The Wilwood Grand Prix at LA Autoclub Speedway

[Aleru]

What a great weekend and awesome clean racing the whole time!

 

Congratulations to Team 1 RVAGFX and Team 333 Occupy Pit Lane on earning 1st place.

 

And a huge thank you to all the Corner Workers, safety team, and staff at LA Autoclub Speedway that helped keep our Race safe, fun and running smoothly, and to all you Racers who came out here to make this such a fun race.

The Race Results are in!

They can be found online at:

https://speedhive.mylaps.com/Events/1615413

And you can download Lap times and Results from Google at:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JUS3h6gImtjihWKvr1RwXfKGHmRy1-jp?usp=sharing

Edited November 20, 2018 by Aleru
Sunday update

[Bill Strong]

Can someone from the Mini team help me here?

 

[ross2004]

Why was the Mini in A class? 1.8 + supercharger = B? Looking to clarify as we're building one for '19.

[Pee Wee]

I should have explained to one of my drivers how to go from 4th to 5th on the oval would have saved a motor.

[Bill Strong]

Race Recap 

https://champcar.org/mainweb/uncategorized/wilwood-grand-prix-double-7-hour-enduro-at-auto-club-speedway-roval-race-recap/

 

[Voodoo Child]

Congratulations to RVA Graphics and The Flyin Hawaiians (and Two White Guys) on their victories.  And major condolences the Door Slammers for having even worse luck than we do.  We had two clutches fail (same supplier, same failure) on our #46 car, and a misaligned alternator pulley doomed our older #246 car on Sunday to two belt failures.  We are sourcing a new clutch, and after a brief trip to the body shop (wondering who took offense to John Morton passing them during the first stint on Saturday so they decided to put a fender into our passenger door in Turn 9), and some prep work (rotors, brakes, fluids, nut & bolt check) we will be ready to close out the year at Laguna Seca.  

 

This is a photo taken by TJ from our team.  Too bad we didn't finish in this order!!

 

[LAMR2]

Is the crab pot gone?!

[FlorahDorah]

5 hours ago, LAMR2 said:

Is the crab pot gone?!

 

Rod said last year it was only a matter of time.....

[Voodoo Child]

Found footage on our YouTube Livestream of Mr. Morton passing the Glitch Heroes BMW 535 prior to the Turn 7/8 chicane and the contact that followed in Turn 9.  I guess I'll need to teach John to drive a little faster! 

 

I believe the Glitch Heroes have a GoPro connection, so maybe they can upload their video as well.  Maybe John brake checked them.

 

 

[shutupracing]

1 hour ago, Voodoo Child said:

Found footage on our YouTube Livestream of Mr. Morton passing the Glitch Heroes BMW 535 prior to the Turn 7/8 chicane and the contact that followed in Turn 9.  I guess I'll need to teach John to drive a little faster! 

 

I believe the Glitch Heroes have a GoPro connection, so maybe they can upload their video as well.  Maybe John brake checked them.

 

 

What wheel is that?

[Voodoo Child]

It is an Aim GT 350 Steering Wheel that integrates with the EVO 4 data acquisition system.  They don't make them anymore.

[Farran05]

We had a great weekend traveling west to race.  ChampCar staff was great, corner workers were on their game, competition was very strong and we got the chance to talk racing with people we only get to typically read about. We saw some extremely fast well built racecars and I'm positive the fastest Miatas and Z's in the world were at Auto Club! It was a lot of fun and I hope we get to see you all soon!

[Matty]

On 11/20/2018 at 10:33 AM, Bill Strong said:

Can someone from the Mini team help me here?

 

Lol.

 

Mini Race Synopsis

Day 1 - Broke radio button on steering wheel. Took switch off and fixed while turning laps. Blew passenger side CV, replaced it. Blew it again, replaced it again. Towards end of day noticed a small fluid leak. Took back to paddock and it was a power steering. Removed power steering pump, reservoir and drained rack, but no time to get back out.

 

Day 2 - Made a loopback for steering rack. No more leaks. Tested and got back out there. Then blew another CV less than an hour out. Yes we’re ordering some race ones as O’reilly might be on to us ;) and we’re really getting sick of changing them. This pic was me asking how the steering felt without power steering. It felt a little weird in the parking lot on my test drive. Heavy but also had a snappy feel.

 

All in all a rough time, but still fun and we’ll get better. I’m kinda bummed to see the mini is now a 350 pt car for next year. Only mods our car has are springs, intake and underdrive pulley. I think our best lap was 2:14. With some better driving I bet we can get down to <2:10 but that doesn’t seem to be enough to be competitive.

 

As for the A or B class feel free to contest our finish if you like ;) but I think it should be B as it is supercharged, but we weren’t gonna win anything so we just let it go.

 

Cheers!

[rod rammage]

Check the engine and transmission mounts if you're having repeated CV failures? (Just a thought).

[Matty]

18 hours ago, rod rammage said:

Check the engine and transmission mounts if you're having repeated CV failures? (Just a thought).

