Racing!

[Bror Jace]

Guys (and the occasional girl),
I’d like a thread to discuss racing. Yes, we’ve discussed some racing in oil-related topics but those were actually other topics which meandered hither and yon. Specifically, I thought this thread could focus primarily on the following topics:

1) What kind of racing do you like to watch? Why?

2) Have you done any racing yourself? Would you like to?

3) Favorite (or least favorite) personalities involved in racing?

4) And of course, racing and lubricants. Does the name on the side of the cars (or trucks, cycles, boats, etc ...) REALLY mean anything?

5) Anything about racing that seriously bugs you? Stupid rules? Corrupt sanctioning body? One team too dominant? Finances out of control? Crappy coverage on TV?

I’ll start this off by saying that I LOVE racing, nearly all types. People (often women in my office) ask me “What’s the point? They drive for over a hundred miles and never get anywhere!” Well, when asked about art, the response is that art is its own excuse for being. Well, I think of racing the same way. Man & machine vs. man & machine IS the point!

As for TYPES of racing, I like or have liked just about everything. Although, at different times in my life there have been various series which have captured my attention more than others. In the 80s I liked the IMSA GT Prototypes. Over a handful of years, many manufacturers anybody could recognize were represented in the series: Porsche, Jaguar, Toyota, Nissan, BMW, Ford and GM. And during that time, the dominant team varied from season to season with nearly each of the nameplates I mentioned having had their time in the sun. The drivers and personalities involved were legends. I’m sure I’m gonna forget a bunch of them but the ones that come to mind are Derek Bell, Al Holbert, David Hobbes, Dan Gurney and A.J. Foyt. During this time I was a Porsche fan and loved to watch the big 962Cs.

 

[VaderSS]

1) Rallye, Classic, Drag

2) Drag, AutoX. I'd love to rallye

3) None really.

4) I really don't think it means much. Kinda' like Champion plugs were once the mainstay of racing, but they were the shortest lived plugs on the street.

5) I hate that you have to wear long pants when drag racing a passenger car

I went tonight to run at Houston Raceway Park(personal best of 14.8 in the SS, 11.8 with the bike), and they said I could not run in shorts. Oh well... LOL

I'm not really into it enough to be bugged by anything.

 

[Patman]

I used to watch CART racing and NHRA a lot, but I find I get bored easily watching any televised
sports on TV. I prefer to be out there doing it!

As many of you know, I'm into drag racing. I've been racing since 1991, although I've never owned a car faster than low 12s. My supercharged 87 Mustang ran a best of 12.16 at 112mph.

I've probably made close to 2000 1/4 mile runs, in 6 different cars now. Two 5.0 Mustangs, a 95 Trans Am, 98 Firebird Formula, 97 Grand Prix GTP and my current car. Drag racing is easy because you can run it without any extra stuff needed (just a helmet) which is why I prefer it over Auto-cross (which typically involves getting extra wheels/tires and better brakes)

I don't know why, but it won't let me include my sig in this post. Oh well, yall know what I got!

[ July 27, 2002, 05:22 AM: Message edited by: Patman ]

 

[bretfraz]

I too am a huge racing fan. I'll pretty much watch any type of racing but I certainly have my favorites.

I'm a big NASCAR fan and have followed Winston Cup diligently for 20+ years. I go to several events a year and have had the opportunity to do some cool things at races as a team sponsor (during the 1999 Busch series). My brother works for Evernham Motorsports and his wife just recently left a job as an editor for Circle Track and Stock Car Racing. So while NASCAR is literally their lives, it's just an interest (obsession?) for me.

I used to be big into sprint car racing and still am a fan but not as hard core. For several years I attended 40-50 races/year all over the country. I've done everything with sprint cars except drive one. My bro and I will be going to PA to see some racing next month, most notably at Williams Grove Speedway which is a track I've wanted to go to since I was a little boy. Only got Eldora Speedway left on my list to go to and I'll have been to all the legendary US dirt tracks.

I like NHRA, WRC, and will watch ALMS, CART, and IRL but I'm not as into those series'. Still, racing is racing and about the only type I don't pay attention to is GP motorcycles, lawn tractors and boats.

 

[Bror Jace]

I had written more, but didn't want to post it all at once ...

Watching ESPN in the late 80s, I eventually got turned on to Formula One. It is, after all, the ultimate in racing technology and its drivers are the elite of the elite ... whether The only team who’s name I recognized was Ferrari and so I generally cheered for them. However, they were horribly unreliable at the time and rarely finished a race. Then, I took a liking to Nigel Mansell ... especially when he went to Ferrari and then I followed him back to Williams were he (finally) won the World Championship. I also followed him back to the States where he won the CART/Indy Championship in his “rookie”

year ... 1993.

