redtopz

Thanks Rich the car is lighter now but I ran with 200+ lbs of ballast in T1. Also the car is always weighed with the driver. I just went on the dyno a couple times yesterday and today at the nasa nationals and the car is putting down mid to high 380's whp with the T1 restrictor plate. The nice thing with nasa is it's power to weight so I could remove the ballast and get down to 8 lbs per hp. I was really happy to run a new pb today at Sonoma with a 1:39.3 in ST2 qual with 379 whp at 3100 lbs. There's a 38 out there if I can drive a bit better in some spots.

Yes speedcasttv.com. The announcers didn't really know what happened to my car and mistakenly said I had a mechanical in T1 and blown engine in gt2.

Robert R1

Nothing on there. I'll just wait for your in car footage Have fun out there and congrats on a smoking laptime!

redtopz

Racerconnect.com Group B 1:15

JRL

Big Congrats to BILL!!

I went to Sonoma and watched
1st Place: NASA Time Trial TT2/Track Record
2nd Place: NASA ST1 Class, racing against Vipers/Porsches' w/ a lot more power.
Had to start 8th, there was a restart after a car in another class jumped the start. One guy in a Viper passed Bill under yellow and then after the restart he kept blocking Bill like crazy. Bill passed him moved up to 3rd, was 11 seconds behind another Viper. He caught and passed that one, then pulled away to a well earned 2nd place. Got on the podium and got to spray the champagne!!

DarkMastyr

Awesome.

Robert R1

Nice work Bill! Now let's see that footage

redtopz

Thanks John, glad you made it out! Really disappointing you couldn't be out there competing in TT with us. Next year .

Lots of info to download from this event, but it's all good stuff with respect to my car. For starters I'll just say that our car prep was outstanding. Actually our prep for Runoffs was also good, but the punt and contact hurt the car. This time we managed to narrowly escape contact with other cars and after over 50 race laps, 4 trips to the dyno, 3 time trial sessions, 2 test sessions, and a qualifying session all I had to do to the car today was change the oil.

Here's our fastest laps of the weekend on Friday during ST2 qualifying. The 1:39.3 lap ended up being not only a ST2 track record but also faster than any ST1 lap of the nationals. I'm definitely not the best driver out there, as there were others putting down more impressive laps than this. But I'm happy to have hit my target for this year which was a 1:39 in ST2 trim.

redtopz

Also, I have a stack of Hoosier A6's to sell in 315/30/18 and 335/30/18 sizes. PM me if you want some. These are all fresh runoffs and nationals with limited heat cycles and I will figure out how many I have and how much I want for them tomorrow. Thanks!

trackboss

Good job hauling ***! I'd bet your competitors were scratching their heads wondering how such a mild motor could push your car to those lap times.

RichieRichZ06

Dibs on the tires. I'll probably take all of them, just let me know how many you have etc...

crimlwC6

Awesome job! I need to talk to you and/or Oli about running a few SCCA races next year (assuming you'd be kind enough to do so). Based on your build thread I think I'll just take my ST2 car and run unlimited class since I don't have the skills/time/money to do what you did! I just want to experience some new tracks but don't want to show up and get the boot.

redtopz

Thanks, as you know Sonoma is a handling and driver's track. Power always helps but less at this track than most places. Also, my Synergy engine is awesome. It took everything I could throw at it all year long and it's still running strong. I blew the dyno after my first official TT lap Saturday night. On Thursday and Friday it put down high 370's so I claimed low 380's on my sheet to be safe. But Sat night it put down 387 whp. Sun morning in TT2 I added 120 lbs and claimed 395 hp just to be safe and ran a 1:40.1. They put me on the dyno again and it made 388 hp. So the dyno fluctuates with weather conditions +/- 10 hp with my car which makes it tough in a power to weight class. I heard the ST1 car that took first place came within 1 hp of blowing the dyno and being DQ'd. That would have put me in 1st. His car was a 997 cup car with michelin slicks and over 500 whp with paddle shifters.

You got it!

Thanks, I'd be happy to help and I'm sure Oli would too . But why not just run new tracks with NASA? It would be 10x easier than switching to scca. I might just run nasa next year anyway for that reason plus they don't tolerate contact between cars unlike scca and they are better at enforcing flag rules. Nasa is much cheaper to be competitive in with a power to weight class (and the cars are more evenly matched).

redtopz

Here's the ST1 championship race video from my car. We had to restart because the SU cars in front of us jumped their flag. The 2nd start was kind of a mess, but luckily I made it through and was able to complete a championship race this time.

JRL

WOW, that was intense, great job!
That dude in the red viper was all over the place, missing apexes, usually off the proper line and then blocking you.
Nice, clean racing/driving by you, some awesome passes in the braking zones

Robert R1

Watched the full race last night. That was awesome!

