Administrators Bill Strong Posted June 28, 2021 Administrators Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 Official Results https://speedhive.mylaps.com/Events/1876966 ChampCar.live Saturday ChampCar.Live Sunday Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvumtnbkr Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 (edited) Well, I'll start if thats okay with the crowd! We had a fun weekend! Friday practice The car was pretty good! Able to lay down a 1:50 in the car right our of the box on a track i havent been to in 10 years. THey were only 20 minute sessions, or about 9 or 10 laps, so I was pretty happy with that time! We did encounter an issue where the car would just shut off. It was weird, because it would restart immediately, and then die like 3 to 10 seconds later. THe ECU didnt see anything wrong. Hmmm.... One of the team mates shows up at the track and within 5 seconds says... Its the coil. Im all like "all of them somehow"? WE tested spark. Sure enough the engine would run, and just totally lose spark. Replaced the coil pack assembly thingy and it ran fine the rest of the weekend. Saturday Raceday: Erik Hardy and I were both doing 2 stints each. Some moderate fuel conserve to go a full 2 hours. 1st stint and I had slightly adjusted the clutch pedal to allow easier heel and toe the night before. I checked that everything was functioning properly and it was....... Or so I thought. Every shift the clutch would slip and I would need to baby the throttle. Still managed a 1:49. Pit stop, I jump under the dash while erik was belted in and give the clutch push rod about 2 turns. Works great. Still got done within the 5 minute pit stop time. On Erik's last stint some interesting things happened. 1) He got involved in an incident with RVA. Im still not sure exactly what happened, but both cars got some body damage (entire front end of my car). I was told that the drivers had a conversation and neither were upset about it. Let me know if anybody has more details on this please. 2) Timing and scoring went down when we were 2 laps back from Nemisis. We were actually catching them, knew they were low on fuel, and HAD to make at least a driver change since they were gonna be over the 2 hour stint length. The timing of the T&S meltdown could NOT have been worse. We had numerous laps that were 5 minutes, 9 minutes, etc. So did they, but not the same time or same amount of time. Plus, they pitted and had 2 long laps due to that. We had NO idea whether we were just in front, or just behind them. In the end, it was decided that they won with us finishing about 1/2 lap back (which is kinda what I thought). The officials chatted with Grant and myself to explain what was going on and asked our input for how this should be resolved. Grant offered his data which included all of their laps. I also had my data, but decided that it wasnt worth T&S spending all of that time to figure it out. They had run a better race with a car that we couldnt touch by 4 seconds a lap! Congrats to Flatout Nemesis. That car is awesome! After the race, we did our regular maintenance and then headed over to Brewe Crew's paddock and hung out. Lots of great drinks, stories about Doc, and also introduced a lot of them to failure analysis. Had a great time and didnt actually stay up TOO late. Sunday Raceday: This day was used to put the guys and gals in the car who help us at the races and support us while wrenching on the car. Kip Mitchell, Bryan Baker, and my wife Julie, were racing on Sunday. They dont usually get a lot of seat time, but all have been involved in this stuff for MANY years. We decided on an aggressive strategy because we knew we wouldnt have the same pace as the day before. We ended up going 2.5 hours on fuel twice. Lots of conserve happening.... The plan was working and for our last stint, we were sitting in 12th place with about 1 hour to go. Some teams ahead of us still needed to pit, and we did not. However, it wasnt meant to be... The exhaust manifold gasket failed (AGAIN). The car was full of exhaust fumes and didnt seem very happy. I figured it wasnt worth it to burn down the car, or get sick for "possibly" a top 10. Loaded it on the trailer for the weekend. We will be back to this race. Pretty great track! Thank you to ALL who helped to put on this AWESOME event! Champcar people are awesome! P.s. We were running two brand new RS4 and two (3) race weekend old RS4. New tires were on the drivers side since that is the side that sees all the cornering on this track. Edited June 28, 2021 by wvumtnbkr 17 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technical Advisory Committee mcoppola Posted June 28, 2021 Technical Advisory Committee Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 @wvumtnbkr^^^Awesome weekend Rob! Great prep work on your car. And what a way to run your team over the weekend!!!! Great to see you always taking care of those who help out by getting them some seat time. You da Man!!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvumtnbkr Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 1 minute ago, mcoppola said: @wvumtnbkr^^^Awesome weekend Rob! Great prep work on your car. And what a way to run your team over the weekend!!!! Great to see you always taking care of those who help out by getting them some seat time. You da Man!!!! Kip improved his practice times by about 7 seconds! He had a fast lap of a 1:57 I believe. Bryan got screwed.... He got 4 corners in his 20 min practice session before we had the coil failure. He freaking stepped it up! On sunday, he got down to a 1:56 flat. First time on track with no practice.... And then it Rained. Kinda hard! He was matching the leaders at the top in lap times! I was super impressed! Julie went out and did her typical thing of destroying most of the boys in the race. She set the teams 3rd fastest lap by laying down a 1:55 flat. Keep in mind, all 3 of them have never been on this track. They had minimal practice time. They were on MONDO fuel save. They keep surprising me and getting better as drivers! We will look at the data when I figure out how to do that.... Oh, I should mention that this was our first race using the RaceCapture MK3. It was pretty awesome! It does a LOT of cool features when it recognizes what track you are at. The only downside we had was that 2 or 3 times over the course of the weekend, our tablet just stopped displaying the dashboard. No idea why. I gotta look into that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turbogrill Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 14 minutes ago, wvumtnbkr said: Downside we had was that 2 or 3 times over the course of the weekend, our tablet just stopped displaying the dashboard. No idea why. I gotta look into that... Overheat? Was it hot? What kind of car do you have? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvumtnbkr Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 We have a 1989 rx7 with a gm 3.5 v6 in it. I'm not sure if the tablet was hot. Maybe? Or, it could have been the racecapture itself. I will see if I can get some air to blow over both. Saturday, it happened 2nd stint, but was fine for my entire stint (3rd stint). Sunday, it also happens 2nd stint, and the last 2 hours or so. Cycling power or touching the tablet screen did not correct it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bandit Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 41 minutes ago, wvumtnbkr said: I was told that the drivers had a conversation and neither were upset about it. Easier when they don't own the cars. Seriously, I watched a bit on youtube and you guys had the field covered other than the NC. Congrats. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvumtnbkr Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 Thank you! I'm gonna go and watch some of the broadcast. I realize that is a bit weird to watch the broadcast of a race that I was at, but I'm sure it will have some info that I didn't get while I was there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bandit Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 1 minute ago, wvumtnbkr said: Thank you! I'm gonna go and watch some of the broadcast. I realize that is a bit weird to watch the broadcast of a race that I was at, but I'm sure it will have some info that I didn't get while I was there. Broadcast wasn't as good as some as apparently wifi coverage is a bit weak at that track. And I heard them say a couple cameras went down almost immediately. They did replay RVA's cam of your two cars getting together but since it was forward facing it didn't tell a lot. Kinda looked like three cars under a blanket but not much else to go by. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turbogrill Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 17 minutes ago, wvumtnbkr said: We have a 1989 rx7 with a gm 3.5 v6 in it. I'm not sure if the tablet was hot. Maybe? Or, it could have been the racecapture itself. I will see if I can get some air to blow over both. Saturday, it happened 2nd stint, but was fine for my entire stint (3rd stint). Sunday, it also happens 2nd stint, and the last 2 hours or so. Cycling power or touching the tablet screen did not correct it. I don't think the RCP can overheat but tablets can. If the RCP has issues the app will still be running, it will auto connect once the RCP is online. What tablet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuaTTro Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 58 minutes ago, wvumtnbkr said: Pit stop, I jump under the dash while erik was belted in You must be really tiny to fit under the dash when a driver is in the seat! 58 minutes ago, wvumtnbkr said: We decided on an aggressive strategy because we knew we wouldnt have the same pace as the day before. We ended up going 2.5 hours on fuel twice. Lots of conserve happening.... My team never messes with pit strategies or anything, so I don't fully understand your strategy and how it helps. How does the 2.5 hours on fuel concept work? Do you change drivers at 2 hours, then come in for fuel only just 30 min later? Seems like you'd be making more pit stops this way but I know there's a benefit in there somewhere. As an upper-midpack team we just focus on equal driving stints for the drivers and the results are