2023 Harris Hill - The San Marcos Grand Prix at H2R 8+7-Hour Race Results

[Bill Strong]

Saturday 8-hour Race results

https://speedhive.mylaps.com/Events/2126504

 

Race control Log
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ifpxdEf54u0y1WFziDO0RYLse5Uv-poZHtSWHcmN5Z8/edit?usp=sharing

 

Flagtronics Marching Ants

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yskxv4JllTY

 

___________________

 

Sunday 7-hour Race results 

https://speedhive.mylaps.com/Events/2128364

 

Race Control Log
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10XyE1htn9mHTeB5tcY-UM2vLJ615S8ic4UT8wRH5ixI/edit?usp=sharing

 

Flagtronics Marching ants

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83ZT2Awy_2w

 

 

Event Images
Jake Daugherty @jake__daugherty
https://jakedaugherty.smugmug.com/ChampCar-Endurance-Series-San-Marcos-Grand-Prix/n-ZFPkwv/

 

[turbogrill]

I had a blast this weekend as always, field was a lot thinner this year. Not sure why? Bumpy track? Economy?

Saturday:
Started well and was 1 half into the stint. However got black flagged due to speeding during Code35 and got pushed down to 4th place.
Had some fuel issues and had to do an extra pit stop but managed to get 2nd.
Before Lone Star Rally Cross took a coffee break we were  8(!) laps behind them.

Sunday:
2nd place after first stint but then we screwed up our pit stops with not pitting during Code35. We lost a few laps on that.
Being 4th with about 1 hour to go the brakes stopped working and I flew of the track in turn 7 and we had to retire the car.
All the brake fluid got dumped on the rotor and started a fire, at least we got to test our fire extinguisher! 

Big thanks to Champcar and also the other team. Thanks Lone Star Rally Cross for giving us some parts.

Before next year we will send all our drivers to drivers school and do all pits duing Code35. Maybe LoneStarRally cross will only win with 4 laps then?

 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 01:40 PM by turbogrill

[QuaTTro]

Big thanks to Champcar staff and volunteers, as well as Harris Hill Raceway for putting on another great race.  

 

Also thanks to @Bill Strong for including our car on the event T-shirt.  Our team was so stoked to see that!

 

My team's 1990 Audi 90 Quattro was able to continue it's streak of checkered flags (we've never DNF'd) this weekend but not without a little drama.  On Saturday about 30 minutes after the start of the race we had our front passenger knuckle fail and collapse the suspension. Apologies to all the other teams that had to circle the track on a Purple 35 for a long time.  The official tow truck had not yet arrived so the track staff scrambled to get a trailer/winch out to bring the car in.  As you can imagine it was hard to get that car up on the trailer.  

 

Once back in the garage we started the teardown while one team member drove back into Austin to our parts stash.  We ended up needing to replace the knuckle and CV, as then had to also bend the tie rod and strut insert shaft back to "straight enough" using the big press (spare parts are not easy to come by on a 33 year old car).  Somehow it all came together in about 5-6 hours and we were able to test the repair during the last hour of the race.  Everything held together and the car ran great.  Even tire wear was pretty good!

 

For Sunday all we did was further align the car (Toe mostly) and were able to have a fun, uneventful day.  Everyone got their 1:45 stint completed without issue and we placed 10th overall.  Very happy with that result.

 

Personally, I had lots of fun battles with the Triumph and Honda Insight during the 3rd stint window.

 

 

[turbogrill]

12 minutes ago, QuaTTro said:

Big thanks to Champcar staff and volunteers, as well as Harris Hill Raceway for putting on another great race.  

 

Also thanks to @Bill Strong for including our car on the event T-shirt.  Our team was so stoked to see that!

 

My team's 1990 Audi 90 Quattro was able to continue it's streak of checkered flags (we've never DNF'd) this weekend but not without a little drama.  On Saturday about 30 minutes after the start of the race we had our front passenger knuckle fail and collapse the suspension. Apologies to all the other teams that had to circle the track on a Purple 35 for a long time.  The official tow truck had not yet arrived so the track staff scrambled to get a trailer/winch out to bring the car in.  As you can imagine it was hard to get that car up on the trailer.  

