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ROAD AMERICA: 9+7 Enduro - Chumpionship


Mike.g

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I got a bunch of photos from the race this weekend! Enjoy! https://www.flickr.com/photos/159159306@N07/

Message me if you want any of the original photos here, just give me the link.


Note* It is only showing 338 of the 475. Working to figure that out now.

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Here are a few random cool photos:

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My Photostream has all of the missing photos here:

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6 minutes ago, Crank Yankers Racing said:

Looks like Road America was brutal on some cars again.  That track is just evil to teams.   It is my nemesis.

Tyler from working on pit lane I can tell you I have never seen so much carnage and yes many top teams bit the walls or had the more common motor failures.

We pretty much saw it all and most was in the first day with great weather. The rain seemed to smooth out most and even the playing field. 

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Guest E. Tyler Pedersen
7 minutes ago, 55mini said:

Tyler from working on pit lane I can tell you I have never seen so much carnage and yes many top teams bit the walls or had the more common motor failures.

We pretty much saw it all and most was in the first day with great weather. The rain seemed to smooth out most and even the playing field. 

 

What do you think the cause for most of the carnage was?  Driving errors?  Speed differences on track? 

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16 minutes ago, Crank Yankers Racing said:

 

What do you think the cause for most of the carnage was?  Driving errors?  Speed differences on track? 

Not sure I can answer that since not being out on track, but our team all talked about it in length on Saturday night. As you know lots of swapped cars now and speeds have all come up

and yes fairly large field but not anything like Gingerman as they are all spaced out on the large track. As you can tell from the list, most seemed to be teams with a fair amount of wheel time. Can't put it on weather as it was super nice, so maybe that was it drivers looking at fall colors :-)

 

Maybe some teams that spent some wheel time can chime in.

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I honestly couldnt believe how much carnage and breakdowns happened on Saturday.  Such a perfect day weather wise.  I started the race for us, and ran a stint in the afternoon.  I saw a few questionable moves/decisions by other cars...but not really anymore than any other chump race I've been too.  The track was killing more cars than usual...although Road America usually does a good job of killing cars.  We had a lifter collapse overnight, so we weren't able to run Sunday (some what a sigh of relief from our drivers...our car is not well suited for rain).  But for a track that avoids sending out the pace car better than most...there was an absurd amount of double-yellow time on Saturday.

 

Another thing I couldnt believe is how bad people where in the paddock.  Friday mostly, setting up was a cluster.  Luckly we where there early and we shared a stall with friends, so we didnt have issues with ours, but so many people seemed completely oblivious to the fact they needed to stay in there paddock area, not block others, and not block the road.  It was really frustrating trying to get to our paddock spot when people are completely blocking the road...either parked or stopped talking to friends.  /rant

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31 minutes ago, Crank Yankers Racing said:

 

What do you think the cause for most of the carnage was?  Driving errors?  Speed differences on track? 

 

You couldn't be more right Tyler - if your brakes don't burn up, and your engine doesn't explode from sustained heavy loads, and if you manage to stay out of trouble and off the walls, you can consider yourself extremely lucky! My nemesis as well!

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31 minutes ago, Crank Yankers Racing said:

 

What do you think the cause for most of the carnage was?  Driving errors?  Speed differences on track? 

I did two stints Saturday and two on Sunday.   Here are my thoughts on the high level of carnage:

Compared to the spring race, there were a lot more cars.   Even though the count was well below other region's races, the experience was probably a new one for some of the teams that have RA as their home track.  It was tough to get into a rhythm with the amount of clumping initially, and then yellows breed yellows.  The cars get bunched up and the tires cool and the minds wander and once it goes green it all repeats. 

The mirror watching wasn't as good as the spring race, and from what the flaggers said the flag watching was bad too.  I was passed four times under yellow. 

This was effectively a 16 hour race, and a big track like RA with all of its wide open throttle definitely works over your motor and driveline.  That may be part of why there were motor failures. 

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Congrats to Chump Faces for a near perfect race (if they made any mistakes I missed them).  We (JSK #176 Maxima) were keeping them honest for the first 5 hours but then we missed the note about the roadblock in the blind corner and busted our car. 

Thanks to all of the safety team - you guys were crazy busy.  Thanks to the staff and volunteers - a lot of good people working the pit road for this race. 

The SHO time guys put on quite a show in the last stint, with fishtails out of the corners that went as much a 100 to 200 yards. Fun to watch - wish our camera had been working day 2. 