Good thought. I think there is a motor mount on the passenger side that’s on its last leg. I bet that plus flooring it through 1 & 2, and the pot holes probably did us in.

[Bill Strong]

It did look good out there! Had me thinking it would be a fun car to race.

 

[Bandit 82]

Here"s some video from Auto Club we had great time out there getting the car ready for Laguna now.

 

[Ian Moone]

Anyone who doesn't think the Roval is fast,isn't looking at the catchfence posts whizzing by!

 

It was 2 great days of racing at ACS. I was the chief gasman on the Time Bandit.

 

Saturday was going well when an overzealous lead-footed driver mashed the gas peddle past the stop on the floor,there by hooking the back of said gas pedal and sticking the throttle WFO!

That's WIDE FRICKIN OPEN! Luckily, said lead-footer had the where with all to hit the kill switch! Good job Big D. The kill switch shut off coasted the car right at pit in. How convenient.

Our drive was waiting patiently for the crew,when he went for the restart.  You have to see it and hear it on the live feed. I don't think I've ever seen anyone's hands move so fast shutting the car down. Way to go again Big D. Not being sarcastic,he did a great job and saved the motor not once but twice. Our main man Rod gave everything under the hood the once over. Return springs in place, and everything else looks okay. Fired up the straight 6 beast and all seems well. We dropped from 3rd to 8th during this 8 minute stop. Big D goes out with much apprehension wondering if said throttle was going to stick again. After a few tentative laps,he was back to lead-footing again with slightly less enthusiasm. With well orchestrated pit stops and strategy , and some luck ,the team was able to claw its way back up to a 3rd place finish.

  I will say watching from the top of the suites over the pit lanes was a great place to watch the race. You could see the whole track. The sight and sound of the EC Boss Mustang flying by was great. Even more insane was the Doorslammer TurboMiata. That little car was flying. They had the whole package going. They'd go in low,slide up mid track,pass a car and dive back down low. Next lap,do the opposite. It looked as though it was an a rail. Nice job guys. Miata PI( or that other name they use now) was pretty impressive too. Hugged the bottom of the oval.So low and so quiet,if you where sitting in pit lane you wouldn't see them  go by! There was even some super cool bump drafting going on with the Miata teams.Very cool!

     Saturday post race maintenance as usual. Changed the diff oil. Didn't even smell that bad. Cheap insurance. I still hate the smell of that stuff. Big D provided us some good eats and we called it good and went home.

     Sunday found us running up front again. Not surprising since ACS is the Time Bandits home track. Battles all over the track. The oval section of the track was just as impressive today too.They were beating on the Doorslammers Turbo Miata again I'm sure it was begging for mercy when a wheel bearing gave in to the flogging. We were running a well executed race and the plan was working. K dog was in the hot seat giving the Time Bandit a real work out. He said over the radio she was pretty well used up. Thought we had a right front tire going bad. Backed it down a bit and then backed it down some more. K dog said he felt like he had time to eat a sandwich he was going so slow. Time ran out with just enough tires left to take the checkered flag.

       With that victory the Time Bandit has scored 3 wins on various configurations of ACS. 

We had a new event director for this event. At least I had never met Dana before. He and the rest of the ChampCar staffers did a great job. Corner workers and safety crew were also top notch. The racing was clean and without incidents. Oh yeah it was hella fast too. Don't think so? Just watch the video again. See you all at Laguna Seca. Watch out we'll have our ringer back with us! Can't say enough about the car.It's well built and reliable. Hence to finish first,first you must finish.Thanks for another great weekend of living the racing dream!

[Bandits]

Any "Official" or high quality photos of the weekend?

Looking for the #47 TA of course.

Super fun and fast weekend! Great people all the way around this event, thanks!

[FlorahDorah]

On 11/28/2018 at 5:14 PM, Bandits said:

Any "Official" or high quality photos of the weekend?

Looking for the #47 TA of course.

Super fun and fast weekend! Great people all the way around this event, thanks!

I would email Bill Strong directly for any pictures (bill.strong@champcar.org). There is one of you at Pit-Out and it is in the race re-cap Doc Waldrop wrote, but unfortunately, I am also in that picture as well. 

[FlorahDorah]

Well.... all I can say is, never do a brain transplant on your car and expect it to go smoothly. Not to mention a rebuilding an engine and tranny. We've been busy since Utah. 

 

However..... We didn't get around to replacing the 30 yo injectors and we didn't get around to installing a sensor on the rear rotor, so of course, that's where it went lean and detonated on our second driver stint on Sunday. Which means we were done. 

 

On the upside, it looks like we just have to replace the rotor, find better injectors, and install a sensor on the rear rotor. Among other things.... 

 

In other news, thanks to all who came by the Roto-Plooker Hospital Ward to partake of the kielbasa and hot dogs we grilled - I think we had 50-60 people come by and exchange pleasantries. The corner workers were especially grateful. Thank you to ChampCar for helping with the expenses! Here's a picture of the spread: