FF NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

[dbardell]

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT A RACE.

[KevinFirlein]

congrats to Scotty and the Citation boys.

Scottys 2nd gold I think to go with one from FV at Atlanta

[Jerry Santucci 33]

hey guys..
wow, i enjoyed it.. congrats to all

special thanks to all at speedcast!
well done

[Phil Green]

Great race. I thought they were going to finish still attached to each other!

Congrats to all!

Watched the race online as I am steaming along on the SS Badger sailing from Wisconsin back home to Michigan after being at the Runoffs all week.



Phil Green

[Wes Allen]

OMG!!!!
What happened to Treadway?
It looked like Tim and Coello had an great race! Shame for both,who were they lapping? Hard to get lapped at Road America???
What happened to Russ his car never breaks??? And Mike K. too?
Info I need more info!

[dc]

Sounds like a fuel pump issue on Treadway's car. Too bad, that was shaping up to be an historic race. Not that it wasn't anyway... whew!

[R. Pare]

Congratulations to Scott! Probably the most laid back guy on the grid you'll ever meet.

Sorry to hear about the troubles for the others, but, as the saying goes, first you have to finish.......

Congrats to everybody for a good show.

[John Merriman]

Um.......results?

[Al Craighead]

Story and link to results on EFCN, but here you go anyways:

http://www.scca.com/popup/raceresult...13506&file=998

[R. Pare]

http://www.livetiming.net/SCCA/Runof...=1024&Class=FF

Rubenzer
Valet
Schweitz
Livingston
Sauce
Townes
Blanc
Brown
Benson
Cunningham

What happened that Kephart didn't start?

[thewarehouse]

Kephart had the flu and Don wouldn't let him run.


What a race!

THere was a rep from Ford Racing there talking to all of the FF drivers... They even gave me a Ford Motorsport hat....weird.

[rmccown]

THere was a rep from Ford Racing there talking to all of the FF drivers... They even gave me a Ford Motorsport hat.

That's more than Ford has given to the FF community in a long while...

[R. Pare]

Kephart had the flu and Don wouldn't let him run.

Geeez Louize.........

With all that Bill has been through health-wise over the last few years, he finally makes it back to the big dance only to get a damned cold!

Hope you feel better soon, Bill!

[guudasitgets]

Guys I can't speak for Scott but I can tell you he is one happy driver right now. There were many times he has had his own misfortune as in getting to the runoffs when it was at Road Atlanta only to get very sick the day of the race and couldn't start. There were many others. He has never given up trying, always focused. I feel for for the guys in the last lap crash as they too were giving it all they had. They all wanted to win and thats what it was supposed to be like. It was great to see everyone stopping by wishing good luck and the many faces I myself haven't seen in a while. It was fun to work on the car again and it was fun to watch good racing. Maybe this will be a re-birth of this class as I myself enjoy it so much. The 40th and this race were both great. I congratulate Scott, and all the other guys for great show.

Tony B.

[Dennis Valet]

[stonebridge20]

The fuel pump was the problem with Treadway's car. I'll post more when I come out of shock.

[mblanc]

Great pic Dennis, and nice to meet you,

Congratulations Scott ! Couldn't go to a nicer guy.
Nice drive Tom also, good and consistent,

Condolences to Treadway, Coello and Kautz, all deserved to see the checker, in whatever order it would've been.

Here's the story for fifth (no wait, third!), I couldn't run Valets pace, and kept creeping back, and my heads up crew let me know if I couldn't do more, Reid and Schweitz would catch me last lap. They did at T5, and Reid's left rear breaks, and he goes straight off five, Schweitz and I battle hard and deep to T6, can't make corner, slip through corner of gravel trap, both of us are continuing out in the grass, (same trip I took in the Crossle at the FF40th)

So at this point, the race for third is two cars out on the grass by the guardrail, would've been an interesting last 1/2 lap with all the crap on the tires, but Tom got back to the black stuff, I spun trying.

What a week.

[Tom Valet]

As Marc just said, what a week. I will let my son Bill post his thoughts on the race and he also has some video that he will edit and post, but here are a few thoughts of my own as a proud father who is exhausted and very glad this week is over.

First, congratulations to Scott. I only met him for the fist time this week, but it is obvious he is a great guy and as I told his wife in victory circle, it's great when nice guys finish first. Not that Jeremy, Tim or Tony are not nice guys, but Scott's win was a great story and somewhat unexpected. He won the FV Runoffs 24 years ago, and yestersay was his wedding anniversary, so Scott's victory really was a cinderella story. People have already forgotten, but Scott finished 3d in the 40th National, so this has been a great year for him.

