Vintage Raced the Novakar This Past Weekend

[Tom Grossmann]

This past weekend I ran my 87 Novakar (3rd car built) with VARA at Buttonwillow.

The AMW ran all weekend without issue, although the cranking pressure is now pretty low (55 in the left cylinder and 75 in the right)

While I had fun and I drove my ass off in Sunday's race, staying ahead of a Lotus 23B, my lap times were just sad. We ran 25CCW and my best was a 2:15.135. To give you a benchmark the 5 S2000s in my run from were running between 1:56 & 2:08. I was also asomething like 22 seconds a lap slower then the Formula Mazdas.

The tires on the car are 18 months old and as mentioned the motor is getting tired, and given how bumpy certain sections of the track is I need to give the suspension a refresh.........I was joking we should call the car Tigre as it was rather bouncy.

The car got a lot of positive feedback and lots of people thought it was really cool. It was neat to be the first person to vintage race one and lots of people asked questions about the class so I'm hoping more people will run the older cars at vintage weekends.

[socaljeff3798]

I just picked up a 1986 Red Devil maybe I will have to take out to a VARA event.

[Tom Grossmann]

You should bring it out. The only gauge I had for lap times were modern F500s, so I figured I'd be several seconds slower than that but clearly the cars have come a long way. When I told people I was into my car for $5000 (including $800 for a new cell) they were blown away.

[Daryl DeArman]

Tom, if you felt pretty comfortable in the car (it wasn't doing anything evil) have your engine condition and clutch tuning checked out by somebody familiar with the car/2 stroke tuning.

If you felt like the car was all over the place or lacking grip get some new tires and have another crack at it. 18 months old won't make the tires junk if they've been properly stored and don't have a bunch of heat cycles in those 18 months. But if they do have a bunch of cycles or have been improperly stored they could be toast, and there's not much sense in chasing bad tires.

Disclaimer: I don't know how fast the F440/F500's were in the mid 80's relative to FF, so they could be in the general ball park, but the lap times you were turning are comparable to a competitive Vintage FV without the fan and generator on treaded tires.

[Jnovak]

If the cae is bouncing with little to no control you may need to adjust the friction contro on the upper arms. Send me a photo of the front upper control arms top view. Same of the rear arms.

I am trying to find àll of these older f440 cars i think we built 10 or 12 do you have a log book?

My email is jaynovak@comcast.net

Jay

[Tom Grossmann]

Jay I will get photos up this weekend of the suspension this weekend. I knew it wasn't right and we should have worked on it but I simply choose to drive around the large bumps.

I do have the original logbook, the only two entries in are Golden Harvest on 10/10/87 and then the Coca Cola 10/30/87.

[Jnovak]

Jay I will get photos up this weekend of the suspension this weekend. I knew it wasn't right and we should have worked on it but I simply choose to drive around the large bumps.

I do have the original logbook, the only two entries in are Golden Harvest on 10/10/87 and then the Coca Cola 10/30/87.

Is there a name on the lpgbook?

[Tom Grossmann]

Jay it's your name as the entrant and I think the tech inspector's name was Bledsoe.

Cornering speed wise the car wasn't far off the most of the S2000 cars.

The tires had three sessions from a track day and around 6 autocrosses on them.

I also need to put fresh pucks on the car.

The goal was to finish the full weekend.

EDIT: The clutches are not optimal but given the state of motor it's pointless making changes until it's on track again.

[Jnovak]

Jay it's your name as the entrant and I think the tech inspector's name was Bledsoe.

Cornering speed wise the car wasn't far off the most of the S2000 cars.

The tires had three sessions from a track day and around 6 autocrosses on them.

I also need to put fresh pucks on the car.

The goal was to finish the full weekend.

EDIT: The clutches are not optimal but given the state of motor it's pointless making changes until it's on track again.

I borrowed that car to run 2 of the F440 pro races down south. The car was a front runner, the driver needed coaching. I think i finished 3rd in both raçes

The car owner was Larry Dupuis, not sure of the spelling!

[Bardahl77]

I know I've gotten old when 440s are legal for vintage. It was bad enough when things like Lola T440s became vintage, having seen them win races back in the day, but the little FFFs? Pass the Geritol.

[Tom Grossmann]

Jay I have all of the logbooks and notes from Larry's races.

As for getting old yes the car is 33 years old so in my eyes it's vintage.

Here is the car getting ready to go to grid. I've done unspeakable things to the rear bodywork due the mod done for autocross.

[Jnovak]

I am kind of surprised that it cools for solo as the rads for road racing we very small for low drag. The car was amazing in a straight line and handled good too! The 2 cars at waterford were simply unbeatable in the day, and the Don Gibboney car held the class lap record until the track was repaved!

[Tom Grossmann]

Jay it was really borderline for Solo hence the modification to the rear cowl. If you look closely you can see the radiator 12" behind the headrest.

I've been really happy with the car. Up until now I've had a love hate relationship with single readers; the FV was fun but I wanted something faster, the DSR was fast but needed constant maintenance, the F500 splits the difference nicely.