Racing!

[Bror Jace]

sprintman, about Traco being the engine builder, I'm not sure of the point of your question. Are you suggesting that that engine manufacturer prefers one type of oil over another?

neonmike, a contingency sticker was one of my theories. I was hoping someone could confirm this for me.

1QtLo, a little obsessed, were we?

I was REALLY into it ... but not so bad that I need counseling. I got tired of searching for the F1 races which is why I took a several year break from intently following that series.

Speed Channel is just AWESOME. The Speed World Challenge series is a lot like British and German Touring cars. I saw two cars in the touring class match up doorhandles and stick together for the better part of AN ENTIRE LAP.

I think it was one of the earliest races at Sebring this year.

Speed Channel is part of basic Time Warner digital cable ... which is close to $50 per month here ... and worth every penny.

I'd love to race Formula Ford or formula Mazda ... but I can't see fielding a car all by myself. *sigh*

--- Bror Jace

 

[Bror Jace]

Judd, I really have to TRY not to hate NASCAR and IRL these days. I used to follow both because there were certain years it was the only racing I could find ... but it gets really hard sometimes. I really get frustrated with all the coverage and publicity NASCAR gets while much better/more interesting racing is ignored.

But, a lot of friends and people I know really like it and I don't want to make additional enemies.

--- Bror Jace

 

[Soma07]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bror Jace:
Judd, I really have to TRY not to hate NASCAR and IRL these days.

---

You have that problem too eh? I almost wanted to kill someone when Fox bought Speedvision and turned it into 24/7 NASCAR TV. Watching current NASCAR races is bad enough but their re-runs of old races is just terrible. I mean who cares who won the 1982 Daytona 500?

 

[Bror Jace]

Soma07, exactly. It's not bad enough that they spend a good deal with NASCAR-related shows like "Behind the Wrenches," etc ... but do we have to get re-runs of NASCAR races from 10-20+ years ago?

Look at the Wednesday line-up and tell me it's not excessive!

--- Bror Jace

 

[Johnny]

Bror Jace: The simple answer to your question is YES, it is contingency. Valvoline pays a contingency to the first three in each class. If you do not have their sticker on your car, you do not get the contingency. Works the same way in most racing, including NASCAR.

I just purchased two season passes for the 2003 season at Road America. I plan on seeing all the motorcycle and sports car racing I can stand starting in April. Come pay a visit and I will use one of my passes for you.

 

[sprintman]

Bror
Yes! Traco say all their clients use syn's but they always can tell which run Redline on teardown. Just wasn't sure if it's SCCA their chev engines are used?

 

[sprintman]

Johnny
you spnsor the best racing series. World of Outlaws. Whenever I take somebody to their 1st sprintcar race they are 'gobsmacked'. Supercharged boat racing pretty good too.

 

[Johnny]

Sprintman: I have bad news for you. I found out that we are not sponsoring the World of Outlaws next year. We will still sponsor Steve, but not the series. Personally I think that was a dumb move on our part. Now let's see who will do it next year. Castrol? Valvoline? or maybe Kendall.

 

[sprintman]

Johnny
More bad news. Just been announced the WOA opening show for January 2004 will be at PCR in Sydney!! A 3 night show (8/9/10th) with A$300,000 prize money on offer. You could have wangled a 'promo' visit to gods country maybe??. Well come down anyway, we know how to look after you guys real well.

 

[Bror Jace]

Thanks, Johnny B. Gouda (a little Wisconsin/cheese humor fer 'ya

). I figured it was something like that. If you wear the right sticker, you'll get a cash bonus for win, place or show. Probably happens most with oil and something like tires. Those are items closest to actual "commodities."

I wonder if Red Line made a counter offer to some drivers?

Love that Road America offer. If I still lived in Suburban Chicago (as I did in '90-'91) I'd take you up on it.

Kind of a long drive from Saratoga, NY though. I drove straight through from this area to Lombard, Illinois in 11 hours one time ... over 800 miles. If I remember correctly, I might have broken the speed limit once or twice.

Bummer dude, on losing World of Outlaws. That's not my form of racing ... but ANY racing is better than no racing.

Sprintman, I'm not familiar with Traco and what they build. I have to say, though, that within the 40 or so classes of SCCA racing, there are probably well over 100 different engines. Heck, in one diverse production class, there might be a dozen different makes!

I'd have to think dozens of different shops are involved with building the several hundred engines which took part in this glorious race weekend.

--- Bror Jace

 

[Judd]

Well, here its my view on NASCAR. Back a few years ago when Dodge was just getting back into drag racing{Pro Stock}, I was getting all reved up about Darrel Alderman and his Dodge doing so well. Then I learn about him not only sniffing drugs but also his Dodge. A bit of "grey area"stretching is okay by me, but this was downright cheating. Once I really got to thinking about it, I figured out some things maybe. For one thing-there isn't alot of places you can hide NOS on a Pro-Stocker. Yea, I know,they hid it in the frame tubes. Once he started winning all the time{even when the other guy lighted him bad}, you've got to think NHRA tech. really started going over it hard. Personally, I think the NHRA turned a blind eye to it as it was selling tickets.
Now to the NASCAR thing. Why didn't Earnhart win more championships? He was doing so good, then wham-nothing. Well, Petty is the King right? Can't win more than the King can ya? Good timing too, I mean NASCAR already had the male redneck demographic wrapped up. Had to get some more viewers in there. Hmmmm, along comes Gordon. He looks pretty good to the wives and some of the younger folks, plus the older fans would hate him. This is good because some fans will watch to see him lose and the others will watch to see him win.
Now look, I'm not saying that NASCAR is the automotive equal to the WWWF or monster truck racing. I'm just saying that they know what is good for them and if that means that they "look the other way" when someone is cheating a bit, then yea I think they would. I'm not saying that they tell "Bob" he is going to let "Bill" win this week. They just look the other way as long as it don't get outa hand and they start lapping the field.
This perturbes the heck outa people when I bring it up so I think I'll put my flack jacket on now!!!

Long butt rant over!

 

[Soma07]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Judd:
This perturbes the heck outa people when I bring it up so I think I'll put my flack jacket on now!!!

Long butt rant over!

---

Not me brother! Tell us more about the evils of NASCAR

But seriously I wouldnt doubt something like that has happened. IMO it stems from the basic viewpoint most Americans take on motorracing. They view it as entertainment, if its not fun to watch they they go elsewhere. On the other hand europeans look at it as competition, to see who makes the best car, who the best driver is, etc.

I mean just imagine what NASCAR would do if one of their teams enjoyed the success that the F1 Ferrari team had in 02...

 

[Bror Jace]

Well, guys, I have been watching all of the SCCA Valvoline Run-Offs to date. When I’m not home, I dutifully set my VCR and watch them later that day.

Still, no confirmed oil sponsorship in sight other than Valvoline & Red Line. I thought I saw what might have been a Royal Purple car as well as an Amsoil sponsored car … but I didn’t get a good enough 2nd look to verify the markings. A lot of smaller sponsors use similar colors and letter styles so you have to look closely and that’s not often possible unless they interview the driver in front of his (or her) car before or after the race.

Some really good, close racing so far. The biggest surprise to date was the entry-level Formula Vee Championship (suspension-less formula cars using mostly VeeDubb Beetle parts). This is usually a crazy group of cars all bunched together in one big pack … or at the very least, one long train or centipede.

This year, the winner was ahead of the 2nd place finisher by 20+ seconds … after only a 20 lap race.

Favorite race so far was probably H Production … or was that F Production? Love those silly little British cars with no horsepower being wrung out for all their worth. The passing and strategy was great during the race, too. It was a bright yellow Red Line sponsored Bug-Eye Sprite which took the lead halfway through the race and held on for the win.

Scheduled for this weekend (12:00-2:00 EST each day) are: Formula Ford & GT-2 (Saturday) as well as G Production & Sports Type (Sunday).