 

Once back in the garage we started the teardown while one team member drove back into Austin to our parts stash.  We ended up needing to replace the knuckle and CV, as then had to also bend the tie rod and strut insert shaft back to "straight enough" using the big press (spare parts are not easy to come by on a 33 year old car).  Somehow it all came together in about 5-6 hours and we were able to test the repair during the last hour of the race.  Everything held together and the car ran great.  Even tire wear was pretty good!

 

For Sunday all we did was further align the car (Toe mostly) and were able to have a fun, uneventful day.  Everyone got their 1:45 stint completed without issue and we placed 10th overall.  Very happy with that result.

 

Personally, I had lots of fun battles with the Triumph and Honda Insight during the 3rd stint window.

 

 

That looks scary

Congrats on a successful Sunday race.

[Josh Jach]

Last weekend was a challenging but rewarding event for us, and we learned a lot from our mistakes and successes.

 

Saturday: A Strong Start and a Series of Setbacks

We started the race on Saturday with high hopes and a fast pace. Our car was running well and we held the lead for the first stint. Unfortunately, during our first driver change we missed the purple 35 flag by minutes. This cost us some valuable time and track position. We were determined to make up for it in the next stint, but then we ran into more trouble.

 

We had some issues with our fuel system that caused us to run out of gas on track much earlier than expected. Not once, but twice! This was very frustrating and embarrassing, as we had to be towed back to the pits both times. We lost a lot of laps and fell way behind the pack.

For our final stint of the day, we decided to use it to test and diagnose the fuel issue. However, to make matters worse, we burned our brake pads down past the backing plate! The caliper pistons pushed out past the seal and all the brake fluid dumped out at once spinning the car and ending the day for us.

 

Sunday: A Comeback with Some Complications

After an evening of fixing our car and analyzing our data, we were ready for another day of racing on Sunday. We had solved all our issues from Saturday and were confident that we could do better.

Our first stint went really well.  We were still nervous about the fuel situation from the previous day, but it turned out to be fine.  We had no problems with fuel or brakes, and we were able to run consistent laps without any incidents.

 

Unfortunately, we lost our splitter on a minor off-track excursion. This affected our aerodynamics and handling, and we started to lose some speed. We also chewed through two front tires due to the increased wear from the missing splitter. We also served a black flag penalty for contact with another car. The driver in front made an unexpected move and our driver stabbed the wrong pedal by mistake Luckily no one was hurt, no car damage or even time lost.

 

Other than that, we managed to keep the rest of the race consistent and on track. We had one more scare near the end of the race when we broke a wheel stud likely on turn 7. Luckily, we didn't lose the whole wheel and were able to finish the race safely, we discovered it in impound.

 

Despite all the challenges and difficulties that we faced last weekend, we had a great time racing with everyone. We learned a lot from this event and will make improvements for the next race. See yall at the Ozarks!

[Jorge Gonzalez]

Thank you Champcar for another great race! 
Lonestar Rallycross had a great and mostly drama free weekend. Saturday went as smooth as can be, taking advantage of the code35s that luckily happened during our pit window. That coupled with some bad luck for everyone chasing helped us open a huge lead which later got shrunk away by a corded right front tire in the last 30 minutes.

Sunday was a little more dramatic. On our way to grid up the starter just suddenly left the chat so we had to push start the car for the rest of the day. Starting 2 laps down we put it in the back of our heads and just focused on fast, clean, trouble free laps. Little by little climbing back the board. We misjudged the strategy a little forcing us to do some major fuel saving for the last stint, thankfully I was able to bring the car to checkered with only half a gallon left in the car. Doing the last lap with the fuel gauge on E was a little nerve wracking. 
Thank you everyone for some fun racing and giving us plenty of racing room, hopefully we did the same! 
See you in Houston 

Edited Thursday at 03:04 PM by Jorge Gonzalez

[ETR]

Overall we had a great weekend.  We needed it because NOLA was rough on us.  Couldn’t have been better weather amirite?  Wow that was nice.  Great weather, great people, great track.   – hope they can grind and patch some of those same old bumps that have come back.  A car shouldn't be able to launch all 4 in the air, and sometimes "the bump" wasn't avoidable.

 

The car is entering its 5th year but this was the first race at 500pts, no penalty laps.  I built it as a potential WRL/CC in '18 and threw the kitchen sink at it.  WRL went to the moon and we just did EC for awhile at 700+ points.  Don't judge, it's harder than you think to remove shiny bits.  I've finally gotten the car to 500pts in A, while trying to hold onto as much speed and driver feel/communication as possible.  It wasn't just unbolting stuff...it also cost a bit of money to make changes.

