Mid-Ohio July 7-9.. points race for Midwest Honda Challenge..

I finally found another HU car to tangle with, and screwed up my car

Got out Friday for some practice, needed to relearn the track since I haven't been there in a couple of years. Did pretty well, tried not to get run over by a GTS5 car. Started trying to pick up some time in a few places, namely 1 and 13... and picked up some brain-fade in the last session. There's a big difference between a lift and a quick stab of the brakes, and I need a quick brake going into 13. Or at least, I'm pretty sure that's what the big sandbox and tire wall tried to tell me on my way off track.

Saturday started out better. Practice got me a little more confidence again, and managed a respectable 1:44.x to put me on pole. Too bad 4th gear shredded itself and made me crawl up a grass hill afraid I wouldn't make it back to pit lane, or that I might be spewing random fluids onto the track. Neither happened, and I crawled back in 2nd (it didn't seem to want to stay in 4th for some reason, 2nd worked, and I just went with it, despite the ping-ponging of gear pits smacking the bell housing.

Missed the race Saturday.. Chris Stiffler guided me to removing my first tranny (yay) and he showed up Sunday AM (6:45?) with some GSR gears and he got my box back together, and helped get the tranny back in. Yay. No way I was going to make the 10:00 (actually could have been close!) but got it started at about 11:30. 5th sounds like junk, so I ask Tina to take it on a few parade laps while I'm at the Driver meeting. She reports, "feels great except 5th, don't use that one, squeals really bad..." Yeah, that lasted about 1 lap.

Gridded up for the race next to Kelley's H1 car. Somehow I was on the inside, neither of us qualified I s'pose, so she gave it to me. Started well, caught 3-4 cars before turn 1, and held back on the back straight without 5th... grr...

Got through a few more cars, then took a mental break to reflect on the day, the weekend, the weather, how the GSR gears felt compared to the ITR gears, etc. Gee, Sam Myers has been about 5 seconds in front of me for a while, he's pretty quick! la la la... Damnit, forgot to brake in the keyhole! Focus... focus... Picked up some speed, passed Sam in the middle of a Neon/Miata melee in turn 7, and hey, there's Kelsey wrapped up in between a couple of Focuses and a Neon!

I picked up a little more speed, saw the white flag, and caught up to the group right before the keyhole. Got a decent run out of the keyhole, passed a Neon, a Focus, and then caught Kelsey and the lead Focus three wide in 7 with me on the inside. I got my nose in front of Kelsey (my HU competition!) and made it to turn 8 first, squealing and howling around (musta missed the apex by 6 feet), and kept my eyes in the mirrors up to 8, took a deep breath in 9/10 and tried to get a nice run out of 11. Made it around the carousel with kelsey on my butt and took the checker! Yay! A race!

Power and torqe trumped bad gearing, but I really do need to make this car turn a wee bit better. And learn how to focus and turn consistent laps. I *did* get a lot better in traffic though, passed a number of cars (ended up 4th overall after starting the standing start 15th) and gave a high five to a friend of mine in a Miata as we went side-by-side in turn 1 He had paint from at least 4 other cars on his before the week was over (2 his fault, 2 not, on a rookie permit..).

Anyhow, a couple of pics of the damage...

 

 

Damn Chris, glad to see you out racing - sorry about the car but it doesn't look to bad. Focus, focus, focus...

Can't wait to hear more race reports from you.

 

Chris, I have a GSR gear set you can have.... or a B16 tranny with a cracked case. I could even swap the GSR case with the B16 if needed.

Sorry to see her banged up. Not a bad quick fix though.

 

Sounds like you had a fun weekend even w/ a few problems

< Needs to pay more attention to the HC schedule cause he shoulda run up and watched this race

 

repost!

nice fixer up on the bumper/fender there clitz f.

good jorb in the rest of joo racing this weekend! why trouble focusing? should be easy: if you dont focus joo have an uncontrolled 2600+ lb ball of metal ready to become :fire: and break your bones going towards unmovable objects. you can pay me the counselling fees later.

i can't think of much else when im on track, although... all i have is a lot of lapping events under me, so im not qualified to talk racer stuff with you.

i know joo was talking about (in the sandbox forum) ideas to help turning... did you try anything? if so, how did it work?

anyhoo. glad joo got to do some racin' after rubbin' on friday.

