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**Jeff Loh** · January 19, 2004, 08:05

O/T - They should check out Barrett/Jackson at the same time, SPEED's coverage last year showed some pretty nice cars.

**Audi200tq** · January 21, 2004, 10:12

SCCA has just announced that the venue has been changed to Firebird Int'l Raceway.

Click here for SCCA press release.

I can't imagine the nightmare that the organizers are going through right now.

Sheldon and I leave this afternoon. We'll post some updates of our trip.

**Yarko** · January 21, 2004, 13:03

Have fun boys! Go get 'em!!!

**Jeff Loh** · January 22, 2004, 08:53

Here's some background surrounding the cancellation of the Phoenix NT at AMP and resulting move to Firebird Raceway.

The article in the local paper;
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...wvTrack22.html

And another one;
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...lets12171.html

ef · January 23, 2004, 05:36

The boys arrived last night (this morning) after driving straight through from Eugene to Phoenix yesterday.

Twenty hours in case you are wondering.

ernest

**Vancouver Special** · January 23, 2004, 06:43

Many years ago, two VCMC members (Dave Lam and Eric Tong) went to Kansas for Nationals. Drove straight from Vancouver to Denver before their first break. A total of 24 hours, in a CSP CRX with NO AIR CONDITIONING. The toughest long-distance guy is probably Dr. Stu Rulker (he's probably over 60 years old now). In 1998, he decided to attend Nationals at the last minute. Called me and told me he will leave Friday after work (he's a dentist and didn't want to cancel his patients' appointments) and will try to make the Sunday's Northwest Region's BBQ at the hotel. He drove a BLACK convertible Morgan with NO A/C by himself. Too hot to keep the top on, so he drove it with the top down all the way. When I got to the hotel on Sunday at 5:00 pm, he was already there working on his second beer. Needless to say, he looked darker than Farz.

Joe

**Jeff Loh** · January 23, 2004, 08:29

OMG! That kind of feat requires an Iron Butt award.

**Audi200tq** · January 23, 2004, 15:59

Greetings from Phoenix.

We had a long drive, epsecially yesterday. After getting about 4 hours sleep, we managed to drag ourselves over to Firebird International Raceway this morning.

We had a great day. Ernest - you and Sheldon are going to have a whole lot of fun with this car.

We spent some time going over the whole wack of spare parts with the Eddie (the previous owner), then we worked on fitting ourselves into the car. It sure is not made for football player-types. I had trouble squeezing my narrow shoulders in.

We got to grid for practice runs. The practice course was really short. We never had a chance to walk it, but it was pretty simple. Sheldon got two runs in, then the car stalled. It wouldn't start and we hauled it out of grid.

I thought I might not get a chance to practice in the car, but Eddie discovered the problem soon after we got the cowling off. The spark plug lead was against the header, and was grounding as it had melted through to the core. A simple zap strap fixed the issue and I climbed into the car.

I got 4 runs and actually beat Sheldon. However, when Sheldon got back in the car he discovered that he previously hadn't been applying full throttle even though he thought he had. Once he sorted that out, he beat me by 2/10ths on his 4th run.

However, our FM competitors were about 2 seconds ahead of us, this on a course that was under 20 seconds long. I think our best competition is going to be against each other. Oh, and Chuck Vobril (National Champion) didn't even run the practice course.

So we just finished walking tomorrow's course. It has a lot of sweeping elements and just one short slalom before the finish. Easy to memorize which is good for us as we are trying to adapt to the car. I'm certainly looking forward to running it tomorrow.

It was quite warm - it probably reached over 20 degrees this afternoon. We're hoping for more sun so we can show off some sun-tans when we get back.

If possible, I'll try to post another report tomorrow evening.

**Don Bourne** · January 23, 2004, 19:13

Originally posted by Phantom:
Many years ago, two VCMC members (Dave Lam and Eric Tong) went to Kansas for Nationals. Drove straight from Vancouver to Denver before their first break. A total of 24 hours, in a CSP CRX with NO AIR CONDITIONING. The toughest long-distance guy is probably Dr. Stu Rulker (he's probably over 60 years old now). In 1998, he decided to attend Nationals at the last minute. Called me and told me he will leave Friday after work (he's a dentist and didn't want to cancel his patients' appointments) and will try to make the Sunday's Northwest Region's BBQ at the hotel. He drove a BLACK convertible Morgan with NO A/C by himself. Too hot to keep the top on, so he drove it with the top down all the way. When I got to the hotel on Sunday at 5:00 pm, he was already there working on his second beer. Needless to say, he looked darker than Farz.

Joe

Artemis and I did the Vancouver to Denver non-stop thing with the Miata (no air either...), in late September '99. Wyoming in the fall is very brown. We also did the New Orleans to Las Cruces non-stop thing later in the same trip. Texas is very brown too. For the Denver run, we had the top down except at night but by the Texas run we couldn't take the sun anymore.

However, I have to bow down in awe at running Vancouver to Topeka non-stop. I would have probably died in my sleep on the Interstate, somewhere in western Kansas.