This may not have made it onto the Speedcast telecast, but Scott told me afterward that his car could not have gone another lap. Along the way he picked up a bunch of leaves in his intake and his car was running 240 degrees and climbing as he took the checker.

Jeremy almost didnt make the start of the race and in fact came to the grid after the 3 minute signal had been given. Earlier in the week his starter bracket had broken. He had it tig welded and the car ran fine in qualifying. Then, as they went to start the car to come to the grid, the starter broke. The crew thrashed to get the car fixed and he just made it, only to have his electric fuel pump quit as he took the green.

Tim Kautz had changed engines after Q3 looking for more speed to match Jeremy's pace. Not sure whose engine was in the car for the race, but it was very fast and he could draft past Tony on the straight whenever he wanted.

The race for the lead was great and I am sure the telecast concentrated on that, but behind the front there was an insane race going on for what was at the time 5th place and what would turn out to be the final spot on the podium. For most of the race Scott was running by himself about 7 seconds behind the leaders, then Bill was by himself about 10 seconds behind Scott, but then came Marc Blanc, Reid Hazelton, Mike Sauce, Stan Townes, Tom Schweitz and Dave Livingston, followed closely by Lew Cooper and Darren Brown, all swapping places back and forth.

The FF race was easily the most exciting race of the weekend. In virtually every other class, except for CSR, the races were over by lap 2 with a leader several seconds ahead and unchallenged. This FF race had it all.

So congrats to all the FF guys. This is a great class with terrific people who are great to be around and great to race with.

Take care.

Tom

[Speed Sport Engineering]

Great race guys! I was watching from 12 with a bunch of other FV drivers - we were so happy for Scott!

Marc - I was excited to see you come by the first lap in 4th! Nice Job! And thanks for the kind words in the FV post!

See everyone next year!

Michael Varacins

[Dennis Valet]

This is my full album, hopefully can add more as I keep going through pictures

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ffs/?start=all

[iamuwere]

Congrats Bill. I have been a fan since we shared garage space at the Glen when I was in F5. When you spun that race you were hell-bent on getting back to the front and certainly proved your skill. Great job to all.

jim

[mblanc]

Hats OFF to David Livingston,

Issues in Q3 w/ a broken motor mount, and only a couple laps in,........

Don't remember where he started, but when I looked at results for him I shoulda started at the top, not bottom,
from way back there to 4th !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NICE JOB.

[R.DeVoe]

anyone take video of the race?

[Wes Allen]

And don't forget David Livingston was cut out from his car after an accident during the National at the 40TH!!!!
Good job Mark!

[Mike Kolthoff]

Thanks to all that replied to my search for a new dizzy. I was troubled by a miss all week and was actually happy to have qualified 13th.

Do to working on the car for hours on end I was not able to meet andd greet all of you that I wanted to. Oh, yeah being at the bottom of the Sargento bridge for paddock space did not help. The space was great just not close to any FF ers. Reid hazleton was down the way and I did not have a chance to say hi.

We changed everything! Sunday mornings one lap emergency showed we still had the miss. As a last ditch effort we changed the condensor (2nd time), pulled the guts out of the earls fuel filter and threw (note to Mike A.) a new fuel pump. Low and behold no miss during the race.

After a crazy scrap with a blue DB-1, a vector (?),(Livingston), Sauce and a few others I was running 8th at the 8th lap chasing Schweitz and Hazelton and when i downshifted to 3rd at turn one no one was home at 3rd and his friends 1,2,4 where missing also. (note there in no crunching sound for the gearbox at all, no clue what happened, the shift linkage is still all intact up to the point in goes into the rear case.)

How no one hit Treadway is beyond me. Great job to all in the field I just wish I would have the time meet all of drivers in the best class.

MK

[Bill Valet]

First I just wanted to say huge thanks to Jim Little, Harry Martin and Ed of drivers services for all their hard work all year. Without them we wouldn't have had such a successful and fun season! But most importantly thank you to my father for supporting (and paying for me!) all season! Thanks dad! This ones for you!

What an amazing event and what an amazing class. The whole week was frustrating/intoxicating. Between the rain on tuesday, the very odd and quite ridiculous wednesday qualifying, going 1.2 seconds faster and STAYING 6th on thursday (and being 2.3 seconds SLOWER than Jeremy...simply amazing!) and then the race itself on sunday, I am SPENT. But I would do it all over again in the drop of a hat.

