Administrators Bill Strong Posted April 25 Administrators Report Share Posted April 25 Official Resultshttps://speedhive.mylaps.com/Events/2172416 Awards photoshttps://wjpaerial.shootproof.com/gallery/CHAMPCARAWARDS/home?fbclid=IwAR2pKsB0R0MvqWu3efI2x2wK19erk9cHSnTDqZ2ghoDFXdAnBIrIr9K6RP8 Race photos Folder with free pics for everyone https://wjpaerial.shootproof.com/gallery/21264414/home Pics people can purchase https://wjpaerial.shootproof.com/gallery/21264479/ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvumtnbkr Posted April 25 Report Share Posted April 25 GBU is just too fast. They need reigned in! They were within 3 seconds of an NC miata from last year. Obviously, the vette is too fast! #greenfont 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
55mini Posted April 25 Report Share Posted April 25 2 hours ago, wvumtnbkr said: GBU is just too fast Got to finish to have any kind of chance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuaTTro Posted April 25 Report Share Posted April 25 52 minutes ago, 55mini said: Got to finish to have any kind of chance no way, FTD is all the matters anymore! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvumtnbkr Posted April 25 Report Share Posted April 25 2 hours ago, 55mini said: Got to finish to have any kind of chance I think they finished Sunday at least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakks Posted April 26 Report Share Posted April 26 Nope. Broken axle. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hotchkis23 Posted April 26 Report Share Posted April 26 6 hours ago, wvumtnbkr said: GBU is just too fast. They need reigned in! They were within 3 seconds of an NC miata from last year. Obviously, the vette is too fast! #greenfont You've raced that track, it is not good for the speed differential of the series. Going Going 120+ through the roller coaster and catching a car doing 90 mph and unpredictable is a huge issue. That track is awsome and fun fun to drive, but racing with the speed differentials we have makes it dangerous Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eyeballs19 Posted April 26 Report Share Posted April 26 (edited) 1 hour ago, hotchkis23 said: You've raced that track, it is not good for the speed differential of the series. Going Going 120+ through the roller coaster and catching a car doing 90 mph and unpredictable is a huge issue. That track is awsome and fun fun to drive, but racing with the speed differentials we have makes it dangerous I agree that speed differences can be an issue, but I think the speed differences at Ozarks are less of an issue than at lots of other tracks. Miatas were within 2 seconds of GBU this year because the Miatas can carry their speed. Ozarks really isn’t a power track— it is a momentum track that rewards high speed handling. Edited April 26 by eyeballs19 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eyeballs19 Posted April 26 Report Share Posted April 26 901 Motorsports. Wow, getting to this race was brutal. Everything went wrong. Everything. Three weeks before the race we decided “let’s bring two cars— how hard can it be?” Well, one car was a brand new build and was still in pieces. The other car had a wall encounter at NCM and was still bent. But Frank agreed to forego any sleep and we went for it. And then it got worse. While dropping the bent car at the frame shop Frank’s new truck was attacked by a suicidal Subaru. 8 airbags later and he had no truck. Then we discovered the “good” motor had bad bearings. And Friday during practice at Ozarks we got a bolt through a tire in #903 coming into Turn 11 and slapped the guardrail. The crew got her straight but she sure was ugly. And finally, the beautiful new #901 lunched the motor 1:40 into Saturday. But then Frank must have sold his soul because the luck finally turned. #903 just ran. She was ugly and taped up but showed solid pace. This track is actually a very fast momentum track and we always do well at momentum tracks. We were shooting for a top 5, maybe a podium, and had worked our way into the top 5 when the luck turned. People started breaking, crashing, and eventually we moved up to second. We kept pushing hard to keep the pressure on (and to stay in front of a fast Miata) and we were catching, but figured we would still lose by 15 seconds. But then Love Racing suffered the same luck we had been fighting, and had a heartbreaking off while in the lead with 15 minutes to go. We felt a little bad to win that way but were thrilled to win at this amazing track. Sunday we had the winner’s penalty so were down a lap and had an even tougher task. But the story was the same. We pushed hard, all the drivers had good pace, but were not going to catch the leaders without help. But again they had issues and with 2.5 hrs to go we went into the lead. We kept the hammer down to try to build a buffer in case things went sideways but the car was flawless. Just a fantastic weekend at an extraordinary track. Thanks to all the competitors for a well-driven weekend at a track that demands the best of the drivers. And thanks to Frank for battling through to get the cars ready. This one was nuts. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davef_dci Posted April 26 Report Share Posted April 26 At the driver’s meeting and awards ceremony they were asking us to consider posting positive things about this track and race so I thought we’d pitch in – we had a tough weekend mechanically but frankly we had a blast at this track. I personally think the facility is amazing. The owner (JR) was around all weekend and has passion and commitment are apparent and inspiring. He’s incredibly down-to-earth and talked at length about his goals and inspiration for the layout. The grounds are gorgeous, and amazing level of detail to track facilities and amenities including clean, well lit (and affordable) garages. There’s been some online chatter about the safety and intimidation level of this track and we were among some of the few first-timers but I think we all found the track very manageable. We lost a transmission on our first stint Saturday and consequently most of the race day Saturday meaning we were pretty conservative Sunday as we were still learning the track. It is definitely a track that rewards momentum and familiarity. As others have mentioned on here, there is a pretty good simulation on Assetto Corsa which we found invaluable – and plenty of decent videos that were really helpful. I understand they’ve made some improvements to turn 1 and we got some very sound advice from Pete which we heeded (“Turn 1 is high risk / low reward. Give it plenty of respect and there’s no reason to try driving deep and courting danger”). For me, the things that took some getting used to: There are a couple of real “blind spots” where you’re racing at speed into areas you can’t really see into but the flag stations appear to be well placed and aside from some uneasiness in getting used to that it doesn’t really seem as intimidating as we thought. More than any track I’ve ever driven, this one really requires focus on the hills as they relate to your ability to stick to the road. There are a few situations where you can extend speed beyond what you’d typically expect and count on the extra grip from compression leading into a turn (or conversely – realize you need to back off harder as the car floats). The really fast teams clearly had the track elevation impacts down-pat. There really aren’t any true “straights” or as many easier areas where you can relax just a bit and collect your thoughts (turn 12 perhaps). Some very minor “I wishes”: Would have been nice if there’d been a few more teams. Track is sort of in the middle of nowhere although it’s beautiful country. Speed differential is getting interesting. There were some FAST cars out there. Track internet was spotty for us. It’s a bit of a hike from the garages to the pits They’re still working out the kinks on concessions. Our hotel was a long drive. All in all a really great weekend and a lot of fun. If you’ve not run this course I’d strongly recommend the experience. 2 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eyeballs19 Posted April 26 Report Share Posted April 26 FYI, our team had great luck with a house rental. 15 minutes from the track, big and beautiful place, cheaper than a hotel. Seems there are lots of houses available in the area this time of year— guessing the 29 degree temps keep the boating crowds away. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Jach Posted April 27 Report Share Posted April 27 Ozarks just wow, if you haven't driven this track you're missing out. This weekend was an exhilarating rollercoaster, pun intended, of emotions that had us on the edge of our seats from start to finish. Friday started off well, with all our drivers settling in nicely with the car and putting down some impressive practice laps. We were feeling confident and ready for the weekend racing ahead. Saturday, however, was a different story. Starting early in the race we experienced some issues with the fuel pressure. Despite our best efforts, the problem continued to escalate throughout the day, swinging wildly from 40psi to 69psi. Right near the end of the race we made a difficult call to ask our driver to back off and save the car, despite being so close to P1. Determined to save the engine and try again tomorrow we kept the car under 50% throttle and held on to P2. That evening we poured over the entire fuel system, trying to identify the root cause of the issue. We replaced the pump, checked the FPR and filter, but nothing seemed to stand out. After putting everything back together, it seemed to run great with no variations in pressure. So we were optimistic that we had resolved the problem. Sunday started off well, with the car running smoothly throughout the first stint. However, immediately after the second driver took over, the fuel pressure issues returned with a vengeance. Determined not to risk running the car too lean, we turned the day into a test and tune session, taking the fuel system apart and putting it back together