Regarding Steve and Sheldon's update, I look forward to seeing the car running up here. Don't worry about your placing in this event. You are allowed one event where you can use the "getting used to the car excuse"... :P

**Audi200tq** · January 24, 2004, 18:50

Oh my gosh. I don't know if I want to race a door-slammer any more.

Ernest and Sheldon's car is SO much fun. It goes fast enough in a straight line to scare me. It brakes hard enough to make your eyeballs pop out of their sockets. And we still haven't found the limit of steady-state lateral grip. It mostly depends on how hard you can turn the wheel. The car pretty much does what you ask it to.

Today was a fun day. The morning rain ended durning the 2nd run group, and the track was mostly dry by the time we ran.

Sheldon went first and ran a nice 39.X. My first run was 36.X +1 cone, but for some reason they asked me to re-run. Since I was carrying a cone, I decided to overdrive a bit. I managed to show all 4 sides of the car to the workers at station 1, but I kept in the gas and got the car pointing in the right direction and kept going without hitting any cones. Time was 40.X.

Sheldon's next run was a 37.X clean, but with lots of power-induced tail wiggling. Our fastest competitors were running 33s to 35s so we weren't that far off. On my second run, the chain became derailed about 3/4 of the way through the course. I coasted through the finish, without stopping to collect my time, so we could get the car back to grid.

Thanks to help from a whole bunch of FMod competitors, the cowling was off, the chain was back in place and the cowling was back on again in time for Sheldon's next run. These guys are a really friendly group.

Sheldon wanted to be smoother on his final run because he didn't want to get the car quite so squirly. It must have worked because he ran a really fast 36.x. It was a really great run but unforunately he nudged the final cone in the slalom right before the finish lights. D'oh!

It was time for my last run. I got lots of power down, I executed my lines better than previous runs, I braked later than before. It felt really good. Then, the timer spat out 42.X.

What?? 42.X? How could that be - I previously ran a 40 with a spin. Sheldon flagged down the chief of grid and some discussion ensued. After radioing to timing and scoring, he told me that I had a 36.x. This seemed fine so we went to weigh in.

It turns out that the car has way too much ballast in it. With me it was 60 lbs over minimum, and with Sheldon it was over 100 lbs over. That's a lot of extra weight on a car that's only supposed to weigh 750 lbs. That means that it will only get faster once Ernest and Sheldon play with the ballast levels.

Sometime shortly after, I checked the printed results and noticed that my final run was posted as 42.X. The 36.X run that I was told I had was actually my second run when the chain fell off.

The car was already back in the pitt area, but with some nice Canadian politeness, I explained the situation to the Chief of Grid and requested a re run. I didn't expect it to happen as the next run group had already started.

However, once they realized the situation, they agreed to give me another run. So Sheldon helped me get the car ready and I lined up again. However, it was quite some time after our run group, and because I was rushed I didn't remember to think about the course until I was at the start line.

I did improve on my 2nd run time, but only by 1/10th. It's too bad that I'll never know what that other run's time was.

However, that being said, Sheldon and I are running virtually even in scratch times, so tomorrow should be tight.

And we're doing ok in the class too. Chuck Vobril (National Champion) was a fair amount ahead with a 33.X. 2nd and 3rd place were 34s and 35s. We're both 36s. And there's two guys behind us. That means we're 4th and 5th out of 7 drivers. Pretty good, I'd say. Plus, there's way more in the car. I think Sheldon and Ernest can be really, really fast once they get everything sorted and find some really comfortable driving positions.

After a nice dinner and some time in the hot-tub, I think it's now time to retire. First car out is at 7:30 tomorrow so we have to get up early.

We plan to hit the road after trophy presentations, so tomorrow's post will probably be from somewhere near LA.

ef · January 25, 2004, 10:15

Thanks for the updates Steve the SCCA site is painfully slow at posting the results IE. there aren't any posted yet.

I'm getting really excited about driving/seeing the car.

ernest

ef · January 26, 2004, 05:25

Phoenix results are finally up. Steve was forth Sheldon 6th.

http://www.scca.org/amateur/solo2/na...x/results.html

ef · January 26, 2004, 07:45

I just talked to Sheldon and Steve who are heading into northern California and wanted a road condition report.I5 is closed at Grants Pass (near Yereka), so they are going to divert out to the coast onto 101, which is the slow but scenic route until they get past the snow. Somewhere around Eugene Oregon I imagine.

Yesterdays weather was bad they had to run in the rain and the stop box was a small lake which Sheldon aquaplanned through on one run. On day two Steve was sitting in third after his second or third run, but Chuck Vobril changed back to slicks from rains and went out and beat everyone by 3+/- seconds, which bumped Steve back to fourth. Steve thinks Chuck is beatable, Sheldon sounded sceptical.

There are a few things to fix on the car such as loose spark plug wires and the chain tensioner, but the guys say the car is really fast.

They should be back in town Tuesday and they will have lots more to post I'm sure.

Ernest.

**Neon Racer** · January 26, 2004, 20:34

Wow...there's definitely more Kumho's in the trophies than normal. Were many people running the new 710's?

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