 

yuck

congrats on the checker though!

I wasnt aware that a car like yours (adding a turbo) had a class you could actually race in? I dont know anything about the classifications NASA has.

 

He's in HU. U for Unlimited! There's H1 through H5 I believe, + HU for the dummies.

 

Your tranny is as chewed up as my dinn-R!

 

going for a jdm front end now chris?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RedR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">going for a jdm front end now chris?</TD></TR></TABLE>

LOL! given what the front of chris' car has been through so far in its life... i'd say never!

 

Bah, that's just a scratch...

Glad to hear you went racing. And better yet the checker. Main thing is you had fun, and that's all that matters.

&lt;---is going to play the same "will someone race with me" game once his cars finished. Seems like the H2 pack is getting smaller and smaller and everyone is going for H1.

 

doh! yeah, should be a relatively simple fix ***crosses fingers***

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RedR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">going for a jdm front end now chris?</TD></TR></TABLE>
I can make one out of racer tape! Yeah!

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Chris N &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i know joo was talking about (in the sandbox forum) ideas to help turning... did you try anything? if so, how did it work? </TD></TR></TABLE>

New 225/45R15 tires helped a lot. LSD might be next. If I was ambitious I'd probably swap front/rear springs (currently 12K/10K) but it's not bad now. It understeers nice and safely

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Dave_B &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">&lt;---is going to play the same "will someone race with me" game once his cars finished. Seems like the H2 pack is getting smaller and smaller and everyone is going for H1.</TD></TR></TABLE>
Keep your car SCCA "ITR" legal. The Integra Type R is conveniently classed in the "ITR" class which are the fast cars from ITS + some other stragglers. I bet there will be a swarm of BMW's to take to that new IT class pretty soon.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Comp97GSR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Chris, I have a GSR gear set you can have.... or a B16 tranny with a cracked case. I could even swap the GSR case with the B16 if needed. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Muchos Nachos for the offer. I have a bid on an ITR tranny already, and a couple local ones for sale (one stock, one B16 + Kaaz) that are interesting. My old gears should be salvageable, I have a new 4th en-route from Acura.. and I just need to build a spare box now

-Chris

 

Good job on the race.

BTW, at Mid-Ohio, everybody has a different numbering scheme, so your "turn 13" might be someone else's "turn 12" and someone else's "turn 14". To avoid confusion, I've found it's easier to refer to the turns by name - the front straight, the turn after the front straight (although everyone calls this turn 1, because the numbering confusion starts after this), the chicane before the keyhole (if your event used it), the keyhole, the back straight, the turn at the end of the back straight, madness, the turn at the bottom of the hill after madness, the double-apex turn under the bridge, the right turn that starts the chute, the chute, the left-hander at the end of the chute, and the carousel.

 

Sounds like a interesting weekend!

 

Chris,

Great job man!

I love how the racing community always seem to pull through and get fellow racers on the starting grid.

Doug

 

glad to see you're having fun/excitement out there. And you finally found another HU car to play with! Good job on the last minute repairs.

I wish I would've run up to watch this.

 

chris, i've just pulled my usdm itr 1, 3, 4, 5 gears for upgraded closer gears. If you need them, just drop me a pm.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Chris F &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

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Best screw-driver ever


Nice repairs too

 

What made the other HU car "U"? Seemed like you caught up pretty quick!

Good job

 

Sounds like fun man, and the battle scars are fitting, looks good.

 

ouch

 

WOW Chris!!!

Great story, great writeup, nice for the checker Glad to see you out doing what many of us wish we could or had time to

The scuffs just add to it's character.

Congratulations!

 

Chris, congrats on the good race!

Also big thumb to Chris Stiffler who put the tran together for you in such a short time. He is always willing to help and has been a very valuable asset for MWHC.