0Anthony @ LGMotorsports

Richie Rich....

Is KILLING it again this year at the Optima Street Car Shootout in his LG Motorsports suspended C6Z06. Along with our slick carbon fiber World Challenge hood, Rich is also running our billet C5/6 drop spindle, GT2 coil overs, G1 sway bars, mono ball control arm kit and more!

Have questions on how to make your car handle like Rich's? Shoot any one of us a PM or ring us here at the shop for details.











All of us here at LG Motorsports wish Rich and the Abel Chevrolet Z06 all the best during the 2016 season!

Jawnathin

That car is totally badass, probably the fastest road course street legal Corvette in all of the country. It also helps that Rich is one hell of a driver

RichieRichZ06

Thanks for the post Anthony. I owe a lot of the success this year to the new LG parts we installed this off-season. The drop spindles were a noticeable change in handling and the hood helped significantly with cooling. The sway bars and GT2 coil overs have always allowed me to out perform many cars with significantly more expensive suspension packages under them

The car has been transformed from what it was and it's on a whole new level.

Thunderhill's Optima event was a slam dunk and I earned the invite at the season opener. Vegas last month was good practice for the finals and I got some good data that should help at the Ultimate Street Car Invitational in November.

We will see if I can get around those pesky Evos and the Stig (Danny Popp) this year at the finals.

RICH

Racechick

Go Richie!!

Bad_AX

Rich, are you still running the ZR1 mufflers?

RD in SD

I have to add that not only is Rich a good driver with a great car he is super friendly and is always willing to lend a hand and advice to those with less experience like me. If you live in Nor Cal take your car to Abel Chevy and let Rich and his crew help you out. If you need Chevy parts no matter where you are he has discounts at the same level as the the online GM guys. Of course I buy all my high performance stuff at LG just like Rich. I bought my ZR1 carbon brake set up from Rich at Abel and not only did I get a good deal but it came with some valuable tech support directly from Rich. Good luck in November! See you at Pikes Peak.

Thanks again for all the help Rich!

Werks

He runs the Burns Stainless NHB exhaust.

RichieRichZ06

As Werks stated, I switched to the Burns Stainless mufflers about a year ago. I was looking to start cutting weight and that was an easy choice. I had Vince make a custom setup, using smaller mufflers than their usual C6 kit. I was not concerned with passing sound anywhere and I wanted a mean sounding exhaust that was extremely light. The ZR1 mufflers sound good, but they are big and heavy.


Thanks for the kind words Robert. I am glad to see your car working well and I'm always glad to help out. We still have a couple events to score you that invite and I think you'll get in for OUSCI.

RICH

Bad_AX

Rich and Werks, thanks for the update. You guys and Mike should give us an update on your cars. Especially interested in what you have learned from testing brake rotors and pads.

RichieRichZ06

Short answer is that Mike hates them and went back to iron rotors, I love them and run stock pads without issue and Werks runs different pads, but seems to like the brakes. I'm still on the same rotors as when I switched the car over to CCB's and I've been through ~6 sets of front pads so far without any complaints.

I changed a lot of stuff over the winter (more power, light weight clutch, LG drop spindles, lot's of coolers, lot's of weight reduction with LG carbon fiber hood, Katech deck lid/window, Burns exhaust etc) We also added a little front aero, but I need more up front and in back.

I am working with LG on some new shocks that I should have on in a month or two, but more on that will come later....

0Anthony @ LGMotorsports

klodkrawler05

Been following your progress with interest Rich!

doesn't look like you're signed up for COTA but hopefully I get to meet you at OUSCI this year if COTA goes well for us.

RichieRichZ06

Thanks man! If you ever need anything, give me a shout

No COTA this year. It's on the bucket list, but Pike's Peak is the furthest we're headed this year. The time towing the car back and forth is the hard part and with all the time I take off for these things, I have to pick my battles.

I will definitely be at OUSCI and I'm planning to have wifey get in as well with a win at Pike's. Her chances are looking good. Hopefully you'll score an invite and we can try and get some more Vettes at the top of this year's finishing order.

RICH

klodkrawler05

Shoul be a bit easier to get some more vettes up top this year with the RS guys (close friends of mine) not running any USCA events due to the restructuring of D&E and making that count even more.

Can't say I blame them after how many top finishes they've lost to D&E over the last 2 seasons.