Way to reel in 2nd place after being 12seconds down. Great, consistent driving.

redtopz

Quick story from nationals. One of the ST2 cars at nationals was struggling to be competitive with lap times and he came up to me after qualifying 10 seconds off my pace and said he was thinking about removing his restrictors and ballast and moving up to ST1 but he didn't want to hurt the ST2 guys. At the same time another guy left ST2 and moved to ST3 and another guy blew his engine. So out of 5 ST2 cars this would leave only 2 of us in ST2 (Greg and myself). I told the guy I highly recommend he stay in ST2 because making his car faster would not help his lap times if he was already struggling with ST2 power. This might be counter-intuitive, but if you can't get close to 100% out of your existing setup then adding more power won't help you, it will only hurt you as a driver. I told him his lap times would probably not change in ST1 and he should work on learning how to improve his driving technique instead. I walked him through each turn on the track and how I thought he could find more time with better lines and braking/throttle applications. He said OK and thanked me but in the first qual race I saw he was gridded ahead of me in ST1 instead of ST2 .

After the race I saw that his lap times were identical to what they were in ST2 as I predicted and they never improved over the weekend. Too many people are putting way too much focus into their cars (especially horsepower) without learning how to drive properly. This is a sport and it's best to treat yourself as an athlete first, then worry about making the car faster later. A fast car will not make up for lack of skill in the driver's seat and my opinion is it's better to have less power and learn to get 100% out of the car than struggle with a car that's more than you can handle. This was apparent even at the scca runoffs and nasa nationals.

Moral of the story, if you want to get faster, remove power to the point where you are comfortable pushing your car 100% and learn how to get those last tenths out of it and turn consistent fast laps. And try to compete against other drivers with more skill than you, don't avoid those classes because you don't think you can win. It's better to fight hard and lose against tough competition than be a "champion" against weak competition.

folsomlarry

Moral of the story, if you want to get faster, remove power to the point where you are comfortable pushing your car 100% and learn how to get those last tenths out of it and turn consistent fast laps.

Your moral of the story should copied and highlighted on every forum for drivers for racing or track days. Congratulations on a great season: thumbs:

We finally got our new engine back from the builder and it has 3 less hp at 6800 rpm. It is not as radical an engine, so the good part is it has a lot more horsepower and torque at 4500 all the way to 6800. This should make the car easier to drive and quicker.

Once again great season and keep up the good work.

DarkMastyr

10 seconds off your pace. Almost sounds like he accidentally put on a set of street tires , but it's more a testament to how quick you are.

The next time someone asks me why I've left my car bone stock, I'm going to say Bill told me it makes me go faster

redtopz

Thanks Larry good to hear your engine is all done. Easy to drive is a huge plus!

You are one of the few who has the willpower to stay on street tires so long and you are a good driver. I'd like to see what you could do on Hoosiers now. I know I'm not that good compared to top drivers but I work to improve. And I've learned how to set my car up to be fast. Now I need to decide what I'm going to do next year. Either work with Rick and get more power for GT2 and ST1 or go back to stock ls6 for T1 and ST2. The stock ls6 would be better for T1 because it basically needs no restrictor while my Synergy ls6 is hit with a 60 mm restrictor and extra weight. I don't plan to run both T1 and GT2 next year. Too much work and it's a compromise for each class.

redtopz

After talking with my racing buddies in CA, we have decided on a path for racing next year. Runoffs are all the way back East and it's hard for us all to fit in the same class in SCCA with it's tricky rules. So we decided to try and pull racers together from multiple classes into ST2 and run a Western ST2 Championship Series! Our series will be at the following tracks overlapping between Norcal and Socal regions:

1. Willow Springs International Raceway - February 28, March 1, 2015
2. Buttonwillow Raceway Park – April 18-19, 2015
3. Auto Club Speedway – May 16-17, 2015
4. Sonoma Raceway – June 20- 21, 2015
5. Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca - July 31-August 2, 2015
6. Thunderhill Raceway – August 29-30, 2015
7. Buttonwillow Raceway Park – October 10-11, 2015

Here's the scoop:

Racing people, we are consolidating our cars and racers into a new West Coast series next year framed within NASA ST2 rules and events! ST2 is the easiest class to get the most cars registered and involved and will keep racing costs down and cars evenly matched. The rules are very flexible to all makes and models of cars and are based on a power to weight formula of 8 lbs/hp uncorrected. The goal of the series is to focus our contingent of Western racers into one series consisting of 7 races on the best tracks in the West from Cal Speedway to Thunderhill and everything in between. The focus will be on season points to encourage participation in all events and we invite new and experienced racers to join us. We will be offering coaching and car setup help for newer racers if desired. We will race together and enjoy BBQ/beers on Sat nights after the races. The Laguna Seca Championship race will be in the middle of the season, but the points for that race will be the same as any other event. One of the 7 races can be thrown out at the end of the season for points totals and we will provide championship trophies to the top 3 points leaders. If you have any questions about how to get your car into ST2 please ask us.