Edge Cal Speedway National Report

[ghickman]

Hi All-
We qualified today for the California Speedway National. Ended up 12th on the grid, highest of all the open wheel cars behind the FA's. The field is 31 cars deep and the majority of the field is DSR, FA, CSR, S2, FC in about that order.

I've never even seen this track in the flesh before until this morning. We missed all of the open practice yesterday due to rain (haven't spent the $$$ for those yet). My only track time here was spent watching a YouTube video in-car from a Radical CSR last night which I must have watched a few dozen times....I was surprised how much I got out of that. I felt pretty good about my qualifying effort, the race should be even better.

I had the GoPro camera mounted but it quite running on lap 3....I think the g's from the high banked oval got to it because the video around the banking looks weird. I'll post it later tonight maybe.

This is really a fun track, 21 turns 2.88 miles and a longgg straight up to a high banked oval which is super fast and no lift I might add. Fast time was Radical CSR @ 1:39.8 my time 1:46.4....sure I'm at least 3 seconds off what I should be.

More to come

Gary

[Mike B]

Gotta love the regions that are quick with the Mylaps:

http://www.mylaps.com/results/showru...569&perclass=1

[ghickman]

Gotta love the regions that are quick with the Mylaps:

http://www.mylaps.com/results/showru...569&perclass=1

Hey Mike
Cal Club is really well run....it's been almost 20 years since I've run a Cal Club event and they're still top notch. It's weird coming back into the sport after so long and seeing the same folks running it, just a bit more grey hair.

Gotta love the Mylaps, when I quite SCCA racing in 1990 the Internet didn't exist (or at least the way we now know it).

Question: why do they call the Pro Star Mazdas FM? Aren't they run in the FA class?

Gary

[Rick Kirchner]

somewhere out there is a power point presentation and a bunch of in-car from a POC instructor on how to drive CS. If I find the links I'll post 'em.

[R. Pare]

Good to see Nancy James still kicking the younger guys butts , especially since this is the first time out with the car after a pretty serious fire last fall.

Looks like Dave F. is also getting the handle on his S2 at last.

ONE Formula Ford???? That's pretty sad!

[Lincspeed]

Anyone know what Travis Duder was driving? Glad to see he's back on track.

Clark

[ghickman]

Hi All
All went well today at Cal Speedyway, the rain held off for the Wings and Things race. Actually it was sprinkling on the parade lap but as soon as the green came out it stopped.

We made a few changes to the car Saturday after qualifying which improved my times. I got down to a 1:43.357 which was over 3 seconds better than my qualy time. I believe I still left another 2 seconds on the table due to a gearing problem. We didn't have the right gear combination and couldn't locate a 16t primary so we stayed with what we had.

On pre-grid one of the Rennwerks WF1's had a problem so they routed us around him. Then on the parade lap Dave Ferguson spun coming up to T1...not sure what exactly happened but it just looked like cold tires from my vantage point. They kept us rolling and the green came out. The lead pack of CSR /DSR's pulled away from me pretty quickly which left me to battle with 2 Atlantics, the 3rd place FM, and a ZETEC FC which was running in FA. The ZETEC FC and the FM held me up for several laps then I finally got around both of them and if I'm not mistaken that's when I turned my fastest lap.

The entire race I was still learning the track and begining to really push the car. My race craft is coming back and I'm feeling much more confident now in the car and myself.

Not sure where I ended up overall because T/S printer broke down and I don't see the results posted yet.

I was asked about a hundred times "Is this one of those new F1000?"....and "Who's Chassis is this".

Our next race is WSIR next month. I'm at least familiar with WSIR, it's where we did all of our initial testing at back in September.

Sure hope there is at least one more FB to show up at WSIR....I know it's expensive for the NorCal guys to tow down to SoCal with the economy in the crapper. I'm keeping my hopes up for this class and I'm having a blast thrashing around in a car Tony and I built.