But yes! certainly planning/hoping to be at OUSCI and improve! in 2014 I finished midpack dead stock and this year...this year should be better

RichieRichZ06

Ranvek, Smeddegard and the other RS guys aren't running any events this year? I've fought the same D&E issues and it's tough to appeal to the judges so we're all in the same boat.

klodkrawler05

Last I had heard no, they were going to focus on One Lap, SCCA national auto-x, global time attack and the gridlife time attack series this year.

I know Ronnie is signed up for COTA because it's a bucket list track but to the best of my knowledge Smedegard and Ranvek aren't planning on this year.

Supercharged111

So how many drivers at this event are actually decent? Having never seen it, I envision the majority to be car guys with lots of bolt ons who can't keep the car pointed in the right direction and just a scant few truly skilled folks running away from the masses. Am I way off base? Or do the slow guys get weeded out right off the bat and the rest is a total nailbiter? Or should I just google it and watch some back episodes?

klodkrawler05

2 years ago when they first opened up the series to the general masses there were lots of the bigger is better deep pocket books pro-touring types. As word started spreading about the media exposure opportunities the series offered to the average Joe competition picked up pretty rapidly.

For reference:
In 2014 I took a bone stock new to me c5z06 to MIS, I wound up placing 2nd in my class with a road course time of 1:31.2
In 2015 we again came back to MIS, my car with much improved suspension, better tires and a few other mods ran a best time of 1:25.0 over 6 seconds faster on the same course in 1 year. That lap time? only good enough for 2nd place again, and my 1:31.2 from the year previously would've been dead last.

Comb through some of the past Optima results and compare the names on them to NASA/SCCA results, you'll be surprised to see where a lot of these folks come from.

Don't get me wrong, there are still those folks who come out just to have fun in whatever they've got. But there is a growing number of seriously skilled drivers bringing seriously competitive cars to the events.

Small list of folks from the last OUSCI:
Danny Popp (obviously) SCCA/NASA Champion with gobs of track records and both road/autox championships
Andy Smedegard Multi-Time SCCA Auto-x Champion, One Lap Podium Finisher
Brandon Ranvek SCCA auto-x Champion/podium finisher, Multiple One Lap Podiums.
Ken Thwaits SCCA Pro Driver, Wicked Camaro enthusiast
Mike Dusold, Quickly moving from one of "those" pro street guys to THE car to beat, he's dominated pretty much every SCCA event this year and I expect we're gonna see faster stuff from him yet this year.
Bryan Johnson, Honda test driver, BAR/Honda F1 employee, Champion in Motorola Grand Am Cup C2K class
James Forbis, Multiple NASA records, SCCA Championships etc.

And that's just cherry picking from the top 10 finishers of last year that I knew off hand. Scrolling further down the list you see other competitors like Andy Hollis, Al Unser, Hugh Bate, Brian Hobaugh and Mary Pozzi who all hold tons of championships in their respective fields and couldn't even break into the top 10 last year.


That's my .02 but I'm biased as I really love the events. I haven't been a fan of the way they changed D&E this year but the fact still is the series pulls in some of the fastest drivers/cars from pretty much every other type of motorsport.

Supercharged111

Well that's cool then. I was concerned it was gonna be something the Bull Run. I'm much more interested in watching what you're describing above.

RichieRichZ06

^^^^^ Pretty much nailed it. There are some seriously fast drivers out there and some people just out to have fun. I started doing this because it looked like fun and after my first event, I figured out this is competition first and a TV show second. I've had good luck at local auto cross events and I'm typically the fastest car at local track days so I wanted to try something that brought me into competition. This is a good place for it and seeing so many talented drivers on the lists, I was surprised how well I could stack up.

Even with my car grenading the clutch 5 laps into the road course at the Invitational last year, I still managed a 5th place overall. I seriously think I will have a chance at the podium this year. My favorite is still the road course, but I've been forced to make some changes to make the car better at auto cross.

So far, we've done 2 events this year and I have 2 more planned. I've had the fastest road course time by a decent margin at both and been on the podium for auto cross and speed stop. I don't get excited about the class rankings, I look at overall and my goal is always to be top 3 overall in every event.

Honestly, one of the best parts about the series is how well everyone gets along for how fierce the competition is. Nearly everyone is approachable and you find a lot of "high fiving" in the parking lot and staging lanes. The TV aspect makes it fun and the car/driver starts to get some recognition.

Thanks to some generous help from LG Motorsports, Finspeed Wheels, Katech Motorsports, ARE Dry Sump, West Coast Cylinder Heads, Synergy Motorsports and Abel Chevrolet Buick, I've been able to make changes to the car and keep it competitive in this quickly evolving series.