The race itself was interesting before we even got on track! We were all looking at each other with the same thought, where the heck is JT? We were all relieved to see him get to his spot at the front of the grid within the 3 minute mark. But then the confusion started when we were CRAWLING all the way up to the flag stand. I remember thinking, what the heck is going on? When are they going to throw the green? I was getting antsy, and almost had some trigger finger. But I managed to hold off till the right moment and look over to my right and to my suprise no one was there! Mark had an amazing start and Russ was back far enough where I could swing all the way to the inside. But as I was swinging over, JT was falling back FAST. You can see in the video how close I came to him and how much quicker we were going! Mark made it up to 2nd and I almost grabbed third but thought better of it and backed off as it was the first corner of the first lap and let Tim go in front of me. Scott made a move in on me at turn 3 which I last second saw and gave him some room, but my momentum was lost and he was able to easily drive past me going into 5. I remember following him in the draft one lap and looking down at the speedo and going..WOW! 130?! I wasn't gaining on him and I was still going 6-7 mph faster than if I was not in the draft halfway down the straight. Those skinny tires give some incredible straight line speed. That fact alone makes JT's qualifying lap(s) on thursday simply EPIC. Hats off to him for that! I spent the next few laps trying to keep pace with Scott on cold tires and catch up to Mark. Scott simply had way too much pace for me as I had a bit of understeer and was overdriving the car. Getting around Mark was not easy! After all sorts of looks I had to settle for going around the outside in turn 1! After that I was scared of his small rear tire speed and tried to gap him as best as I could to hold onto 4th. Nothing really happened until the last lap, and as I was going up through thunder valley, I remember thinking to myself...man should have signed up for the Taylor Race contingency! It's for 4th place! Then I came around 14 and saw 2 cars stationary...I didn't even figure out who it was until I was almost at start finish and I came on the radio and screamed TIM AND TONY TOOK EACH OTHER OUT!!! Just craziness I say. I do have to say it's not the way I wanted to grab a podium, and I feel for those guys (and Jeremy too as he was simply in a class of his own, both in the rain and on thursday!). Racing is a funny sport, and things happen. There is always next year and I'm sure all you guys will come back stronger than ever. This track lends for some truely amazing racing and allows this class to show it's true colors. Between the character of the competitors (what a great bunch of guys) and the racing that happens I can say this is one of, if not the best class in scca today.

Anyways, we have some video of the race. It's only the front video as we had our usual issues with one of the cameras (thank goodness it was the rear and not the front this time!) Many laps were cut out in the middle due to me just running by myself. Hope you enjoy it! Can't wait for the speedcast video to come on demand!

Congrats to Scott, Tom and everybody who was in the race. See you next year!

http://vimeo.com/6800713

[Roux]

Bill,

nice drving job. Congratulations! Video is a lot of fun to watch. Best of luck if you decide to go back next year and give it another go.

[reidhazelton]

I'll post video once I can bring myself to watch it. It shut off on lap 10 before I made the pass on Marc in 5 the last lap. Hats off to GoPro for actually working for almost a whole race....

-RH

[Tom Valet]

I thought you guys might get a kick out of these two pictures, opposite extremes of the Runoffs spectrum that were paddocked right next to each other down by the Kohler tunnel:





The Ferrari compound was actually far more impressive once they had finished setting up. They had a matching 53 foot triple axle trailer that brought in more equipment for their single car effort. A huge flat screen TV folded down out of the side of the trailer and they watched F1 qualifying on Saturday via satellite TV.

As for the Miata, we have no idea how he got the car down from the roof of the pick-up, but we saw it down, complete with duct tape numbers in place, later in the week. It had either EP or FP class designation on the side.

[Dave Stevens]

Bill,

Sweet video, really nice perspective where you have the camera mounted. Congratulations on your second place finish, looked like a nice smooth, fast drive. Savor that champagne!!!!

Dave

[JeremyT12]

Thought I would share this with everyone,
Not sure how to upload picture so you can see it, however I attached it to the bottom.

* No stress
* Nothing touching it
* Has not been apart since last winter
* Siliconed for vibration

Everything I thought we should do to prevnt something like this happening, can't blame anyone but myself for this one (or just our bad luck).

I will say it was nice to be in RA for the Run-Offs and not in KS...yes we may have snow some year however we will not have the WINDS...

Everyone have a safe Winter and nice holidays to come SEE YOU NEXT YEAR....

Thanks To:

GOOD YEAR (yes we run the fatties in the rear)
LOYNINGS
SRP Shocks
STONE BRIDGE
CYRO Science

My family for dealing with me NOW....and my entire crew SORRY....

Jeremy Treadway

[Paul LeCain]

Jeremy,

Sorry about your bad luck with this.

