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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Pocono '09 Day 3:

Beautiful Day on Monday. We enjoyed ~70 and a bit breezy during the second and final track day of this year's event. I have updated the gallery with a bit of a cross-section of photographs from the track.

http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm308/3zero/Pocono09/

Only one incident marred an otherwise perfect day, as an acquaintance of ours lost control coming out of the last turn and stuffed his very quick RX-7 into the outside wall. The gentleman driver was unharmed.

Some in-car video from the GT2 will be forthcoming.

-Wheelman out

10:06 pm est

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Pocono '09 Day 2

In spite of a rather dismal looking morning, the day actually shaped up to be a rather pleasant day at the track.

The rain had stopped by the time we reached the track in the morning, but it was still colder than normal (mid 50's) and a stiff breeze didn't help anything. The track was still pretty wet by the time the first run groups started, but a dry line had formed by the afternoon sessions, so all was good.

The Automobili Lamborghini folks were demo-ing the new LP640 SV (for Super Veloce'). They are pretty insane looking (typical last-iteration Lamborghini fare). Otherwise, attendance was fairly sparse on account of the weather, but good times were had by all that were there.

I didn't get started early enough to get any of the couple-hundred pictures from the track today posted, but hopefully I will get a chance to throw a few up tomorrow.

'til then!

9:39 pm est

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Pocono '09 Day 1:

Rain.....

This was the lightest turn out for the car show that I have seen in probably 10 years (since the last time it rained). The Cadillac Allante' club showed up in force though. I suppose they should also look at letting some Chrysler products onto the lawn now, since they are owned by Fiat and all....

Still managed to take a few pictures and upload them in spite of the molases connection here in BFN, Pennsylvania.

http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm308/3zero/Pocono09/

Oh well, hopefully the weather will at least allow one or two good days at the track. Fingers Crossed.

-Wheelman out

5:01 pm est

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

I can't get that...I'm in the zone.

For those that don't get the title: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWM5EYI65wo

Yes, I've been a bit preoccupied lately. Since the track day at Bluegrass Motorsports got pushed to 7/17, I wanted to find something to do. I found a NASA HPDE at Road Atlanta, and I do not regret that decision.

Everything went well, car survived, blah blah. Now I get to turn right around and head up to Pocono, PA for the Le Belle Macchine D'Italia meet. I should return thoroughly jaded by having seen pretty much every modern Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Maserati along with some classic fav's like DeTomaso Panteras & Mangustas. Throw in the odd Koenigsegg, Z06, and the Porsche GT2 we are sneaking in to the pasta-fest and you have quite a collection.

I will of course post copious pictures upon my return.

-Wheelman out.

10:05 pm est

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Familiar Stomping Grounds.

Everyone's favorite (well, mine anyway) test track, Talladega "Gran Prix" Raceway (TGPR) lies stone's throw from the big oval in Talladega, Alabama. It isn't the longest track at 1.4 miles, but it has a nice variety of turns and is a real test of your brakes and will definitely expose any incongruities with your car's balance. I've had some half dozen days of practice on this track but I learn something new every time I go.

The epiphany this time involved a way to take turn 3 that didn't feel horribly awkward and/or slow. A second revelation manifested itself in the form of a Mitsubishi Evo doing something ridiculous into the 6/7/8 chicane (reference ~11:50 in the first video below.. That, I'm sure, will provide hours of entertainment on my next visit.

I did bring back some video. The first session is probably the more entertaining of the two since it contains other cars. The second contains my FTD on lap 5.

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Southern Discomfort: LeMons racing with the Squirting Coronas.

I journeyed back to Carolina Motorsports Park (CMP) this past weekend, but this time to do some actual racing. Several of my autocross friends had put a team together with a...what's the politically correct term these days?..."Southern, pseudo-Hispanic" theme that drew inspiration from a particular beverage of choice. The beverage in question should be fairly obvious from the team name if not the livery on our Mercedes 300E "LeMon". Our motley crew consisted of five drivers, all autocrossers (three with prior road-course experience), and one significant other who took pictures and talked sense (Thanks Jordi!).

We started fast and our lead-off driver Keith even competed for the lead at points...for about 20 laps anyway. At that point we got black flagged because the lawn-chairs bolted to the trunk apparently obscured our brake lights (pshh, we were braking later than anyone else anyway). The chair problem only took a couple of minutes to fix, the issue with the brake lines however...that took a bit longer. In a classic "it came from E-Bay" moment, we had installed some stainless brake lines before the race, aaaand 3/4 of them had utterly failed. Not sort-of/kinda/maybe failed, I mean they blew their fittings and were dangling in the wheel wells. One was only held on by the cosmetic shrink wrap. Mercifully, Gary (our team captain) had left the 20-year-old rubber Mercedes lines in the toolbox and we managed to turn it around in 20 minutes.

Back on track, our second driver managed to work us back from deep in the 70s into the 60s in spite of a minor agricultural moment early in his stint. The car ran flawlessly for two hours as Aaron picked his way through the field and ticked off the laps. Dry of fuel, we came in and I jumped in the car with a full tank of gas. After a few tragically slow laps where I couldn't find 2nd gear on the automatic box (there was a dog-leg and I couldn't turn my head far enough between the HANS and harnesses to see this), I started to find the pace a little and had gotten the Corona/Good-Beer/AMG mercedes (always wanted to say it like that) down into the 50s (out of 84 cars entered). Tragically, just as I'd ticked off several of the fastest laps of the day on a now-dry track, the head-gasket let go.

We tried literally "everything", but to no avail. For giggles, we put a bucket under the tailpipe as the car was idling (we were adding some stop-leak), and in 20 minutes of idling, the bucket had collected about a gallon of water....thus metaphorically representing the fork denoting exactly how "done" we were. Ah well, there's always next time. Even with a short day it was a blast. Apologies to Gary and Derek, who weren't able to turn a lap.

Winter Meltdown Indeed: 3-Zero moves into 2012.

Carolina Motorsports Park (CMP) isn't the closest track to where we are based in Knoxville, TN. It is, however, not the worst commute, which is why I've been there half a dozen or so times now. As such it's probably the closest thing to a "home track" that I could claim at this point, with Talladega GP a close second. You may recall the last time I made the trip to CMP in February. Mercifully, this trip was more devoid of blizzard. In other great news, the NSX performed...well, as you might expect a Honda should. Although I did find a couple of minor things that need to be addressed, it was a trouble-free weekend on the whole.......also, that thing is a helluva lot of fun to drive when it's acting right.

You'll find some video below from two of the more entertaining sessions of the weekend. The first consists of me following an ex-racer in a blown S2000 around whilst dodging antique mustangs. The second is a busier session, but I get to chase down a not-so-antique Boss 302 pony. The last lap of the second video is a 1:51.xxx and the quickest I have recorded for the weekend. Comment/Critique is welcome.

Video(s) of the Month

Not to be completely outdone by those three British guys, the Hungarians can also throw together a very watch-able car review when pressed....yes, I'm partial.