At this point I owned a Honda (actually an Acura Integra), loved it and cheered for any driver powered by a Honda engine. So, when CART & Indy split apart, I followed the better drivers and more advanced powerplants when they went to CART and couldn’t care less about the leftovers which formed the IRL ... except now CART has become too expensive for its own good and everyone is heading back to IRL. I don’t think I’m surprising anyone when I say that CART looks doomed.

Late last fall, we switched cable companies and I FINALLY got SpeedVision/SpeedChannel. OH MY GAWD! Now, I watch it the way a deviant might watch porn. I sit there, eyes wide opened, mouth slightly agape, drool running out the corner of my mouth and right hand going back and forth ... although in my case it’s in an unconscious 5-speed pattern.

I love so much! After taking a hiatus from Formula 1 (mostly because I couldn’t find the races on TV) and most other series, I have access to all that and so much more. I love all the SCCA classes and watched about 30+ hours of the 2001 Valvoline Run-Offs (season championships) at Mid-Ohio. I get to watch SCCA Trans-Am, American LeMans, Speed World Challenge (GT & Touring classes ... love ‘em both) and the best of all ... WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP!

http://www.wrc.com/en_GB/beforehp_FIN.htm

Rallying is the absolute best! For those who don’t know, a rally is a few days of racing with each day broken into a handful of stages. Each stage is a piece of course (could be pavement, sand, gravel, rocks, etc ...) Which can go on for a dozen or a hundred miles. Cars are released a couple minutes apart and timed separately. You add up all the team and whoever is quickest overall wins! There are many different classes but at the top are AWD turbo cars with about 300hp. The Subaru WRX is essentially a detuned rally car with license plates.

With Americans liking 4WD/AWD and off-road racing, you’d think this would be more popular in the US but it isn’t. In fact, as Johnny knows, The SCCA has their own rally series which has an appalling lack of fans.

Even SpeedChannel does only a fair job of covering it so my interest lies primarily with the European version - WRC. Honda doesn’t participate in rallying

so I don’t really have a team but I soon grew fond of Colin McRae and cheer his efforts. He races for Ford (a highly modifed Focus) and to show how much I am into this stuff, I am actually considering leasing a Ford Focus ZX3/SVT for my next vehicle. Me, a diehard Honda guy for the past dozen years considering going back to a Ford!

Even when I was into American muscle I was a fanatically partisan Chevy man!

 

[sprintman]

Sprintcar racing of course!! As Jackie Stewart said "the last frontier in motor racing" Drag racing is good too.

 

[satterfi]

Superbike
Moto GP
F1

I'm interested in most forms of racing that involves burning fuel with the expection of going around in circles or a straight line.

going fast

[ July 30, 2002, 12:04 AM: Message edited by: satterfi ]

 

[Dominic]

WRC and SCCA Pro Rally, F1, RallyX, SCCA T2, GT1/2/3 cars, Pro-Stock Dragsters mainly but Funnycars/Top Fuel rules too, and amateur streetcar dragracing

If it moves, I watch it, unless it says "NASCAR" at the top of the screen. The only way I would watch "NASCAR" is if it actually had "STOCK CARS" racing in it... I want to see supercharged grand prix GTPs going against 140hp slow taurus's - that would be killer fun

I personally have only dragraced, legally, and done some unofficial dirt rally in my previous firebird against a VW Golf (I won!). I would like to roadrace someday but cant find a nearby track.

[ July 30, 2002, 05:27 AM: Message edited by: Dominic ]

 

[msparks]

I would probably be easier to list the racing that I don't like,

Any race that is 1 direction round or oval, especially nascar. Any racing that is straight for 1/4 mile or less.

Some favorites are. Road Bicycle racing(Tour De France and such) Also mountain bike racing, especially downhill.

I also like Rallye, motorycle events of all kinds(except ATV's)

 

[VaderSS]

I used to think drag racing was pointless, but after doing it myself, I enjoy it. It is the easiest form of auto racing to learn, and the easiest on your car. And your grandmother could take her car and win in the brackets where it's all about consistency.

The top fuel racers, now they are neat. The funny cars almost look like a car you could drive on the street, but they accelerate so hard, that they can detach your retinas.

Some tidbits I remember about top fuelers.

0-60 MPH in .5 seconds.

0-200 MPH in 3 seconds.

0-300 in under 5 seconds

Each spark plug has the equivalent of an arc welder's current going through it.

The engine costs $2000 per second to run.

They put so much fuel in, that the engine is on the virge of hydraulic lock at all times during the run.

The engines develop 7000HP, an average 4500 of this power is dissapated as heat through the first 2/3rds of the track through cluch slippage.

