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924RACR

2 for 2 this weekend, baby!

First race, we swipe the ITB pole by a 10th of a second over our arch-rival, the blue Bimmer #66. We hold him off for 6 laps, and he wasn't able to find any advantage on us, but a sticking accelerator pedal upsets the car enough to finally give a little bobble, let him by barely. Hung on till the end and finished in quite close order, less than a second behind.

Then we go to the Tech Shed. We were 12lbs over our required weight of 2600lbs (w/ driver).

He was 37lbs light. He was therefore DQ'd (disqualfied) and we picked up the win.

Today's race - well, they canceled the afternoon feature race due to weather delays, leaving us with only the one Class race. Due to Doug's DQ, he was moved to the back of the grid, leaving us behind the 2 front-running RX7's and ahead of a whole train of slow Rustangs. Mission orders for the race were stay on the pace, run strong, and don't do anything stupid. We knew we'd pull clear of the Rustangs quickly, and that Doug had no major advantage in pace on us, so it was basically up to us to lose.

So out we go, and we stay glued to the two battling RX7's, checking out on the rest of the field easily. I'm getting split time from Gregg, my crew chief, and after Doug starts to close the distance briefly, we press the RX7's a little harder and quickly find that he's starting to actually fall back slightly! Very nice!

I get on the radio to Gregg, maybe coming up on 3 laps to go, and comment, "It's starting to look like a Spec-RX7 race up here!" - we're that close! Gregg responds... "Don't get cocky now!"

Then, that very lap, Turn 3 - the two leading RX7's take eachother out! We apply a little more brake, ease through the path of carnage nicely, and assume OVERALL lead!! Then, starting the 2nd-to-last lap, out comes the black flag... the starter's fumbling for a number board, so I ignore it, but just in case we're marginal on sound (as I know we're close), I short-shift it down the back-straight. We've got enough of a lead to not worry about Doug now. One more lap and we've got the checker! For real this time!!!

Merritt (my wife) finally gets her checker flag lap in the car, and we're all smiles. Afterwards, we find out that Doug was recipient of the black flag, for sound as suspected.

So in addition to having a great weekend, due to our competitor's misfortunes we're quickly closing the gap to first place in the season points! We've got only two weekends left and a lot of work remaining to continue to close the gap, but we've shown serious promise and that we know what we need to do to make it happen...

_________________
Vaughan Scott
Webmeister
'79 924 #77 SCCA H Prod racecar
'82 931 Plat. Silver
#25 Hidari Firefly P2 sports prototype

Neil924 · Joined: 18 Mar 2003 Posts: 4225 Location: Canada

That's a great weekend! Very nice Vaughan. How hard did you have to hit the RX-7's to take them out?

Did you see why they went off?

Joes924Racer · Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 2:22 pm Post subject:

congrats man quite the accomplishment.
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1979 porsche 924 Na
1980 porsche Turbo 931GT Replica
Have u ever driven a turbo.

924RACR · Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 11:54 pm Post subject:

Thanks!! And the best part is, we didn't even break the car at all! Did play with setup a bit, nothing too major. Requires nothing more than an oil change and more gas for the next race.

Yeah, I was able to see what happened; I was less than 10 feet behind the RX7's when they tangled! Was within a half-second behind them all race. The 2nd place car had been trying EVERYTHING to get by the leader, who was apparently fighting a bit of an understeer (and consequently holding us up a bit). Coming into turn 3 with 3 laps to go, the 2nd place car went to the inside, the leader turned in, 2nd place went on the grass to avoid, then hit the brakes, and so couldn't stop in time. So he went straight, right into the side of the other RX7, pushing them both wide.

Since this all happened in front of me, I could of course see the move, and knew it wasn't going to work well enough in advance to brake a little harder and give enough room to just keep it in gear and motor on by.

Videocamera was pointing out the back that race; will only likely see the cars sliding off and recovering. Sorry. We really need a two-camera setup with PIP now!

I was hoping we'd get the Bimmer coming up on-camera, but turned out that the rearward-mounted video camera worked best as Bimmer-repellent!

Merritt took some cool pics from the car during the checker... promise I will get them loaded promptly, as well as pics from the preceeding race.
_________________
Vaughan Scott
Webmeister
'79 924 #77 SCCA H Prod racecar
'82 931 Plat. Silver
#25 Hidari Firefly P2 sports prototype

John Brown · Joined: 07 Nov 2002 Posts: 903 Location: Leesburg VA

Congrats!

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John
80 931 - #931 44Cup
99 Escalade - tows track cars
gone but not forgotten: original 924.org car - 82

924RACR · Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 1:31 am Post subject:

I forgot to mention - I'm now getting a lot more comments from people who're expressing interest in building one of these cars and coming to play! Not to mention an A Sedan driver (5.0 Rustang) who also has an ITB Geo Prism, who expressed regret that he couldn't get his Geo running in time, had to drive his Rustang - he watched my battle with the Bimmer with GREAT interest and appreciation, and wished he could've been part of it! He's fast enough and good enough to have been... would've been real fun with a 3-way battle going for the lead!
_________________
Vaughan Scott
Webmeister
'79 924 #77 SCCA H Prod racecar
'82 931 Plat. Silver
#25 Hidari Firefly P2 sports prototype

skemcin · Joined: 02 Sep 2003 Posts: 1284 Location: Plainfield, IL

sounds very excited and congrats. good luck on the race for the season title.
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924.org (no time to complete)
9249206346 - 89k – new shifter bushings, belts, running well.
9249206347 - 8k – waiting its resurrection, no power at the fuel pump and fuse #7 blows w/power

Chrenan · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 3903 Location: Canada

Congrats! Way to show with some dedicated development the 924 can still be competitive!!!
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1987 951 - M193 Version for Japan

jjadczak · Joined: 03 Jan 2003 Posts: 346 Location: Accokeek, MD

I'm so proud of you V!!!! I knew it was just a matter of time for you. I am glad that you are having such success! I guess merritt is now a winning car owner kind of like Beth Ann Morgenthau of BAM! motorsports!

This is very encouraging news for us 924 guys! With proper maintence and prep and hard driving we can have these cars now competitive in ITB! Someday soon we will be there and I am excited of what could be for us too!

Wouldn't that just be a kick in the pants if you won the drivers title for 2005!?!?!? I am rooting for that, you deserve it!
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Jeremy "I'm Faster than My Dad" Jadczak
#53 Porsche 924 (sold '06)
#35 Porsche 924 (R.I.P. '06)
#141 Porsche 944 944 Cup
FLAG Motorsports
"Fast Lucky And Good"

924RACR · Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 10:42 pm Post subject:

It would be fun!

Some pics now on the website; more to come tonight or tomorrow:
http://www.vaughanscott.com/Races/2005/race4_05.htm

_________________
Vaughan Scott
Webmeister
'79 924 #77 SCCA H Prod racecar
'82 931 Plat. Silver
#25 Hidari Firefly P2 sports prototype