--- Bror Jace

PS: Those of you who are not thrilled about the NASCAR overkill coverage on Speed Channel, please e-mail them or post your displeasure here:

http://insider.speedtv.com/

 

[bretfraz]

oooohhhh, plenty of NASCAR haters here. Ouch!

I love NASCAR racing but it's not without it's shenanigans, that's for sure. But F1 is as much a fraud as NASCAR is so I don't complain too much.

Now that I have family working in the Industry Of NASCAR I understand the in's and out's a lot better. I can say this, cheating and rule-bending is not nearly as prevalent as it once was.

I feel kinda bad saying this but I think the death of Dale Earnhardt will benefit NASCAR. The truth is that RCR and DEI were (and still are to some extent) being allowed to get away with fairly obvious rules infractions. The France family knew well that Dale was their cash cow; his concession sales were 2x-3x over any other driver. Millions of fans worshipped him and as long as he was competitive and winning they'd keep watching the races. But the cheating and rule-bending was taking a serious toll on other owners and some sponsors. Think about this: Twice this year NASCAR took away points from teams for rule infractions. One penalty, the short coil on Mark Martin's car, was clearly proven that the coil spring offered no peerformance advantage to the car but NASCAR nailed the team for 25 points. Ask yourselves: Would NASCAR have taken points away from Dale Earnhardt when he was in a championship battle when everyone knows that amn outof spec coil spring would not have given him an advantage?

As for TV coverage, well, the networks are gonna show what people want to see. No sense in blaming NASCAR or their fans for that. Only 14,000 people attended the CART race in Chicago and 21,480 attended the Cleveland race. CART has publicly lied about some of their attendance figures: http://www.allsports.com/cgi-bin/showstory.cgi?story_id=32515

By comparision the Chicagoland NASCAR Cup race drew a capacity crowd. Hard to ignore or even debate hard numbers like that.

 

[Terry]

IF BITOG site sponsored a PRO racing car campaign
what series would you want to see and would YOU be willing to work in some capacity as crew ?

TRANS AM, WOO, NASCAR,GO KARTS, WARBIRDS Air racing, etc ??????

 

[3 Mad Ponchos]

Sure, I'll drive.

I can dust off the ol' helmet any time you need it.

I'd help if I could, 'course my location will probably make that difficult.

I loved racing & miss it terribly.

Cheers, 3MP

 

[Terry]

3mps,I feel your pain and miss driving myself. Its torture looking at that coolest engines on earth through oil analysis and not being the "shoe" moving it around a course or track !

 

[jason07-1zzfe]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Terry:
IF BITOG site sponsored a PRO racing car campaign
what series would you want to see and would YOU be willing to work in some capacity as crew ?

TRANS AM, WOO, NASCAR,GO KARTS, WARBIRDS Air racing, etc ??????

---

YES! Talk about dream job! Not a big NASCAR fan, but it'd be better than nothing. Out of those, I'd say Trans AM. I think I would die to get a job like that. So when you starting it up? I'm ready

 

[Bror Jace]

Terry, any hunk of junk you bring to the Northeast (NY, Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, etc ...) and get on a track or an airfield, I'll be there to help you with it.

I'm not a great wrench but I can do simple stuff and would have a great time just being there.

Speaking of which, anyone else going to the Lime Rock Memorial Day race? Should be awesome ... just like last year.

http://www.limerock.com/

--- Bror Jace

 

[Bror Jace]

Did anyone else catch the Formula One race over the weekend? It was the Austrian Grand Prix ... but what I thought was especially noteworthy was the behind-the-scenes, pre-race coverage.

One of the Speed Channel reporters got to go inside the Ferrari transporters and see the lab where they use a gas chromatograph to analyze fuel samples throughout the weekend ... and they also showed that Ferrari regularly samples the motor oil out of the cars' engines and transmissions looking for signs of wear and/or impending failure.

Hmmm ... what a good idea. Gee, I wonder if owners of daily driven vehicles could do the same?

--- Bror Jace