pace.
No amount of adjustments seemed to get the issue under control, so for the Sunday race I convinced dad to use the car. His was broken, I was tired of fighting with mine, and that way he could have some fun. He had fun, but I could see that the car wasn't doing much better for him. He likes a more nuetral slip angle in a car than I do, so if I didn't like it I knew he wouldn't.
He agrees my car is handling terribly, so it's time to tear into it and see what the hell is wrong. It's very frustrating to work up to a certain pace at tracks only to have unknown variables work against that. We'll get my car sorted out again, it'll just take some work. I don't have to win every time, but I do like to see my personal best get faster. I don't like seeing get much, much slower.
At least his car is running again, and it should be pretty quick. We're dialing his car in.
Last edited by sharkythesharkdogg; 06-12-2015 at 06:44 PM.
If only there was any way I could fit in one.
RX-7s and 3rd gen Miatas have more space, but you'd probably be surprised how much room opens up once you pull everything out of the way and only have a thin racing seat mounted to the floor. Especially once you combine that with the removable steering wheel, and no roof.
EDIT: I forgot we're getting this old warhorse ready to go back out and fight for a customer.
IMG_3023 by Joe Payne, on Flickr