Barber Double SARRC

[carnut169]

Another good weekend for the conversion crowd.

Barber... read about it, look at pictures of it and hear the stories. Then go there and be absolutely blown away. This has got to be the nicest track in the country folks. Why we had such a light turnout is beyond me. I had the pleasure of visiting the museum for the 1st time on Thursday and since we were the only visitors in the museum they allowed us to go into the basement and check out everything. 1.5 million dollar machine shop, (10?) real, operational F1 cars, Radical SR8 (which Mr Barber was driving around on Thursday to be sure the track was ready for us), SR3, Diasano, and on and on and on. Its like if you had unlimited funds and wanted to build the ultimate garage.

The weather was both perfect and horrible... Friday's test day was overcast and the high might have been 75- PERFECT. Then Sat the bottom fell out and poured for every race- I elected not to participate. Sunday was just like Friday- overcast and cool. I'd trade a day of racing for those two days of bliss any day of the week.

Also worth noting was the worker party which had the best spread of food I've seen in my racing experience. Carving station, open bar w/ wine, yada yada. Absolutely top notch.

I went out 1st secession Friday and scrubbed the wide tires anticipating a hot weekend. Beyond the scrub I got a chance to remember which way the track went... it was 04 when we were last allowed to run there. 2nd time out I was on the 6 & 8's which I stuck with for the remainder of the weekend. With low track temps I was concerned about keeping heat in the tires. I turned a 1.27ish and when I came back in told Jim that I was done for the day- I had two full days of racing ahead of me and I wanted to save the tires in the event I wanted to stick with the small ones- the wide tires needed to sit for the scrub to be effective. Anyway, in hindsight I wished I ran all of the remaining secessions since we missed Saturday.

The Stohr of Jeff Dingle was rented by Keith Roberts for Friday's test. Keith battled with the car all day. For some reason it wanted to run hot and was too stiff according to Keith. He said he was bouncing all over the place.

Saturday was very very wet. Jeff did a fantastic job in the Stohr with an over all victory (by a large margin) Mark Hathaway was the winning FC over Pete Hardholt (SP?) and that was a fun race to watch- it was tight! Pete challanged Mark several times but Mark was able to hold him off (without blocking, btw). Glen Cooper was also there with a 98+ Van Diemen but a broken input shaft and a busted r&p kept him out of the race.

Sunday I had pole and was able to lead from start to finish. Jeff hung in there for about 5 laps when he said he missed a couple shifts leaving the hairpin and it was all over- I was able to walk away.

I will post a video later of a couple laps.

So far this year the conversion is 7 for 7....

[RussMcB]

Congratulations. From my POV it's very encouraging that your car is fast and reliable.

It really is a surprise that so few cars showed up for your group, especially after not being able to race at Barber for the past few years. Maybe some people were scared away by uncomfortably high temperatures experienced during previous July races there.

It was interesting hearing Keith's impressions of the Stohr. He said your car seemed significantly faster on the straights. Aerodynamics? Maybe Jeff's engine wasn't as good? Keith also said the lack of adjustable shocks didn't help.

I think Mark called me within a few minutes (seconds? :-) of the checkered flag falling on Saturday. He was super pumped after his great battle with Peter. It was a good weekend to have all his kids there.

Hey, spin docter, I wonder if Jeff would agree with your 7 for 7 record considering his overall win on Saturday. :-).

[carnut169]

Congratulations. From my POV it's very encouraging that your car is fast and reliable.

It really is a surprise that so few cars showed up for your group, especially after not being able to race at Barber for the past few years. Maybe some people were scared away by uncomfortably high temperatures experienced during previous July races there.

It was interesting hearing Keith's impressions of the Stohr. He said your car seemed significantly faster on the straights. Aerodynamics? Maybe Jeff's engine wasn't as good? Keith also said the lack of adjustable shocks didn't help.

I think Mark called me within a few minutes (seconds? :-) of the checkered flag falling on Saturday. He was super pumped after his great battle with Peter. It was a good weekend to have all his kids there.

Hey, spin docter, I wonder if Jeff would agree with your 7 for 7 record considering his overall win on Saturday. :-).

Boy.

For what its worth I'm only couting races I'm in. I withdrew from Saturday's race. No qual, no start, etc. Does that count as a loss??

My car was much faster than the Stohr on the straights (with Keith) as they did not have the right gear ratios. Barber is not a "fast" track. For Jeff on Sunday I believe Craig went down 1 in the front and up 2 in the back. Once they did that Jeff was able to stay with me until he started missing shifts. At the faster tracks I see the WF1 hitting the aero wall prior to mine hitting it... and I believe its easy to see why.

...or maybe I should take out the busa engine....

[jgaither]

Sean: Sorry I didn't have a chance to speak with you this weekend. I came by your space & you weren't there. Congrats on Sunday. Saturday was interesting to say the least. We did have a decent turnout for our run group with 5 CFF's, several FF's, 7 or more FV's & a couple of F5's. Great racing on Sunday. Just getting to know my new RF81. Might see you at RA in 2 weeks.

jg

[carnut169]

Pic from Barber's race tower:




After the race:



Myself with Jeff and Joe...

[formula07]

We just made it back to the Houston area after about 28 hours of travel total. It was worth the drive because of the Barber facility and the time that we actually got to put on the car. We took full advantage of all of the track time we had. Five sessions during the test day which Keith Roberts ran and the 2 race days (1 wet and 1 dry). We certainly learned a lot about the car, spending the test day playing with cooling, wing angles, tire pressures, etc. We don't have much of a tuning kit yet, so we worked with what we had. Keith got quicker each session behind the wheel and we tried different things throughout the sessions. I jumped in the car on Saturday with rain pouring down and had a great time. The car gives a very confident feel and is very easy to drive in full wet conditions. On Sunday, the track was dry and Sean came out. He certainly had a better handle on the track than I did. He pretty much drove flawlessly and congratulations to him. We made wholesale changes from qualifying to the race and improved, but we still needed more (mostly from the driver). I don't intend to run the car more than I need too as we are looking to fill the seat for the rest of the season and the ARRC. I did however want to make sure that the car was solid in the rain and found that it was. We were really happy about the entire weekend and have more than enough things to keep us occupied until the ARRC to get the car faster.

I want to thank the Stohr North America guys (Craig and Jonathan) for coming out and supporting us all weekend. They came out with gears, wheels, tires, hardware, etc. That kind of support is unbelievable. They really provided a lot of help and paddock entertainment as well. Our tent was pretty much full the whole weekend with interest in the car. This is good for the future of our sport.

We have huge support to make the Stohr F1000 as fast as possible as quick as possible. It is a brand new car and we have quite a learning curve. We will be working hard to be where we need to be for the ARRC.


Jeff Dinges
The Motorsports Group
www.tmgracer.com

[Mark H]

Nice race in the rain!