Sorry no good video....the GoPro was a NoGo...both forward and rearward facing cameras crapped out...I give up.

Oh...Clark, Duder Travis is driving a bright Yellow WF1. That old fart can get with the program.

Gary

[Daryl DeArman]

ONE Formula Ford???? That's pretty sad!

The serious FF folks out here race with VARA, HSR-West or travel north to the SFRegion of SCCA.

Garey Guzman tried as hard as anybody to build the FF numbers within Cal Club. If his charm and efforts couldn't persuade the masses to go FF racing with Cal Club I don't think anybody can.

[ghickman]

Hi All
Link to mylaps final results.

http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=1037658

Gary

[RussMcB]

Way to go, Gary. Sounds like you're impressing people with your workmanship, having fun driving, and getting faster. What could be better? :-).

... the GoPro was a NoGo ...

FWIW, the GoPro folks sound pretty convincing when they say their second generation camera (Hero Wide) has addressed a lot of the issues with the original. Maybe you can sell yours and upgrade for not much $.

[Brett Lane]

Sounds like a good weekend. I've heard that even a bad day at the track is better than a good day at work- at least for some of us.

BTW- did you see all the S2's racing? Wow! I guess they're still real popular on the left coast.

[Josh Pitt]

The serious FF folks out here race with VARA, HSR-West or travel north to the SFRegion of SCCA.

Garey Guzman tried as hard as anybody to build the FF numbers within Cal Club. If his charm and efforts couldn't persuade the masses to go FF racing with Cal Club I don't think anybody can.

FYI
we had 33 FF cars on grid last june at cal speedway with HSR west.
Guzmans old car( mine now) being one of them there.

[Daryl DeArman]

My point exactly.

[Matt Conrad]

I guess I have a question....

I noticed on the results that the only true FA was Ken Davis in his Ralt RT-41. One of the others was a Pro Mazda. The other two look to be Zetec-powered FC's ( a Van Diemen and a Carbir).

Are Zetec powered cars still being classified in FA and not FC? I thought the FC rules now allowed the Zetec engine and the new aluminum head on the old Pinto block. Did I miss something?

Matt Conrad

[Dave Gomberg]

The Zetecs in FC have to abide by certain restrictions. The Zetecs in FA get to run as they did in the old F2000 pro series.

Dave

[GoPro]

Hi All-
We qualified today for the California Speedway National. Ended up 12th on the grid, highest of all the open wheel cars behind the FA's. The field is 31 cars deep and the majority of the field is DSR, FA, CSR, S2, FC in about that order.

I've never even seen this track in the flesh before until this morning. We missed all of the open practice yesterday due to rain (haven't spent the $$$ for those yet). My only track time here was spent watching a YouTube video in-car from a Radical CSR last night which I must have watched a few dozen times....I was surprised how much I got out of that. I felt pretty good about my qualifying effort, the race should be even better.

I had the GoPro camera mounted but it quite running on lap 3....I think the g's from the high banked oval got to it because the video around the banking looks weird. I'll post it later tonight maybe.

This is really a fun track, 21 turns 2.88 miles and a longgg straight up to a high banked oval which is super fast and no lift I might add. Fast time was Radical CSR @ 1:39.8 my time 1:46.4....sure I'm at least 3 seconds off what I should be.

More to come

Gary

Gary...dude.

Read the back of your camera, my man. It says very clearly NEVER USE ALKALINE BATTERIES. Only use Energizer Lithium or NiMH rechargeable batteries. Lithium is required for high vibration use.

You can probably use NiMH rechargeables on your car but Lithium is the bomb proof vibration solution.

Vibration causes battery voltage drop. Alkaline batteries suffer from this MASSIVELY. That is why we say NEVER use them and wrote it on the back of the camera.

Usually NiMH work just fine and last for 2 hours of video recording. When you need maximum reliability and 3 hours of video recording...Lithium does the trick.

Use the right batteries and all will be well in the world :-) - GoPro