multiple times. Each time, the problem would disappear briefly before returning just as bad as before. It wasn't until the final hour that we finally identified the culprit - a bad fuel filter. We didn't have a spare, so we had to improvise, scrubbing the clogged filter with a toothbrush and brake cleaner. But at least for that last hour, we were back in the game, with no more fuel issues to contend with. In the end, it wasn't the perfect race we had hoped for, but we're proud of our team for persevering through the challenges and never giving up. Kudos to RaceWatcher for giving us the info we needed to walk away from this weekend with a working car. I've lost too many motors due to simple undetected failures like this, so this was also a big win for us as well. Ozarks is a favorite of ours we'll be back next year and again the year after that. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoachMK21 Posted April 27 Report Share Posted April 27 7 hours ago, Josh Jach said: In the end, it wasn't the perfect race we had hoped for, but we're proud of our team for persevering through the challenges and never giving up. Kudos to RaceWatcher for giving us the info we needed to walk away from this weekend with a working car. I've lost too many motors due to simple undetected failures like this, so this was also a big win for us as well. What is RaceWatcher? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obscene Posted April 27 Report Share Posted April 27 57 minutes ago, CoachMK21 said: What is RaceWatcher? Yeah seriously that looks cool as heck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Jach Posted April 27 Report Share Posted April 27 8 hours ago, CoachMK21 said: What is RaceWatcher? Its a bit of hardware and software we've put together over the last couple years to send live car data to the pits for the crew chief or pit crew to use. Similar to a podium connect but doesn't use a cell modem and is far more powerful and faster. The idea was born from having lost several motors due to lack of data. I'm super happy that it worked flawlessly this past weekend I'm 100% positive it saved our engine and pointed us in the right direction toward fixing it. We want to eventually make it available to other ChampCar racers and this event puts us one step closer! 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowboys647 Posted April 27 Report Share Posted April 27 Love Racing #647 This was to be our first trip to Ozarks and we had all of our team practicing on Assetto Corsa to try and get a feel for the track since it’s such a long and technical track. We unloaded the car Thursday night into the really nice lighted garages and pushed the car to tech early in the morning. Tech was pretty fast and we got through and into the practice session without issue. We were practicing on a pretty old and used set of RS4 and with a new DIY alignment looking to make the car a bit more lively. Well we went from a pretty understeery car at the limit to a twitchy car prone to oversteer. Came in and gave the rear wing a few more degrees and went back out and the car seemed to settle down somewhat. Everyone got time on track and we all felt pretty comfortable. Race 1 We were unlucky in our pit stall and had to start 2nd from last. We had put on a set of 225 RE71R which we had never used before for this race and I have to say they are WAY faster than the old RS4 we were running. Fast lap time with the RE71R: 2:46. Fast lap time with the old RS4: 2:55. Anyways we were able to work our way through the field for 6 hours into 2nd overall. With the way pit stops were working out, we thought we might even have a chance to battle GBU at the end. Our last driver of the day was feeling some motion sickness so I decided to get back in the car for a second stint. I also made the decision for us to do a tire change back to our RS4 because I doubted the RE71R would last the whole 8 hours (Spoiler: they would have). The RS4 were way slower and more sketchy everywhere and then GBU broke down so we were in 1st overall with not much time left. 901’s red BMW was behind and quickly catching and with 15 minutes to go I had a lapse in judgment into T1 and just spun on my own into the tire barrier. Tried to drive back out but the Tie rod was toast. Was absolutely devastating as we could have just cruised from that point to take our first ever win but it wasn’t meant to be. With help from Martini Racing we got a new tie rod and did another DIY alignment in the garage for the next day. Funnily enough we still finished 4th overall but couldn’t/didn’t want to push the car all the way to impound with the damage. Officials said they wanted to take a look at our pistons but I think they forgot about us since we were working on the car in the garage. (pulled the engine out of a junkyard 2001 and never broke it open like 6 races ago). Race 2 For day 2 we were trying out 245 Cooper RS3-R. Since these were a little bit smaller diameter than the RE71R, it made it to where we had to shift to 5th from Roller coaster through T10 which was a bit