Wednesday Racing And Community Thread

Opening the topic because there wasn't much pro racing going on

one of these things is not fast like the others

No F1 or sports-car action this weekend, although Jimmie Johnson apparently had a family tragedy that kept him out of an otherwise nondescription NASCAR race.

Your humble author was supposed to drive the “Shortest Night Of Nelson Ledges” with some old teammates but when that fell through I put the Radical in the “MidOhio Speedtour” that SVRA was running. It was truly an odd event, being 50% rich old dudes under-driving their cars and 50% spank-pro series like TransAm and F4. It was popular with spectators, however.

I got tossed into a catch-all class where my two competitors were a Chevron and a Norma M20. (This Norma M20, in fact, which has a manic K20 in place of the original Judd LMP engine and has been improved a bit since this sale.) I finished between them both days. There was a very nice new 2023 Radical SR3 XXR that could run five seconds a lap faster than I could, but couldn’t always stay straight:

Day 2 I had some overheating issues with the Radical; it was pegging the two-digit Celsius temp meters for both oil and water at 99. Two laps of short-shifting paved the way for me to set a personal best of 1:30.031 on the final lap of the weekend.

This was the Day 2 start where I harassed the Norma and Travis Engen’s Indy Lights car for a bit before getting dropped in a straight line by the Norma and CHOPPED by Engen’s T97/20 before both of them motored away.

I’m still very pleased with my 1:30.031, which was set on last year’s tires. I’ve taken about 5 seconds a lap off my pace in the little Radical during the course of seven racing weekends. Much of that has been due to fixing basic mechanical problems with the car including the fact that we had NO functioning rear brakes until two events ago and finally got the rear brakes rebuilt properly for this race — but some of it is also me becoming comfortable enough in the car to pitch and catch it a bit. In the right circumstances, with new tires, I could maybe see a high 1:28, which is weak sauce for sports racers in general but would be very satisfactory in this low power, low aero car.

Here’s the start and the cutoff from Engen:

What else is there to say about SVRA? Everybody seems very nice and they were patient with me as I fumbled my way through the tech process. The entry fee was $895, which is about double an SCCA entry fee, and the two races were just 11 laps each which is shorter than an SCCA race. You’d get more time in the car during a traditional SCCA or even NASA race weekend, for less money. It’s probably more fun to go as a spectator because there are some WICKED cars there.

Friday night I had dinner at the local steakhouse bar next to two people whom I initially took to be a TransAm crew member and his girlfriend. I was right about the dude, but wrong about the girl — she was Michele Abbate, a non-silver-spooned woman who drives a TransAm car and co-owns the team with her husband. Her results weren’t tremendous but just getting out there in the field as someone without a trust fund, parental backing, or an IPO is kind of magic in and of itself. Let’s hope she continues to thrive.

I had some crew help this weekend including Rodney and noted VW whisperer James Cooperider. You can check out his Rabbit-diesel-powered Kubvan here. All in all it was a great time, although I can’t imagine having the money to run SVRA anywhere but in my backyard.

Feel free to make this an “open thread”, since the racing of the week wasn’t very compelling. Anything on your mind, let’s talk about it.