whatever they end up being (usually 10th overall). I'm curious to learn more about pit strategies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyler_j Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 (edited) 21 minutes ago, QuaTTro said: How does the 2.5 hours on fuel concept work? Do you change drivers at 2 hours, then come in for fuel only just 30 min later? Our team didn't do this but this was my understanding of what their goal was. On Sunday there was a 2.5hr run in the morning, a 1hr mandatory red flag (cant take fuel but driver stint times reset) and then a 4.5hr afternoon run. Total of 7 hour race. Some teams ran 2 hours, pitted for fuel and driver swap. Then ran 30 mins until the red (total of 2:30 of green flag, 30 mins on that tank of gas). After the red they ran another two hours (maximizing driver stint time). Total of 2.5hrs on that fuel stint and 4:30 of green flag. Stop once more for fuel and driver (drive until the 6:30 mark), then do a quick stop for a driver change for the remaining 30 mins(no fuel so no 5 min requirement). So in this case you only stop for fuel twice in 7 hours. This was aided by the known ~10 mins of yellow leading into the red flag. Brief Stint Breakout: Stint 1: 2 hours - stop for fuel and driver swap Stint 2: 30 mins - no fuel during red, driver swap ~10 min yellow , 1 hour red flag Stint 3: 2 hours - stop for fuel and driver swap Stint 4: 2 hours - stop for driver swap Stint 5: 30 mins - Done! Edited June 28, 2021 by tyler_j 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvumtnbkr Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 3 minutes ago, tyler_j said: Our team didn't do this but this was my understanding of what their goal was. On Sunday there was a 2.5hr run in the morning, a 1hr mandatory red flag (cant take fuel but driver stint times reset) and then a 4.5hr afternoon run. Total of 7 hour race. Some teams ran 2 hours, pitted for fuel and driver swap. Then ran 30 mins until the red (total of 2:30 of green flag, 30 mins on that tank of gas). After the red they ran another two hours (maximizing driver stint time). Total of 2.5hrs on that fuel stint and 4:30 of green flag. Stop once more for fuel and driver (drive until the 6:30 mark), then do a quick stop for a driver change for the remaining 30 mins(no fuel so no 5 min requirement). So in this case you only stop for fuel twice in 7 hours. This was aided by the known ~10 mins of yellow leading into the red flag. Nailed it... To clarify, the last stop for driver only can be as short as 30 mins into the stint, or up to the full 2 hours. Gives you flexibility for yellows. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuaTTro Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 Thanks @wvumtnbkr and @tyler_j for the clarification. My car can definitely go more than 2 hours without conserving (18 gal OEM tank) but we've never trying to play with pit strategies. I can see how the mandatory Red and a 7 hour race can allow for this approach. Very cool! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvumtnbkr Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 28 minutes ago, turbogrill said: I don't think the RCP can overheat but tablets can. If the RCP has issues the app will still be running, it will auto connect once the RCP is online. What tablet? Hmmm.... would this installation seem to lead to overheating? How would I solve this? It's a fire hd8. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindspin311 Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 CMP is an awesome track, that is all. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Andress Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 41 minutes ago, Bandit said: Broadcast wasn't as good as some as apparently wifi coverage is a bit weak at that track. And I heard them say a couple cameras went down almost immediately. They did replay RVA's cam of your two cars getting together but since it was forward facing it didn't tell a lot. Kinda looked like three cars under a blanket but not much else to go by. Your driver discussed the incident with our guy in impound and apologized as "our braking point confused him." Video shows him over-cook and punted us just in front of the left rear wheel, trashing the wheel and when we spun backwards of the track the splitter grabbed and tore up the supporting frame and frame horn. A few cold beers, car tie down ratchet strap, grunting and sweating resulted in everything being bent somewhat back in place. She donated one more of her 9 lives on that one. Racing is racing and it is nothing I have not done myself so no hard feelings. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvumtnbkr Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 (edited) 42 minutes ago, Schultz said: Your driver discussed the incident with our guy in impound and apologized as "our braking point confused him." Video shows him over-cook and punted us just in front of the left rear wheel, trashing the wheel and when we spun backwards of the track the splitter grabbed and tore up the supporting frame and frame horn. A few cold beers, car tie down ratchet strap, grunting and sweating resulted in everything being bent somewhat back in place. She donated one more of her 9 lives on that one. Racing is racing and it is nothing I have not done myself so no hard feelings. Huh. That is a good bit more aggressive than what I thought happened. Me thinks I owe you one. Lemme know if I can do something to help. I'm in the process of figuring out how much I need to straighten on the front of my car... fenders, bumper, airdam, splitter, core support, and now off center steering wheel.... Can you post video? I should day we did not have a camera in our car for me to review from our perspective. Edited June 28, 2021 by wvumtnbkr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Andress Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 Saul Goodman! Stuff happens I was amazed that your car did not look bad at all. Upon reflection, the splitter hitting the rumble strips backwards caused the most issue. We did not have a camera in the green car, the Champcar broadcast was live in our car when it happened. My guy texted me the video clip but I tried to copy and past into this post but she no worky. Once again, no hard feelings. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakks Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 Broadcast of incident. 1:07 left in the race. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revvhappy Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 Hong Norrth GB2 Supra Race Report First, congrats to the overall and class winners, and THANK YOU to the Champcar staff and wrecker crews who kept the yellow flags to a minimum. Grumpy Butt version 1.0 was retired after Road Atlanta in February after 16,000 race miles, a few thousand track day miles, and too may bent parts to straighten. It was a 3 month thrash to prepare a new chassis - from pulling a rusting hulk out of the woods in TN, to adding a cage (the only work I don't do personally), and adding new upgrades (Halo seat, Fuel cell). Friday I registered for the test day to confirm that I fixed an oil leak from the car's first track day 2 weeks before the race. Check... no oil leak and the track is still fun. The front end was pushing but I just ran out of time to add front aero. Saturday Our pit number was drawn randomly to start the race in the lead! It was amazing to see all that open space in front of the pace car. I drove the first stint to make sure that the car would't break and hurt someone else during the first miles driven in anger. I managed to run conservatively (fast lap of 1:50 flat) while maintaining 3rd place after GRM and Flat-out drove by in the first hour. My car didn't have anything for them all weekend - they were FAST. My second driver put in a solid stint running a 1:49.xx, followed by a 3rd stint driver who lowered the car ftd to 1:48.6, consistently maintaining 3rd place for most of the day. The 4th driver stint started well but ended our race day. After 30 minutes the driver radioed that something was wrong with the brakes, so we brought him in and noticed the fluid reservoir was very low. I topped it up and sent him back out to see if things changed. 2 laps later the problem got worse and I told him to drive to the paddock. A quick scan of all 4 calipers didn't reveal the problem, but it became apparent when I removed them. the inner pads on both rear calipers were metal, and the left one was welded to the piston. The piston/pad literally popped out like the caliper was giving birth when I lifted it off the rotor. Some brake work and other maintenance was done to prep for Sunday. Sunday: This is a short story. The driver who had the brakes fail at the end of Saturday started the race Sunday, moving from dead last to 7th in the first hour. Since I only had a spare set of the same crappy rear pads I asked my drivers to run in "conservation" mode all day. He was turning great lap times (1:50) by driving smoother until the front Bilstein strut decided to give up in a way that allowed lateral movement of the wheel, which contacted the coiler perch. With no spare we were done for the weekend. Fun was had, lessons were learned, an GB2 drove onto the trailer at the end. That's a good weekend. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvumtnbkr Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 Ugh... sorry guys. Anybody else have video of that? I'd like to learn from it. I looked up and saw your car backwards, but didn't know we were involved! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krispykritter Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 (edited) Hi all! We had a great weekend, mostly. Some minor issues came along but nothing we couldn't handle, and it was pretty hilarious sharing a pit with @Team Infiniti. The practice day was kinda a mess but at least we all got some time on track to be a little familiar with it before going green on Saturday. I had a particularly interesting moment where I made the greatest save of my racing life. Sorry for the video of a video, but I'll get around to processing the actual gopro footage over the next couple weeks. After that experience, we added more spoiler angle and dropped a few PSI from our rear tire pressures. Before CMP, we upped our front springs from 400 to 500 lbs/in, and put our OEM rear sway bar back in, so this was our first drive in it with those changes. I really hope someone has the video of that from behind/outside. I'd love to see it! Saturday went pretty good. We've added a RaceCapture system into the car and this was our first race where all the drivers got the benefit of live lap timing via a tablet. One of our drivers managed to get with .5 seconds of my best lap, which is a solid 1.5 seconds closer than any of them have managed in the past, so it's definitely working! We also added a hydramat to attempt to avoid our fuel starvation issues and it seems to have made a huge difference as we were able to get to 2 hours on our 15 gallon fuel tank. I also played with the tune a bit to lean it out, so that may have helped a small amount as well. Sean went out and drove some amazing laps, logging a best time of 1:57.0xx, beating my practice day best of 1:58.1xx. I'm always the fastest guy on the team, so Sean was making sure I had to work to keep that streak going. During my stint, SOMEONE forgot to plug in the coolsuit. Again. I was cooking. I could feel the disconnected lines but couldn't seat them myself, and CMP has NO WHERE you can kinda relax and catch your breath. You're always doing something. I also felt a lot of dynamic steer from the car when hitting the gas or the brake. I eventually brought the car in for a look, but the outer tierod felt okay, the wheel bearing appeared solid-ish, and the control arm bushings were kinda nasty looking but probably fine. Everyone else told me to get over it, so I went back out and just sent it for the rest of my stint. I managed to log a 1:56.5xx, holding onto my pride. We played mostly conservative the rest of the day so we could avoid an extra pit stop. Our only major issue of the weekend was when Bob did a half spin off track in the carousel and the car started shaking badly. A bent wheel or two later and he was back on track to take the checkered flag in 23rd place overall - our best finish yet. Sunday was mostly uneventful. We had started saturday with four new tires, but bent two wheels. We only had tires left that had done both Sebring AND Daytona, so we had no idea if they'd last the day. Sean went out first again and we figured he'd set the top pace and the car would just get slower throughout the day. Ray went out before and after the red flag and got the car through the rainy bits with only a couple off-road trips. Our new splitter appears strong enough to handle plowing the track given how much mud and grass we scraped out of it! Bob went out third and turned laps steadily all stint, working his times ever faster as the track dried out. When I went out, I went for broke, hoping to make up a few places. I somehow found another second of track time to get our fastest lap of 1:55.7xx, and we took the checkered flag at 4:30 in 16th place - our new best finish ever. There were a few headscratcher moments out there, but I was rather annoyed when on the last corner of the last lap of the last day, Castrol Prefect dive-bombed me into turn 14 (I left him room as I'd seen him coming), then tracked out right through me, forcing me off track. There was no contact only because I dodged off track to avoid him, and I'm very lucky I didn't bend a wheel as there's a massive hole on the outside of those rumble strips. Edit: Mac reached out and apologize - no harm no foul. They were fighting hard for their finish and all I was fighting for was a fun final lap haha Regardless, best racing weekend ever. Now, to go over our car very closely as Ed keeps threatening to put a pinhole in a radiator hose to force me to upgrade to a 3.0L engine in our contour... Edited June 29, 2021 by krispykritter 7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckowalc Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 1 hour ago, wvumtnbkr said: Ugh... sorry guys. Anybody else have video of that? I'd like to learn from it. I looked up and saw your car backwards, but didn't know we were involved! I was in the Love Racing #647 car (blue NA miata w/ aero) at the time and probably had the best view of it. Looked to me that your driver carried too much entry speed and tagged the back of the RVA car. Also added where your car passed me in T8. I would have preferred if he had gave he an extra foot or 2 on entry. I never understood why cars are so eager to pull back in front of the car being passed in a braking zone. No hard feelings though, you guys were very quick out there. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Team Infiniti Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 43 minutes ago, krispykritter said: 16th place Get used to it, you guys are a well oiled machine! 45 minutes ago, krispykritter said: Now, to go over our car very closely Don't worry about me, work on your exhaust, there may be more power to be had. 52 minutes ago, krispykritter said: hilarious Anytime! If you will have us, hope to repeat. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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