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[924RACR]

Just digging out from under the weekend's fun - we went down to Mid-Ohio for Cincy Region SCCA's IT-Spectacular, a big IT Regional race with guys coming from all over the country to compete... one of the faster ITB guys came all the way from Colorado with his 2002! So here's the run-down of how we did... pics and video (oh, the video!!! ) to come...

Sat AM qualifying, Doug Spencer (#66 BMW 320i, our friend from Waterford) went out with me leading him around to show him the track. That attempt failed pretty quickly when my #4 plug wire popped off in only the 2nd lap, necessitating a quick pitstop to fix. After rejoining, I was able to hit a 1:49.6, good enough to take 2nd in ITB (lap record is 1:47.5). Pretty not bad, considering that we were on last year's tires!! Doug didn't do as well, winding up in 7th with only a 1:52.

Race start (Sat afternoon), we take off, and things are going well, plenty of action... till we come around to complete the first lap, and I lose power. Drift to the side of the track, and try to restart the car; fiddle with the fuel pump switch, and it restarts. OK, great, let's get going again - power only for another 5 seconds; get up to speed going to the Keyhole, then lose it again, coast in and park at the turn station. And sit and watch 45 minutes of good racing in the heat! Doug was also doing well, working up to 4th place or so, then fails to come back around; turns out he lost a piece out of his header a whole 2" long!

So we re-weld the header on Doug's car (splicing in a section of cheap Pep-Boys grade exhaust tube), replace the fuel pump switch (which had melted and blown the fuse) on my car, and use a porta-power to get the rear end of Bob Spencer's ITA 240SX back roughly close to Nissan-shape (he backed it into the tires hard at the beginning of his Sat race with power issues - long story, wait till you see the pics). All 3 cars back in operation for Sunday.

Sunday qual race, Doug starts mid-pack, I start at the very back, due to our poor performance Saturday. I charge the field, passing half the ITB field on the first lap, getting by Doug early on too, and working my way up to third within the first few laps. 3rd and 4th place Audi Coupe GT and 2002 take eachother out in front of me, handing me 3rd. Spent the rest of the time closing up on the leaders, a 2002 and a Prelude who were duking it out; when the Prelude tried to hard in the Carousel and spun in front of me, I was able to get beside, then in front of him. While he tried to put some pressure on, he wasn't really able to maintain the pace, and then snapped a LR hub in spectacular style while coming out of Madness into the Esses, ending up in the tire wall. While we were able to close somewhat on the leading 2002, we remained just outside of striking distance at the checker, Doug somewhat behind in 3rd. Both Doug and I were quite fast, a couple of tenths under the 2002's times.

Sunday PM race was more of the same; Doug got by me at the start, and I passed up a chance to retake 2nd as I was looking to the long run; however after about 10-15 laps, we faded at about .3-.5s per lap, ending up still in 3rd at the checker but about 6 seconds back.

Hardware - we got a medal (nice shiny bronze one) for the 3rd place on the Sunday PM race (no trophies for the Sunday AM qualifier), and 4th overall in ITB for the entire weekend - all 3 races points combined - despite the DNF for the Saturday race! Very nice, pretty etched glass for the top 5 overall spots.

What we learned... the 924 is real strong on the second half of the backstraight! We get up to the top half of 4th, and are able to really motor the competition... it's probably both the gearing/motor and the aero - we're much slicker than all those sedans we race against. This is basically once we hit around 90mph. We ended up hitting 105mph (corrected) down the backstraight, 88mph on the front straight going into Turn 1, which is apexed at about 82mph. VERY FAST COURSE!!!

What to do for next time we're there - we need a big, loud, open tailpipe. I'm sure we were quite quiet, as our local sound limit is 75 db; the limit there is 95 or 104, much higher, and if we open it up a little more we should pick up even more down the back straight.

For setup - both Doug and I found that we wanted the cars tighter (more tendency to understeer) for that course, relative to our Waterford short-track twitchy setup. I had my rear bar on full soft, yet still played with tire pressures, etc, to get the car even more stable; next time I think we'll probably run a stock 14mm rear bar instead of the 19mm rear Cup Car bar.

Then the rest is just more practice; while I'd been there many times before, maybe 5-8 times, we were never this fast - I've gotten a lot faster in the 3 years since I was last there. With more time to practice and get dialed in to the course - more consistent, find my reference points - it shouldn't be a huge challenge to get within a half-second of the lap record.

I'm really looking forward to the next opportunity to go there - too bad the budget dictates that it'll probably be quite some time!!

Another racing update, on the Waterford Hills front - season points have finally been updated through the last race weekend. While we are a bit of a distant 2nd in ITB points, we are still 4th overall in Top Ten Driver rankings, and Doug is 1st! As long as we have a strong finish to the season, we should do well there...
_________________
Vaughan Scott
Webmeister
'79 924 #77 SCCA H Prod racecar
'82 931 Plat. Silver
#25 Hidari Firefly P2 sports prototype

[924guy]

awesome..sounds like a hell of a weekend! Congrats on a job well done!

the mcguyver in me wonders if it would be doable to keep a small clip lead in the car to bypass those pesky switch meltdowns..

looking forward to the vids so i can live vicariously through your glory..
_________________
Eric
78 924
82 931 SE "smokey"
99' VehiCross
Y2K Honda Insight
http://www.cardomain.com/id/924Guy
Performance by Pasha

[Chrenan]

Sounds like an exciting weekend! Looking forward to videos again...
_________________
1987 951 - M193 Version for Japan

[924RACR]

OK, videos are now up; anything with "IT Fest" in the title... in particular, any first lap video, and this one of the 3rd place ITB Prelude losing a hub just after getting off the back straight, chasing me...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0wPxHu7ly98

All the rest:
http://youtube.com/user/924RACR
_________________
Vaughan Scott
Webmeister
'79 924 #77 SCCA H Prod racecar
'82 931 Plat. Silver
#25 Hidari Firefly P2 sports prototype

[MikesCoupeGT]

Sorry for the misspelling of your name.

It looked like the 924 was hooking up really well for you. Now I have a quick question for you. I have been wondering this for a long time as I love both the 924 and the Audi Coupe GT. Question is how did your lap times compare to the Blethens Audis, you are in the same class.

Thanks

Mike

[924RACR]

Right... we're decidedly faster. While they should ultimately have an advantage in straight-line power, with that 5-cyl 2.2L, we can get much better corner exit speed - that FWD suspension just isn't designed to go fast. Their weight balance is also pretty horrible, as is typical with the FWD cars. Don't get me wrong, I think they've done impressive things with the cars, given what they have to work with, but I think they'll always be stuck chasing the RWD ITB cars. Well, except the Rustangs!

They have horrible times with tire life too, apparently (no great surprise).

If you're considering building an ITB car, and trying to decide which way to go... think long and hard before passing up the 924...
_________________
Vaughan Scott
Webmeister
'79 924 #77 SCCA H Prod racecar
'82 931 Plat. Silver
#25 Hidari Firefly P2 sports prototype

[924RACR]

Oh, right, forgot to answer the question of lap times. Well, we got down to a 1:48.8. I don't see any results on Mylaps.com, but for most of the time they were stuck in the 1:50's (lap record is 1:47.5), though Stephen got to a 1:49.8 on the Sunday PM race - where Doug, Brent, and I were all at a 1:49-flat (within a few hundreds).
_________________
Vaughan Scott
Webmeister
'79 924 #77 SCCA H Prod racecar
'82 931 Plat. Silver
#25 Hidari Firefly P2 sports prototype