rice_classic

Spokane County Raceways road course.

Northwest Motorsports Grand Prix Triple race weekend.

Race #3, Class: ITA
Car: #10 Honda CRX si

3 car battle for 1st place in ITA with White Acura Integra and Blue/White Dodge Neon.

http://www.vimeo.com/26588150


If you notice some slow shifting, latent shifts of lots of rev-limiter in 2nd gear it's because during the race 3rd gear became rather crunchy on a 2nd-to-3rd gear upshift. I was trying to mitigate possible race ending potential... No problems otherwise but a concern.

Enjoy.

Gustav129

I wish I could have been there. I was moving, otherwise I would have been working the turns. My new place is just up the road, so I could hear the races while I was moving.

johnjw

nice video.... I'll have to create a vimeo account so I can upload mine from the weekend. have you seen this one yet? fast foward to around 9.5 minutes. He pit next to us, super nice guy..... tough luck though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHTzaquMiEk

Roldan

Do you drive the #330 Civic?

rice_classic

If you do... You should convert it to ITA. It will be much more cost effective to race, you'll have lots of competition and it will prove to me more reliable.. C'mon.. you know you want to!

Gustav129

Oh man, right at Turn 11. Almost hit the Flag shack. For the SOVREN race, the photographers were standing in front of the the flag shacks.

Roldan

Video from my 49 Integra up to the point it was stricken with DA axle plague:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60Ul3TLLz0A

johnjw

yeah, I'm #330. Not sure what direction I might go yet.

Roldan

Cool, I wanted to stop by and check it out but got busy taking care of the two Integras and driving two groups. What is the car setup to do now? As previously mentioned ITA is probably the best place to find competition in the NW.

johnjw

Car is prep'd for H2..... don't really care to de-tune a bunch. With a little more chassis setup I could see dropping into the 1:38's at SCR. Some one mentioned SPO, SPU? 10:1 setup? I would need more HP which I'm not interested in as I'd like to keep the motor stock ITR, in case I do go back to NASA RM and run H2.

SCoupe 5sp

Spokane County Raceway does not look much wider than my driveway. Appears to be a very difficult course to overtake even much slower cars.

rice_classic

Some driveways are pretty wide.

Spokane County Raceways most narrow section is 28 feet I believe. So it's not that narrow.

I was side by side from T2 to T8. The new section can be a little hair raising side by side but it's not that bad.

Roldan

ST would be cool if your car weighs around 2400lbs and you can drop a 4-5 seconds from your lap time. GTL might work too, I think your car and engine combo is legal for that class with a restricter. Another option would be to run ITS with a B16A, or ITA with a D16Y8. SPU works too but the rules are a bit on the open side which is fun until someone starts bringing a Lotus 7.

As for the width of SCR it certainly was scary going side by side through the new portions of the track.

johnjw

yeah car w/driver is around 2400. I do plan on keeping the current ITR engine setup as it works great as is, and I do have quite a bit invested. My brother has almost the identical setup except in a EK hatch. He's been keeping a close eye on how things are going so he can class his car into a similar class. Wish there was an H2 equal class in Conference. Maybe someday.

BTW sorry to thread jack RClassic

rice_classic

Wow, finding another 4 seconds would be interesting. ST would be a great class.

John, we're not going to stop hounding you about converting ITA, just so you know.

Is your brother's EK a street car? If so I recommend he buy or a build a separate race car when he decides what he's going to do.

When people go racing in a beloved street car (or former beloved street car) they are most likely too worried to change its shape. If you can't afford to leave it at the track, you can't afford it (both financially and emotionally). I have several examples of this. There's a couple front running ITA Honda's for sale in the NW right now for under $7. For the price of a properly built B18C5 you could have a ready to go race car.

johnjw

yeah I agree. No I sold my NSX as it was getting to expensive to maintain as a lapping day, TT car. I understand the cost of racing and currently have two backup EK shells. Also my brother just bought his hatch as a shell and has been putting it together withing the last 3 months with the intentions to go racing. I agree with buying a racecar that is already prepped as the savings are usually quite large. I bought my current coupe as a stripped runner. So somewhere in between.

On another note what video editing software does everyone use? I don't need the first 8 min of grid and safety car lapping.

rice_classic

AviDemux. It's not an editing program per se as it doesn't re-encode the entire video but what it does is clip off parts you don't need and just remuxes what's left. AVIDEMUX works with AVI's and MP4's really well (Gopro uses MP4's). However it has some tricks you need work around but I can help with that.

PM me for contact info.

