Inauspicious beginning

[vern smith]

We are here and the weather for the weekend looks cool (for Florida) and nice.  The track was rented for Friday so we could not get in until five which turned out to be six. I screwed up by not putting a track/paddock map on the forum/web site and had to point B J Holley in the right direction by cell phone. He has never been to Sebring before and after dark it is not friendly to the newcomer.

Tommy Riggins and his wife Debbie decided at the last minute to come for the weekend so I have a "crew" for the first time in this round of racing. Talk about going from the ridiculous to the sublime    

More tomorrow evening with pictures, hopefully.

[moespeeds]

Good Luck Vern! Keep us posted.

[vern smith]

Today was such a thrash that I forgot to take any pictures 

All the usual new car gremlins like a rubbing tire, a data logger problem that turned out to be my forgetting to install the GPS antenna on the new roof, a cold engine start problem (unrsesolved), plus the fuel vent fitting that passes through the fuel cell plate had it's nut come off the bottom side allowing the vent line to remove itself from the tank and deposit no small amount of gas on the track.

We (more about we later) worked through all this and managed to get done on the track what we needed to do. As you guys have probably figured out by now, Tommy Riggins and I are good friend and go back to the early eighties. Tommy is one of the premier car builders in the country and has spent the last 30 years putting together a business that includes many young fellows that do most of the wrenching while Tommy attends to more important and lauble persuits, like keeping the doors open. He is also one of the five principles on the LLC that owns V8RRC. He came to this race for V8RRS promotional purposes.

The hilite of the day for me was watching Tommy jump into the wrenching right by my side and never hesitating for a minute. Of course there was a steady stream of "next time you might want to do it this way" but to me this was funny as hell. I wrote every one of his suggeations down to work on in the future   

Tomorrow I have a couple of hours before our race and the car is as good to go as I can make it here so I'll have time to take some pictures and think about something besides the problem at hand.

[Butch Kummer]

Heard from BJ that he broke the quick change in qualifying after turning a time that had him second in GTA.

Haven't heard how any other V8RRS drivers are doing, but I expect a FULL report this evening! 

[vern smith]

This is a race report created on the heels of a Valentines' day dinner with Pennsylvania friends where more than a prudent amount of alcohol was consumed by all. Leaving the motel this morning at 5:30 has not helped the situation, so bear with me and please excuse my more than usual grammatical/syntax and spelling errors.

This was kind of a bastard weekend race for the Central Florida Region of the SCCA because for some reason it was not part of the SARRC series of events which is the "big deal" point's championship for the South East. The estimates I heard was an entry reduction of sixty plus cars due to its lack of "status". This was fine for me because I was looking at it as I long test day. Another drawback for the event was the lack of a Friday test day.

As Butch pointed out, B J Holley turned in a very good qualifying time of 2:26 or there about on Saturday morning but could not make the Saturday afternoon 20 minute race because his quick change took a dump. This will be a GTA heavy report because the majority of V8RRS members, as well as the participants in this forum, are GTA aligned people. Hopefully, we can generate interest in the other classes and get someone to actively report for their class events. Chad Jorgensen made both races but was not able to finish either due to mechanical problems. According to Jim Matheson, he and Chad had a great race before Chad was forced out with mechanical issues on Sunday.

Jim Matheson was a consistent performer with a car that finished both Saturday's and Sunday's race. He was not happy with his lap times but this was understandable considering the fact that he was using  9 month old tires with two races on them.

In the GTO Bosco Logsdon and Squeek Kennedy shared a ride in a GT2 Camaro. The largest entry in the "big Bore group" was GT2 as usual because it incorporates a huge verity of cars, some are very very fast ( think TA2 Pro Cars) and some are street legal European machinery that qualify 25 seconds off the pace on the  Sebring long course. Both Bosco and Squeek are seasoned (old) drivers and finished in the top five both days.

Below are some pictures of entrants as well as our "at the track guy" Jim Creighton. If you are a V8RRS member and have a question/problem with any "at the track" or registration issues call Jim. If you are at the track find him and he will get it straightened out. Jim has dealt with the SCCA for years and knows how to work with them. If you are not a V8RRS member call him anyway and he will help. Shortly after that I will send you a V8RRS membership application.

We had a small social gathering Saturday evening at a local watering hole, picture below. From the left Steve Tye, Bobby Kennedy, (rear table) Me, Tommy Riggins, (back to the front table) Woody of Bemco Fabrication, Bosco and Squeek Kennedy




Here is a picture of Jim Matheson and his ASA machine



Below is Chad Jorgensen and his Oldsmobile GTA car.


Bosco and Squeek's SPO entry, that smiling handsome guy is Bosco.




Jim Creighton, our man to solve all your problems, handsome dude don't you think?




Here are the Saturday Race results; I did not stay around long enough on Sunday get get a copy.

http://whiteroseeng.com/Av8rrs/satresult.pdf

[Butch Kummer]

Not a bad turnout of Big Noise cars for a "bastard" weekend on the schedule, and it looks like some decent competition in many of the classes. And third overall from an old man while sorting out new car/body bugs ain't bad either! 

See you in New Orleans in a couple of weeks...

[vern smith]

I'll concede that my word selection describing the race's status may have been politically incorrect but my registration form said it was a "Restricted Regional" event. Admittedly, I'm not well versed on SCCA acronyms (where they run a close second to the military) plus being unable to find a single person in the Paddock Friday who recognized the term, I came up with my unfortunate description. I'm sure Butch can give us the history on Restricted Regionals.

Here is a link to Sunday's Group One race results.   Since I ran the same tires both days I attribute my time improvement to a couple of driving tips from Tommy Riggins who watched me butcher turns one and four on Saturday. I came home with a list of do do's as long as my arm and did a little math to discover I would not be able to carry enough gas to finish a 40 minute race. Had to order a 22 gallon fuel cell can, bladder and foam this afternoon. It will be a busy weekend since the car has to go in the trailer Wednesday for the drive to New Orleans.

http://whiteroseeng.com/Av8rrs/Sebringrace2.pdf

[Butch Kummer]

The race length is 50 miles or 40 minutes (or 35 minutes for Majors), whichever comes first (and that's assuming we don't get lapped by the overall leaders).  I can do a 50-mile race on 12 gallons even at Daytona, leaving 3 gallons in reserve with my 15-gallon cell.

The only reason we'll ever run up against the 40-minute limit is because of an extended full-course caution, which obviously uses less fuel.

[Butch Kummer]

A "Restricted Regional" is simply a race weekend where the host region can control who (which classes) are invited. A weekend that invites only IT cars or only Spec Miatas, for instance, would also be a Restricted Regional. SARRC and Majors rules have requirements on the classes that must be allowed to participate, and since this weekend was neither apparently CFR uses that terminology to set it apart.

They had 272 entries pre-registered, so I don't know that anyone was excluded from the Sebring weekend this time. I know that "back in the day" CFR officials were adamant that pickup trucks (big or small) would never take a green flag at one of their events, so perhaps they started designating everything "Restricted Regionals" so they had the authority to keep all those hillbillies and rednecks out?!? 

[mkelley]

Great job Vern. You have to be happy with the results!!

[vern smith]

Yes Mike, the car worked pretty well, now I have to find my fuel tank leak