slower. Tires were not as grippy, communicative, longer wearing, or confidence inspiring when compared to the RE71R. We likely won’t be trying them again. Anyways we got to start in first for day 2 and things were going well until about 40 minutes into the stint our splitter started coming loose on the high speed sections and buffeting badly. We decided to come in ~1 hour in to fix it. I went back out and our team slowly started plugging back away to try and catch up with the leaders. We had made it back up to 3rd overall when our third driver started running into splitter issues when our radiator ducting failed and blocked our radiator. We ran for nearly an hour with our coolant temp of 230-260. We had him coasting and cruising as much as possible and pulled the ducting out of the car during his stop. Sending our 4th driver out, we ran into splitter issues again causing major buffeting on the ground over 80 mph. With GBU falling out with mechanical issues, we had a great shot a P2 since Looney Mustang had to pit but because of our splitter issues we decided to tell our driver to take it easy and just secure P3. Again with 15 minutes to go, he went into T2 and the left front tire blew and sent him straight into the gravel. He was able to get towed out and drove the track with only 1 front tire (crazy!). Once in the pits, he said lets push it across start/finish to get 1 more lap. We did that and then swapped the tire and sent him back out but it was just after the checker and we finished 4th overall again. An absolutely devastating finish to our weekend at Ozarks. We had an awesome time at Ozarks and the track, crew, our competitors, and champcar officials were great and we’d love to be back. It was really tough with failures at the 15 minute mark both days but everyone was super supportive. Ultimately we drove the car back onto the trailer and that’s a win in my book. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turbogrill Posted April 28 Report Share Posted April 28 15 hours ago, Josh Jach said: Similar to a podium connect but doesn't use a cell modem Does it use some radio? 2.4 GHz or something? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Jach Posted April 28 Report Share Posted April 28 1 hour ago, turbogrill said: Does it use some radio? 2.4 GHz or something? It’s in the sub-ghz range, so it works better at range and around objects. We were curious about reception at Ozarks given the size and hills. With our receiving antenna at the garages we didn’t have any dead spots. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turbogrill Posted April 28 Report Share Posted April 28 (edited) 1 hour ago, Josh Jach said: It’s in the sub-ghz range, so it works better at range and around objects. We were curious about reception at Ozarks given the size and hills. With our receiving antenna at the garages we didn’t have any dead spots. awesome! I have podium and we have crappy reception even at Harris Hill. Kinda stupid that a direct line of sight communication has to go via some tower! Your approach is much better. So your box sniffs the CAN bus and sends it to another box in the pit where you display it on a laptop or such? Does racecapture dump laptimes in CAN? Would be nice to get some laptime and all the predictive as well. The autosportslabs protocol is quite simple, just YAML files. So if you have a API hook or something someone could write a plugin that would upload to podium from the pit-computer (assuming pit as good track wifi). Edited April 28 by turbogrill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Jach Posted April 28 Report Share Posted April 28 1 hour ago, turbogrill said: awesome! I have podium and we have crappy reception even at Harris Hill. Kinda stupid that a direct line of sight communication has to go via some tower! Your approach is much better. So your box sniffs the CAN bus and sends it to another box in the pit where you display it on a laptop or such? Does racecapture dump laptimes in CAN? Would be nice to get some laptime and all the predictive as well. The autosportslabs protocol is quite simple, just YAML files. So if you have a API hook or something someone could write a plugin that would upload to podium from the pit-computer (assuming pit as good track wifi). Yes! Our device doesn’t collect any data (yet) but anything passed on a canbus it can pick up and forward to the pits. We actually use gps data and check points drawn on a map to calculate laptimes on the pit computer. Doesn’t line up perfectly with lap transponders but they do get within a tenth of a second. I need to look again at the auto sport labs api and how that setup might work. A portable device your crew could carry around to check car data would be sweet. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowboys647 Posted May 12 Report Share Posted May 12 Finally getting some of our videos uploaded and hopefully a highlight video eventually. Here's our fast lap on Saturday. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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