If you actually want to do PiP, add titles, transitions and "other" you can get something like pinnacle which is very highly rated and pretty affordable.

egvera89

looks like a nice track

Roldan

The great thing about living in the NW and racing in Conference is that if there are 5 licensed drivers that want to race H2 then H2 can be created. If there is enough local interest in creating such a class I would be happy to explain the licensing process and information on how to get the class created (it's pretty much 5 drivers signing a piece of paper).

H2 would be a possibility for me if there were competition in H2, but until that happens I'll be happily racing against other drivers in ITA. Currently there are 3 really fast ITA cars and me running 10 races or more this season with a few other fast ITA cars that show up less frequently. Faster cars do not make racing more entertaining, other drivers and parity keep it interesting.

For the H2 built cars currently racing I think ST would be a good class until there is H2. It would be even better if they lowered the min weight for the class by 200lbs or so which they may consider.

rice_classic

PRO3 is popular for many reasons but up until 2010, the top ITA cars were as fast as the top PRO3 cars. What has helped PRO3 growth is the fact that retention rates are high. It appeals to a wealthier crowd that wants to race a "BMW". It is typical that when people start racing they are in love with it for a couple years but in reality it's a huge interruption to normal life and costs a lot of money and most people start to realize this by year 3 and we never see them again. PRO3 hasn't really suffered from the 3 year rule of attrition, fortunately for them and for ICSCC.

I guess it's all a matter of perspective. You might think a Miata is affordable or even a 25 year old BMW but when the class gets popular and the racing gets close you end up with $50k PRO3 cars and $12k Spec Miata motors. When the racing gets close in ITA it's going to be MUCH more affordable than H2 by a HUGE margin. You think parts are cheap and plentiful for an H2 car? The proper "go-fast" parts for a B-series or K-Series motor are exponentially more expensive then they are for D-series. Compare that with Vtec vs non-vtec as well. Also purchasing "wear item" parts for these cars are things like Axles, Hubs, Bearings, Ball joints and wear-items wear out a hell of a lot faster in H2 cars vs ITA cars and equate for the majority of seasonal racing expenses. An H2 car might be affordable but compared to what? Surely not compared to an H4/ITA car, no sir, not at all.

Higher costs are not only an initial deterrent, but also increase attrition. Also, there's not a lot of relatively wealthy people out there that are horny about racing FWD Hondas for the price of racing a BMW/Porsche/Formula car.


The ICSCC has nothing to do with it, the drivers do. ICSCC isn't going to create a class, the drivers are. You want the class? Become a licensed driver and submit the class proposal. It's time CTRCRV!!! (BTW, I hope you do! and when you do, we'll all be there to help!)

My opinion is that H2 is a bad idea for ICSCC. The reason: Cost and Honda only. H4 didn't become popular (except for a couple years, then it immediately died) but yet ITA still remains a large class with great competition. Why? Well, not everyone is horny for FWD or Honda for the matter. People wanted to race a Miata, a BMW 325e, a Neon, a Nissan 240 and they ALL fit in ITA.

Roldan stated it well that ST would be a good class to start in with a swapped Honda but honestly instead of trying to create H2, you'd be much better off starting STL, which would be similar to H2 but not be relegated to Honda's only.

It seemed like my $.02 went on forever, thank you for bearing with me.

Roldan

I don't think anyone is offended or worried about defections of ITA Hondas to H2. There is a bit of history with this too, back in the day when H4 was adopted H1 was also added in conference. The two cars that ran in H1 were similar to current H2 cars, swapped EG hatches. I would really like to see an H2 class with consistent 10+ car fields. Most of these people would probably have to be new drivers as I don't know of any current drivers with a desire to run H2. There are a fair number of people with H2ish cars that say they want to go race, you could probably get a decent head count from this forum. The tough part is getting everyone to spend the cash and follow through.

rice_classic

No offense, I just have long worded posts. We are excited to have new drivers and hope you join soon. I think a class like STL would be much better than H2 at luring new drivers to Conference than H2 would. I can financially afford to run H2 now but I still wouldn't because for that much money I could race something even more fun. And that was my point.

The IRDC/ICSCC race is this weekend at Pacific Raceways and we hope to you see you out there. Look for the white integra and the red CRX's... Also, on Saturday afternoon there is a special race for all the German cars which always proves to be mighty entertaining and alone is worth coming down for.

jisu009

Hey that looks fun there at Spokane Raceway!

rice_classic

Pavement isn't down yet. However, over the winter I have confidence that they'll get it sorted and I look forward to at least 1 race there next year.