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It's always hard on motors. Lots of wot and pulling up hill.  It's evil on brakes, down hill breaking at 5 and 8, and 3 as well but not quite as extreme.  Working pit lane we saw plenty of teams holding smoked brakes with a look of bewilderment.  "It's only been 6 hours".  There was a ton of puy black flags.   I suppose the car count had a fair amount to do with that.      On cars crashing, it always makes me sad. In thinking about it I can't help but wonder if some of it isn't just how many cars are faster now.   The faster we go the closer to the edge we are and that magnifies a small error.   There is a big difference in how quickly things can go bad between a 3:10 pace and a 2:58 pace at Road America.     

 

It it was pretty cool watching  the safety guys in action when the neon was black flagged for dragging  the gas tank.    He pulled up to pit in making a 6 inch wide stripe of gas on the ground and of course as soon as he stopped a river of fuel was running down the hill.   I looked up and the safety truck was topping the hill at about 75mph in hot pursuit of the potential disaster.    One guy on the hose In case of ignition and one dumping speedy dry and more speedy dry until the tank was empty.     When they cleaned up it was enough floor dry to fill a 50 gal garbage can.      

 

 

 

 

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I drove first stint both days.  I've done 7 or 8 (I think) Chump races at Road America now, and I've never seen anything like Saturday.  Immediately at the start, some were driving like it was the last lap...not the start of a 16 hour race (it is not a 9 + 7 weekend).  Honestly, I was amazed at the level of stupidity I witnessed a few times.  It was easy to predict the FCY (the first one after the green flag) coming, even though those are usually rare at RA.  Nothing to blame it on other than people driving like idiots.  As the field thinned during the day, it seemed to help...but space on track wasn't the issue.  It was how people were using that space.  Some teams in particular were worse as usual, and some were great....but the overall level of asshattery was very high.  I went up to race control on Sunday for a bit, the Safety Director for RA said at one point Saturday they couldn't keep up with the carnage - and they are the best in the biz.  They just ran out of available trucks to tend to it all. 

 

One car (I won't name it here, PM if you want to know) was displaying the worst combo of horrible driving skill and being a rear-end I've ever seen.  Repeatedly.

 

Chump did a great job running the event, this is not on them...It's on "Us" as drivers.   

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We had an overall good weekend, with one minor slip up. We were the above mentioned e46 in the wall at 5. First time driver put the foot in it a bit hard coming out of 5, ended up on the inside wall. We took it to homebase, which is thankfully only 20mins away, and replaced all the broken bits. All rear control arms were cracked, tie rod in the front was cracked, sway bar end links were toast, and an axle was wrecked. Got her running and ran the day out in the rain on Sunday.

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12 minutes ago, enginerd said:

Where's the official thread?? c'mon officials!

This is officially the non-official thread. :) I just wanted to get the photos uploaded and shared as quick as I could.

 

For example, some sweet shots of your car :P

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3 minutes ago, Mike.g said:

This is officially the non-official thread. :) I just wanted to get the photos uploaded and shared as quick as I could.

 

For example, some sweet shots of your car :P

_MG_3651

 

Thank you!! Great shot. She was running well until the engine went just after the 7 hour mark.

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The kink...not with this series.  It was sketchy enough with people making stupid decisions in the other series this spring...It would be absolute chaos in chump.  People cant handle the bend without problems, let alone the actual kink.

 

There always seems to be idiots that show up and try to win the race in the first few laps.  I was more shocked at people consistently causing problems as the day progressed.  Unfortunately it comes with the territory, with basically anyone being able to sign up and drive, and IMO chump not punishing teams/drivers strictly enough.

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19 minutes ago, LX Sport said:

The kink...not with this series.  It was sketchy enough with people making stupid decisions in the other series this spring...It would be absolute chaos in chump.  People cant handle the bend without problems, let alone the actual kink.

 

There always seems to be idiots that show up and try to win the race in the first few laps.  I was more shocked at people consistently causing problems as the day progressed.  Unfortunately it comes with the territory, with basically anyone being able to sign up and drive, and IMO chump not punishing teams/drivers strictly enough.

 

As far as i'm aware, there was a grand total of 1 bad decision in the kink with WRL this spring. Maybe 2 total cars as a biproduct?

Boy, how things get blown waaaay out of proportion in rumorville.

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