It takes 500HP to turn the supercharger.

It takes 30 HP each to turn the fuel pumps.

Stoicmetric combustion for nitromethane occurs at about 2:1, air : fuel. (14.7:1 for gasoline)

They burn 5 gallons per minute at idle.

They burn 15 gallons in the 1/4 or get .017 MPG.

[ July 30, 2002, 05:19 PM: Message edited by: VaderSS ]

 

[Terry]

I love any kind of Racing. If there was any money(sponsorship) in airplane pylon racing that would be my choice.
I have raced professionally in ProSportsCar,touring class.
I love open wheeled cars and grew up in Indiana around Sprint Cars and Stock Cars. Sprint Cars on dirt is as close to flying a hotrodded P-51 around pylons as I'll ever get! Last year drove a modified stockcar(4cyl) on dirt at Boyd Texas.

I had the opportunity to race the Skip Barber open wheel cars against a Nascar Truck driver and a Porsche factory driver and held my own for being a dirt track guy,thats when I when I was asked to try the road racing gig. I'd give my left Testic.. I mean, TOE to drive professionally again in anything.
For now I just look at the lubricants through a microscope that the lucky blokes get to compete in.

 

[dragboat]

These guys are friends of mine,the Worlds fastest Blown Alcohol Hydro and it it's right here in Oklahoma. A sweet success story behind this one!

http://www.dragboats.com/gallery/picDetail.asp?picID=1888336636&recID=5

Has anyone heard of the Isle of Mann race? I always wanted to run that one. I's a M/C deal.

I would rather drive a F1 car than a space shuttle ride if I had the offer,,,man would that be cool

Off topic as can be but some day,someday,someday will fly into England and rent a M/C and take a tour for about a month .Even the Wife is up to it.

 

[Chris]

My wife and I both like the drags. Been to pro car and motorcycle events but the biggest thrill for us is the motorcycle drags. I also like road racing but again we watch motorcycle road racing and make sure we don't miss two wheeled tuesday on Speedvision. Live road racing on bikes shows you true lunacy! If I had the money I would be running a bike on the strip

.

 

[2533a]

I have heard of the Isle of Mann race and saw a special on cable about it some years back. Talk about a superhuman feat! Those guys must have no fear given the speeds they attain and the duration of the race. That the race is run on public roads is even more astounding. There is no event in auto racing that compares to this race in my opinion.

The commentator spoke about how robust those bike engines had to be. He compared them to F1 cars that run at similar speeds but for much shorter races. Reading between the lines, he seemed to hint that the F1 engines would not survive similar treatment.

 

[sprintman]

Isle of Mann TT killed many riders. Insane race!

 

[Bror Jace]

I have seen just bits of the Isle of Mann TT. I really didn't know what I was looking at.

It was about a month (6 weeks?) ago that the Speed Channel had coverage of this race. It’s essentially a motorcycle rally on pavement through the suburbs of this prestigious British island. It looked neat but I’m not much of a bike guy so I only watched a few minutes of it.

I can believe what they are saying about the engines, though. Superbikes have always been high winding and the only cars we have which are in the same range are the European sports cars and Formula-1 ... and those engines are practically designed to self-destruct 100 yards past the finish line.

I’m really looking forward to the Rally of Finland next weekend. If you have the Speed Channel, preview coverage starts Thursday night. Racing occurs Friday, Saturday and Sunday with coverage of that day’s racing later the same night. I'm hoping Mad Man McRae will pull ahead in his quest for the Championship but Marcus Gronholm (Finnish - a local favorite for sure) will definitely give him a run for his money ... as long as his Puegeot holds together.

Personally, I'm glad to see the little French cars finally living up to their world reknown reputation for unreliability.

--- Bror Jace

””I was a patriot before being a patriot was cool.””

 

[Terry]

My old co-driver and Lead engineer( and former head of Oldsmobile Achieva Road Racing) won Three Rivers Grand Prix(SCCA Pro Racing World Challenge) today in Montreal driving for Mazda in Touring class. Chuck Hemmingson. Gosh I miss actively racing.

 

[Bror Jace]

Terry, is that the same as Speed World Challenge Touring class? Your buddy's name is not familiar to me.

Cogratulations just the same.

--- Bror Jace

 

[Terry]

Yes Bror, it is. When I last raced that type car It was Speedvision ProSportsCar(IMSA). Motorola Cup has taken that over.

Chuck Raced the old Sports Truck series in the 80's before working for GM Achieva program.

Checkout www.scca.com, click on SCCA pro racing and then World Challenge to see Chucks results. He also raced ASA stockcars.

 

[sprintman]

ASA was good then they went to I think lower spec GM egine across the board. Some rreal good drivers cameouta that series IMHO.