WHAT AN EXCITING RACE I HAVE TO SAY.

This past Saturdays race was a good one to watch. I got to watch it. The grid started like this: Mr. bad *** from up north in his european ITR(anyone know this guy?) grided on pole, next to him on the front row was our good buddy jeff owen, jdm ITR. Hope, b16 CRX who was upset that he wasnt on the first row took 3rd position followed by mike D in his 1.8 powered eg.

The start was weak I must say. euro R charged fast out of the last turn onto the banking leaving jeff to seem like he was in the second row. jeff should have stayed at the door of euro R for the sake of not falling back. The speed of the start is determined by the polse setter. jeff should not have trailed back. Hope was at the door of jeff on the inside. The green is dropped and the front runners pull away from the rest of the pack.

Hope gets the jump and is leading the euro R and mr jdm R into turn 3, first turn into the infiled! Hope dont do it! youre gonna do your typical late brake slip and slide action. Ok fine go ahead and do it. Hope drops back into a battle for 3rd (maybe it was 4th but thats not important). Hes now got his hands full with mike D from TRS.

Euro R and jdm R go at it for laps. no one from socal is gonna let this new guy come to our battle grounds and clean house! no SiR. jeff puts up a good fight and hope trys to close the gap on the 2 leaders while mike and hope exchange positions for about 2 laps.

(i couldnt sit down. i think i was giving the play by play to everyone who sat next to me in the stands. they didnt seem to mind)

Guess what! euro R comes in to hot pit. jeff takes the lead and hope is not far behind. hey guys wheres glen? he started pretty far back. hes just trying to play catch up. so then theres mike with a healthy lead over glen. oh and tom liang is somewhere in the mix of all the crx's that i forgot to look for him. i mean there are plenty of red crx's out there...one more doesnt help me. tom, paint the hood bright pink or something!


so anyway hope is now challenging jeff for the lead. whats up jeff? you cant let a pesky 1.6 crx beat you! you know i would NEVER let that happen!!! hope plays wisely and takes draft from jeff many times down the front straight and thru nascar turns 1 and 2. hope pulls on jeff! oh man this is on the edge of your seat wow! hope leads jeff into the infield. and they go at it again. they exchange position in the infield and jeff leads onto the front straight. they do this many times. one lap hope was going to take the inside (low) in turn 1 to pass jeff but jeff spots a back runner and jeff takes a tighter line. hope is forced to back off. jeff, amazing and very tactical block. i give you for that move.

well its gets a little boring because jeff and hope go at it just like that for the remainder of the race and hope wins! he actually wins. jeff actually had to back off on the last lap because his bell housing broke because his clutch went out on him. hope fell into first place because 3 integras were not accounded for. we all tapped out. no- that was a great drive by hope. congrats.

hope also took first on sunday. jeff managed to go home and swap out his tranny to make it to sunday race. glen was black flagged for not having his window net up so he was lots in the back. mike D took second i heard. and 3rd is unknown to me. euro R was not doing well i heard on sunday.

that was a great race to watch. when im in the race myself i dont get to watch the excitement. man was that exciting to watch. and on the banking! bad ***.

hey sorry to hear your engine went out bernardo. at least im not hte only one. hey turn down the NOS!


see you at vegas in 8 weeks.





[Modified by the ONE and only SBE, 11:50 AM 3/10/2003]

 

nice recap!!!

i bet if you were running you would have killed everyone.

 

Thanks for the report - "and I'm spent".

Scott, who watched racing that wasn't as good as that this weekend, up here everyone was trying to survive mixed weather conditions and wrong tire choices...the ITS group was just leaving pre-grid on slicks when it suddenly started dumping heavily - it was pure survival mode for all of them...Ron Cramer in his GSR was very unhappy about wasting a whole weekend for that...if he'd gambled the other way and been on his Dirt Stockers he'd have had a great race and looked like a genius - heard that same story from more than one person...

*Shawn - why were you watching?

 

Sounds like an entertaining race. Mike Davis is a talented driver, and I'm glad to hear he did well, too. I learned that first-hand when I co-drove with him in the Grand-Am Cup at CA Speedway last year in TRS's Civic. Was he driving his new club-racing Civic, or the one he drove in World Challenge/Grand-Am Cup?

 

I agree, SBE would have cleaned house if he showed up with his track terror. That car is so sweet, he should just race with 4 flat tyres in order to give everyone else a chance at winning. Of course he'd still win but it would be entertaining.

 

can someone translate that into english?

 

yeah he would still win but it would be a bigger challenge and the crowd would enjoy it too!!

I like SBE, he cares about his fans, and the crowd, he knows how to put on a stellar show.

 

uh, I would say nice writeup, but I don't understand it..

 

Here here. Hip hip hooray. Cheers to a good all 'round chap.

 

Paragraphs are welcome too...

 

Thanks guys. you make my blown up motor not seem so bad anymore. I know the problem and will avoid it in the future. luckily not that much damage was sustained.

