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Virginia International Raceway


achisek

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  • ChampCar Staff

Sorry that I haven't gotten on here sooner! What a day so far!!!!

Our 30% chance of rain turned into 100% at a little after midnight. It rained until around 11 this morning. Now that the track is mostly dried up, our rear-wheel drive cars are attempting to get their chance to shine a bit. I'm sure they're thankful that the forecast looks fairly promising!

As always, we've had lots of attrition- I think at this point our numbers are cut in half. In following with the comments by the racers this weekend, this is a rather laid-back race. Those who are out are still hanging out and watching....

And... I keep getting interrupted, so let me just cut to the chase. Here are the current top 5:

1. Ronald's Racers

2. inACURAte Racing

3. Iron Lemons

4. Lil' Chump Change

5. Simon Says

We have a 1 lap difference between 1st and 2nd. I'll try to do better in the next couple of hours despite the archaic hourly posting of laps :-(

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  • ChampCar Staff

This is a prime example of the need for team names AND car make/models. The top 5 list is great, but I have no clue who or what cars they are other than an Acura in 2nd place.

Sorry, I'm not really the best at this sort of thing- only the only willing one.

1. 51 Ronald's Racers 1986 BMW 325

2. 92 inACURAte Racing 1992 Acura Legend

3. 66 Iron Lemon 1986 BMW 325e

4. 91 Simon Says 1992 Acura Integra

5. 74 Lil Chump Change 1991 Mazda Miata

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  • ChampCar Staff

Here are our top 5 finishers:

1. 51 Ronald's Racers

2. 66 Iron Lemon

3. 91 Simon Says

4. 2 Blitzen Benz

5. 74 Lil Chump Change

(see above for all the car specs)

Great job to all the guys out here today!!!

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Well our 240Z ran great for 11.5 hours until a rookie mistake took us out of the race at about 7:30. Always check the oil every two or three stints... for you rookies. We had a lot of fun. First race for us in car number 73... "Team Fail Lady." Sorry for getting so tail happy in the first 3 hours, but glad no one made any contact until late in the race and glad that was only a small flesh wound. Thanks Mike for the kind words on pit lane after we retired with the engine failure. A fantastic group of drivers and Chump Car team this weekend. Enjoyed racing with you all and I hope you all enjoyed seeing and passing our Z out there!

Congrats to the winners and #74 (who let us borrow duct tape) on 5th!

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Sitting at the airport, waiting to fly home. Just wanted to say that the racing was great, including the first couple of hours in the wet. I was out there (#22 Camaro) for the first stint and it was incredibly difficult keeping that power transferring from the engine to the road. As many others I was tail happy everywhere. Still I was really impressed with the skill showed during this time. I got hit once, a love tap, and that was it. While I had a few excursions off road (who didn't?) it was lots of fun and, the most amazing thing of all, no full course cautions for the entire time it rained. Great job to all of you who were out there. Unfortunately, as soon as it dried our car decided it liked the wet better and ruptured a transmission line. Then we got black flagged for hanging exhaust (not hanging, just hung low). Then we threw a belt. And then, to put the cherry on the day, we bent a couple of push rods (along, no doubt, with more serious damage elsewhere) and we were out at around 2:30.

Thanks to everyone who helped keep us going and to all who came over to look at our duck taped motor on commisseration afterwords.

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Thanks Jeff. By the way, we didn't have a solution for the fuel starvation at high revs but we did solve vapor lock by wrapping the 6-1 header. Our solution for fuel starvation was a set of 40 DCOEs. That got us 100 laps, as expected, but this was the team's first outing and we wanted to have a car to run rather than have to call it and disappoint everyone. The SUs still weren't working as late as Monday before the race so rather than muck around and try to fix it we just bit the bullet and put the Webers on.

We're already thinking ahead for the next race... the team loved the car's handling capabilities (in the dry... the thing was sliding all over the place during the first 3 wet hours) and was it putting down some respectable lap times (1'58" was our best) for a bunch of rookies in a first time car that we put together using a bunch of zip ties and parts from O'Reilly's. It was reliable too, had no hiccups or issues whatsoever until we ran it out of oil and (we think) spun a bearing. We lost power about 11.5 hours in in the middle of a lap and our driver heard knocking, so we came in. Checked the oil and it was flat out. That was a rookie mistake. First time endurance racers here... I guess since we had no oil leaks whatsoever we thought there was no way it would burn 5 quarts of oil that quick. But it did. Several of us thought about bringing the car in halfway through the day to check the oil, make sure everything was still on the car and in one piece, but racing got the best of us and we wanted to stay out there despite the penalty laps and make up as many positions as possible. We're not sure what the problem with the engine is yet, but we'll be pulling it apart tomorrow and trying to find out.

Regardless, we had a great time and we covered 219 laps in 11.5 hours despite coming in at 1 hour driver stints and getting passed 50-60 times per session when the track was wet. I think all in all it was a successful first outing in the car and we'll see what we can do next time. We're thinking ahead about our next race... it won't make much sense to bring this car again with its Webers and another 100 laps. We'd like to TRY to be competitive next time. So who knows what we'll do.

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