Sebring

[billwald]

Congrats Tom Beattie for a great shake down weekend in the new DP-04. Nice job and it is truly a beautifull car. Alan did a great job as always. Congrats to you both.

See you at the Trot.

[Alan Oppel]

It was really a great weekend for everyone. Congrats on the win Bill. Great to have more cars showing up, fun will continue.
Alan

[tombeattie]

Thanks Bill. It was great to run with you guys this weekend. See you again Thanksgivng weekend at Sebring.

After more than a year of lurking here on ApexSpeed and gathering up the parts to put the car together it was wonderful to finally turn the wheels. There were surprising few problems during the weekend. Alan and I learned alot about the car and the the funky radials we were using. We ran every lap in every session over the three days for a total of nearly three hours track time. It was a good thing too because after being out of a car for so long, rusty driving was taking its toll.

Many thanks to everyone here on Apexspeed for the invaluable information and advice that is given that helped me get the car going. I especially want to thank Ben Cooper who helped me through the odyssey that acquiring this car had become.

I look forward to meeting all of you at the track soon.

Here's a few pictures of the car from last weekend.


Tom

Attachment 11073Attachment 11074

Attachment 11075

[Rick Ross]

Congrats, Tom. Nice looking car. Is that an AIM dash in the picture?

[billwald]

I ran GY 250s all weekend. Sundays race was the sixth heat cycle and can still go another few sessions - test day at Thanksgiving.

I wondered what you thought of the radials. Would they have better on the long course?

Nice photos too. Did you happen to shoot any video? My cam wasnt working Sunday.

[RussMcB]

Tom, that car looks great. Any chance you can get it up to Rd Atl in a couple of weeks for the ARRC?

[VehDyn]

I second Russ' comments. The car looks great! Great job.

[tombeattie]

Thanks for the compliments everyone.

Rick - Yes, it's an AIM Mychron 3 XG Log


Russ - Unfortunately I won't be able to attend the ARRC this year. I really wanted to come and meet everyone, see all the FB's, and try to get to the bottom of a few beer kegs but business has been crappy and I had to spend some money I hadn't counted on in order to finish the car. I feel that my reduced racing budget would be more wisely spent on sorting the car closer to home at Sebring on Thanksgiving in preparation for the Winter Nationals. I want to be able support the class next year by entering as many national races as I can so I am going to give up a few events here and there to do that.


Bill - I didn't like the radials. They were not as forgiving as the bias ply. With me trying to sort out a new car and relearning how to drive at the same time, it was not another variable that I should have tried on the first weekend. You want to try em? They've only got eight heat cycles on them now.


Tom

[billwald]

Thanks Tom. Guess I'll stick with the GYs for now. You know I lost my upper rear wing half way through the SARRC race? Made for some interesting handling and braking. Kind of like driving slicks in the rain. I had to oppostie steer on the sweepers. Scary. Had it been on the long course...coulda been nasty.

Think the bumps sheared the bolts on one side. Might be a good heads up for all to keep an eye on. We are reinforcing the mounts~!

[Misterkris]

where are you guys getting these rollers from?

[RussMcB]

where are you guys getting these rollers from?

A guess: http://www.apexspeed.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23825

[tombeattie]

Good guess Russ. I did buy the roller "kit" from Jon Baytos but it wasn't the one in the thread above. Mine came primarily from a batch of excess inventory Jon bought from Elan that included a few frames and some parts. Last I knew he still had some of the stuff but was looking to unload it.

Comments Jon?



Tom

[RussMcB]

Your car looks great. Ben Cooper's does, too, and he's driven it pretty fast, so I'd think a DP-04 project has a lot of promise, especially for someone without a lot of dollars and willing to do the work to build it.

Although, 'building it' is a lot easier said than done, huh? :-).

[tombeattie]

Although, 'building it' is a lot easier said than done, huh? :-).

That's for sure! But it is a whole lot easier than designing, fabricating, and assembling a conversion like you did. I am in awe of the work you did on your car.


Tom

[GR]

....everyone really enjoying their cars. Congrats to everyone for what sounds like a successful weekend regardless of where you were on the track

[glenn cooper]

Hey Tom, Great to see you are up and running
If your car looks half as good as Ben's, it'll be twice as sweet as my Tri-Colore Nova kitted RF98VD.

Funny thing too; I saw that ad and would have been on the phone immediately with such a killer deal in the offing, but had about a month prior placed a sizeable downpayment on my kit (I'm not complaining mind you), and also would have been very hard pressed to do anymore than I have done build wise..

I'm sure once you get some seat and development time you'll be kickin' it just fine.
Tom and I met way back in our hooligan FM days at Daytona, one Nat'l 'bout 10 years ago. We had a petty good dice as I recall, with you taking first.

Looking forward to running with you at SE Nat's in '09.

GC

[tombeattie]

Hey Coop! I look forward to running with you again soon. Hopefully you also plan to resurrect The Coop Chronicles again for FB. It was always a great read.

back in our hooligan FM days at Daytona, one Nat'l 'bout 10 years ago. We had a petty good dice as I recall, with you taking first.

GC

Jeez, has it been that long? I remember that drag race to the finish line trying to break the draft and winding up in a photo finish with a couple of inches to spare. What a Blast!

Tom