It's probably obvious at this point, but I'd lose that terminal block immediately.

It appears (the picture is a little fuzzy) that it doesn't really do much and is a potential (actual in this case) source of trouble. There are plenty of positive-lock connectors available if you really need to be able to break the wires.

Just my two cents.

[johnd]

JT:

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the start. It was unbelieveable to see the car fall backwards. I am very sorry. You speak as a true champion.

About the picture. I would say that those solder joints look very familiar. It would seem that the wire clips fatigued over time, and broke loose. Who would have thought to look there for any potential problem? I was expecting to learn of a faulty fuel pump or something.

I would also suggest to examine the wire to connector joints themselves to see if any residual flux has begun to eat away at the wires.

Someone said to me a long time ago, that soldering connections such as these isn't the best. They recommended a simple crimp-on connector. I never liked those. Maybe I should consider a change???


You are my pick for driver of the year. Any year for that matter.


John D.

[TimW]

Jeremy:

Sorry to see that fail, but you really should build a loom with teflon wire & Raychem ends & DR25 heat shrink. If you need help with parts/sources I can forward along. I used to make Champ car looms so have the tooling if you need a loom but it would take a number of hours to build correctly. I agree with Paul, that terminal block is not suited for a race car.

Tim

[Art Smith]

it's my opinion there is nothing inherently wrong with a terminal block. installed and used correctly, they have the potential to provide lower cost solutions that support serviceability.

that said, firms that design and manufacture aircraft, missiles, and satellites (all worse environments than found in our cars) have very strict design and quality requirements that preclude the use of soldered joints in cables and wiring. soldered joints are fatigue failures waiting to happen! adjustable professional crimping tools are worth their weight in gold!! aerospace firms also have very strict design and quality requirements on the strain relief of all wires in cables and wires bundles. based on the provided picture, it's my opinion the root cause of the failure was the inertia loads from the unsupported wire; the soldered joint only contributed to the failure. one or more small insulated aluminum cables clamps (see Aircraft Spruce catalog if you don't have a better source) would fix the installation in the picture. safety wire through small stainless steel socket head cap screws would provide a major improvement in the installation's reliability. silicone is great for insulation from water.........................

Art
artesmith@earthlink.net

[rickb99]

Biggest problem with the lug type connection on a terminal strip that's soldered is wicking of the solder up into the wire under the insulation. Makes it brittle and subject to vibration fatigue break.

PLEASE NOTE in the photo above, the failure had nothing to do with the solder joint. The LUG snapped in half and pulled out from under the screw. Odd failure.

[stephen wilson]

Tim,
If possible, I'd like to see what components you recommend. I'll be doing a harness for my RF78 this winter. I've been using standard (industrial) T&B Nylon crimp "sta-cons", with heat shrink for strain relief.
Thanks,
Steve

[stonebridge20]

There are no soldered connections in that car. All connections are crimped and heat shrinked.

The only consolation in this is that next year at the Runoffs, the car will probably be in the 19's due solely to frustration! I also think the car will get a full rewire before then even if I have to do it!

[R. Pare]

That kind of failure doesn't surprise me, seeing how the wires kinda hang loose from there.

A terminal block by itself is not a bad idea (maybe not a great idea, but not inherently bad), but extra care has to be taken to assure that that sort of failure can't happen. The wires need to be supported - ie - clamped down to something solid - within a few inches of the terminals to keep them from vibrating, and even then smothering them at the block with some sort of glue - silicone works, but is a bitch to get off if you ever need to unscrew a wire - to keep them in place as an extra precaution.

All that said, it is still better to go to to proper connectors if the budget allows.

[TimW]

That kind of failure doesn't surprise me, seeing how the wires kinda hang loose from there.

A terminal block by itself is not a bad idea (maybe not a great idea, but not inherently bad), but extra care has to be taken to assure that that sort of failure can't happen. The wires need to be supported - ie - clamped down to something solid - within a few inches of the terminals to keep them from vibrating, and even then smothering them at the block with some sort of glue - silicone works, but is a bitch to get off if you ever need to unscrew a wire - to keep them in place as an extra precaution.

All that said, it is still better to go to to proper connectors if the budget allows.

Yes, inherent in using a terminal block is that you've got a fixed point connected to a span that is floating in a high vibration environment, and the wires are not massless. You're correct, the terminal block did not fail or cause the failure, but the inherent relative vibration phase differences between the terminal block and the wire can be minimized but not eliminated when you use a terminal block, so it should really be avoided. You can still have problems with the proper connectors, but its been my experience that when proper connectors are assembled properly there is less risk of failure than a terminal block.