December Event

[TimH]

John, sorry to have misled you but the yellow Lola that was a rental is now owned by Tom Kaminsky. Only you would know if you can squeeze into the DB1. Jens is trying to get his Rinland PRS together in time for the December event as another rental/personal car (he's parking the DB6 - can't support rental customers, several arrive&drives, and also drive at the same time it seems) but I wouldn't count on it and don't know if you'd want to be the guy to initially sort it. The DB1 is available, though.

[TimH]

Rain showers forecast!

On the wet day in February some of the sedans chose not to run and our EFF reputation for insanity got us extra track time. I was in the rental DB1 deciding whether to join the group and had so much fun I started shopping for a car the next day. It turns out dry is kinda fun, too, but..

We'll see if my new FogCity visor helps. Just put clear RTV on all the dash electrical connections last month. Guess I ought to cover some others, too.

I am sooo pumped.

[azjc]

Rain showers forecast!

On the wet day in February some of the sedans chose not to run and our EFF reputation for insanity got us extra track time. I was in the rental DB1 deciding whether to join the group and had so much fun I started shopping for a car the next day. It turns out dry is kinda fun, too, but..

We'll see if my new FogCity visor helps. Just put clear RTV on all the dash electrical connections last month. Guess I ought to cover some others, too.

I am sooo pumped.

We had rain last year (or was it the year before?)... showers came & went all afternoon. Watched the clouds coming in over South Mountain, decided it would clear by our race so I opted for slicks. Race started, then started to sprinkle, then rain on & off. I was the only one on slicks, the only one not to spin .Had a blast, rain is fun to practice car control... less fun if racing in close quarters.

[marshall9]

[quote=TimH;323499]Rain showers forecast!

On the wet day in February some of the sedans chose not to run and our EFF reputation for insanity got us extra track time. I was in the rental DB1 deciding whether to join the group and had so much fun I started shopping for a car the next day. It turns out dry is kinda fun, too, but..

I sure had fun

[rds]

I haven't driven a race car since 96. Was in FA then.

So what does a Swift rental cost these days?

What is the state of FF? By now there must be different engines, new cars? Does anybody show up?

[TimH]

Poke around ApexSpeed and you'll see the state of FF is pretty variable. Depending on where you live there are reasonable SCCA fields for modern or club chassis, a couple of pro series, vintage series, you name it. And, yes, new engines from Ford and Honda and a completely new spec announced (mostly for Europe, probably). I gather there are other places where FC predominates.

The Phoenix area has a little group known as EuroFormulaFord (check out www.eformulaford.com) that runs about once a month during the cool seasons with ProAutoSports affiliated with ASA. Mostly we run one of the three tracks at Firebird, typically getting 4 20-minute sessions per day, 2-3 days per meet.

Pretty much everybody runs Ivey engines and we have a spec street radial which so tire-limits the cars that a vintage chassis isn't much slower than the latest and greatest designs. It also lowers stresses so much that maintenance is much reduced (a set of brake pads is good for at least a season). We're still figuring out how much we can get out of a set of tires - one young hotshoe burns them up in three weekends while others are seeing more reasonable wear and going about as fast.

Right now there are a couple dozen old farts signed up for low-budget fun with a variety of cars which means at a given meet there will be 6-10 running. This isn't enough for our own run group so we usually share the track with a couple of ThunderRacers, maybe some Legends, at least one FC that treats us like moving chicanes, usually a couple of DSRs and sometimes something else *really* fast. Nobody's going to win anything serious so it's all pretty friendly and safe.

Jens has a DB1 he rents for $650/day (last I checked) and is putting together a PRS F82 for larger drivers, having recently sold the Lola. At that rate he couldn't be making a profit but it's a great tool for seduction.

You'll never get discovered for that big pro contract driving with us but a good time is pretty much guaranteed.

[TimH]

Jens has several clients doing arrive-and-drive with their own cars that he preps, stores and transports. One is from Las Vegas and my brother lives in La Jolla. I know he wouldn't consider racing if he had to trailer a car around SoCal. I just saw you're in NM and one way you might want to check us out is when we go down to the INDE events near Wilcox on Memorial Day or Labor Day. I haven't driven there yet but gather it's a fantastic place.

[T644HU05]

I haven't driven a race car since 96. Was in FA then.

So what does a Swift rental cost these days?

What is the state of FF? By now there must be different engines, new cars? Does anybody show up?

Take a look at the "November" post and you'll see a picture of a typical Yellow Group grid. There are times when there are more FF's or a few FC's. If you show up on slicks or Dunlops you won't be turned away either.