 

Friday

Tech went pretty well.  Re-fabbed the driver door bars over the winter which was a huge hassle, but it was for the better and no issue in tech.  For fuel we’ve run a dry break/overflow bottle setup for a little over a year now that I’m quite proud of, and while @Ray Franck was checking that out he asked about the venting and prevention of pressure building up.  I said “Oh no issue there Ray, the overflow is a dry break jiffy-tite and when not fueling the tank still vents through the oem rollover valve".  Ray is pleased.  This was probably the first conversation I've ever had about tank pressure.  Stay tuned sports fans, because this is gonna come back.*

Practice went pretty well.  Everyone got the butterflies out, we adjusted rear ride height 1/8” for a little better rotation sooner in the stint.  Threw the new tires on for the weekend and did another round of practice to scrub those in and feel them out.  Called it a day and went for dinner at 54th.

 

Saturday had a few hiccups.
I started and the 2hr stint went pretty smooth, no real issues.  Paul, the new guy, got in next and really did great.  Unfortunately he got a black flag on a sorta weird situation… the triumph may have appeared to be having a mechanical issue and he went on by but got called.  I think that’s what happened.  Oh well, still did great!  Viking Chug no you can’t have him back .  Up next Tom runs a 1hr stint and then I get back in to bat cleanup for 1hr.  Still going pretty good.  

 

For the final 2hr stint my wife Tawnya gets in and heads to pit out….and is held for a loooooong time.  (So we were a pretty early registration on Friday and weren’t given helmet tech stickers.  I thought the waiver replaced that and we had wristbands that meant we signed the waivers, so I didn’t question it.)  Nope, it’s a problem.  4-5 minutes of radio talk, they finally let her go.  I run to registration and get our helmet stickers, registration says sorry and agrees it doesn’t make much sense.  Oh well.  So she’s out there for about 10-15 minutes and radios back about eye-watering fuel vapors.  What?!?  Yep, we better bring that rolling bomb in asap.  

 

Upon pitting, it’s immediately clear there’s pressure in the tank.  What?!?  (Thanks for the jinx Ray!*)  We hook up the overflow bottle which allows the pressure to safely exit the tank.  Once it returns to 1 atmosphere I get under the car and easily blow air back up the rollover vent line and into the overflow bottle.  O…k…?  She goes back out and continues the stint with her spidey senses tuned to the smell of fuel vapors, and they never return nor does the tank pressure up.  She does awesome despite the distractions and we see the checker flag, always a success.  9th overall, can’t remember what place in class.  Not a bad day but had some hiccups.

 

Sunday was much better

Added another 1/8 rear ride height for better rotation earlier in the stint.  Car felt better than Saturday.

My wife Tawnya starts the race, settles in nicely, and just has a great drive overall.  We started at 13th or so and she's now holding 5th.  Nice.  We get into our pit-window-lap-countdown and omg omg omg the P35 comes out.  PIT NOW!  We throw Paul in the car and have an overall solid pitstop, and he heads out as it returns to green with us P1 on race monitor.  Yaaaaaaas.  A few laps after everyone elses pits, the standings stabilize and we are holding 3rd or 4th.  Next stop is clean and Tom is thrown in.  He keeps us in there and we are still around top 5.  

Next, I’m in to bring it home.  After a few laps I’m seeing oil pressure drops after hard braking.  Gah dangit, forgot to add the usual quart of oil between the 2-3 pit.  I build the engines, so of course I immediately pit in and we add a quart.  I think we lost a couple spots, but it is what it is.

 

After the oil top-up I had a really solid final stint, felt pretty good and was steadily moving our little NB forward through traffic.  With about 20 minutes to go I made a pass for 5th and just kept going till the checker for 5th overall and 2nd in A.  It’s been awhile since we’ve been in impound, but it was good to be there again and hopefully we can continue to fine tune the operation for more success.  Things are going in the right direction.

 

PSA - check those tank rollover vents.  Apparently the miatas have a reputation for sticking and I've got an oem replacement and spare on the way.

 

Love that picture behind the bmw.  Such smol boi!
 

Edited Friday at 05:57 PM by ETR