OK i will try to sum it up in laymens terms.

hope fought hard for his first place finish. it was made easier when the euro teg and the jdm teg dropped out due to problems. mike ran consistent in his EG, not the SPEED channel EK he drives. glen ran steadily behind the entire race. tom was behind glen. am i missing any H1 cars?

 

If it's not prying too much: what broke?

Scott, who's car is 100% reliable so far this season...though I'm not happy about how that's been accomplished...

 

ARP rod bolt broke in two.

 

Ouch! How's the crank? Did you hit the valves/head in that hole?

Scott, who thinks it's no easy task to be focused enough to execute like a machine while being sensitive enough to instantly react appropriately to subtle (or not so subtle) signs that somethings going wrong....the few times I've caught myself overfocused and not noticing I was on the rev limiter have left me disgusted with myself....

 

actually if i was well tuned to engine noise and what that noise is leading to i would have shut off the motor right then and there. the sound did change, that was the sound of the first rod bolt snapping. when the second one went, the motor had already punched 2 holes in the block spewing its gutts out like a scarry nightmare on elmstreet movie. the head is fine luckily. crank is scrap iron now. the bearings were doing so well too! im so sad.

 

another blow'd up mota

 

Hello? Several posts back someone mentioned that they didn't have a clue what was going on from the first post. Well, me neither...

A little constructive feedback?

Most of the world doesn't know who Mr. Bad ***, jdmR, or whoevertheheck are but SOME of the rest of the world is interested to know how WCHC is going. I know that this isn't an official medium for the series but it would be really nice if someone would actually tell the core demo for the series - us - (a) who was running (like with the names on their driver's licenses), (b) what kind of cars they are running, (c) where they finished, and (d) what happened on the track.

Kirk

(who wants to be a fan)

 

Nice recap Shawn...yeah it was a great race on Saturday, and Andy's car has the battle scars to show for it.

Bernardo's CRX was fine, it was Johnny Mac's and Steve's CRX's that had the bad luck. The new motor from DPR lost the coolant bleeder valve and overheated, which warped the block and head pretty badly. The other car was overrevved, and dropped part of a cyl. liner and bent a couple valves.

Here's a few pics; they're alot better than mine but I'll have mine up later anyway:

http://www.imagestation.com/album/pi...?id=4290547171

 

H1:
Andy Hope - CRX Si, black (B16A)
Tom Liang - CRX Si, red (D16A)
Glen Kawano - DC Sports ITR (B18C)
Mike Davis - EG6 hatch, white (B16A I believe)
Sandor Bota - DC2, silver (LS/VTEC)
Jeff Owen - RHD ITR, white (B18C)
Tom Lepper - Euro ITR, white (B18C)

H4:
Gus Heredia - CRX Si (red/silver Progress car)
Miguel Escobar - CRX Si
Ryan Flaherty - CRX Si (black/yellow Progress car)
Steve Ellsworth - CRX Si (white/blue)
Bernardo Martinez - CRX Si (red/yellow)

Saturday H1:
1. Andy Hope
2. Mike Davis
3. Glen Kawano or Jeff Owen (Jeff did not finish this race but I heard he placed, I'm not sure of the details on that)
4. Tom Liang

Sunday H1:
1. Andy Hope
2. Mike Davis
3. Jeff Owen
4. Glen Kawano
5. Tom Liang

As far as H4, all I know is that Bernardo Martinez won both races.

Lots of stuff. Bernardo started at the back of the grid on both races, and came out front to win it both times. This was Tom Liang's first race (he's driving my red 88 CRX) and he did great with the limited power of the car (mostly stock D16A). Everyone was impressed with his abilities and we're all looking forward to see what he can do in the rest of the season.

Of course, Andy Hope fought for that first place on both races, and it was well deserved. True, the playing field was leveled a bit on Saturday when Bota and Lepper dropped out, but the win was definitely not handed to him. Jeff Owen diced with him for 5-6 laps and it was going to be a close one. Jeff dropped out right before the white flag though, and the win went to Andy. Sunday wasn't much easier, as Mike Davis put up a great fight trying to catch Andy after he took the lead.

Thanks to Ryan and the rest of the NASA staff for a great weekend of racing. Looking forward to Vegas in May.

 

shaun, thanks for clearing it all up. when you gonna get tom a proper motor to hang with the big boys!

your boys gonna make it to vegas?

 

So thick, you can cut it with a knife.

 

Proper motor is in the works. We have plans to make it to Vegas, but since my friend's trailer was stolenon Saturday morning we need to find a new way to make it out there

 

Outstanding, Shaun - thank you VERY much.

Kirk

 

Hey Yall.. i dont post much i just like reading..much more fun.. anyways.. yes it was a tuff weekend .. it was just a little easier when the top running guys sorta drop out or have problems.. But like anyones no's theres always someone there to pick up the slack.. Good Job to Andy Hope Who held me off sunday My hats off to you !! .. And just to clarify from shauns recap.. im running a B16A.. which after the race on sunday had to be driven home but thats what a street car is all about..

 

I'm still confused.. No H2/H3/H5 cars at all?? Everyone just runs H1?