Just Got back from a fantastic weekend at Barber.
Weather was great, NASA had a great turnout but the weekend was not incident free.
Saturday was my day to race, went out for 1st practice and was sent in by the main tower flag man, came in ask what the problem was and was told by one of the pit staff that he had not heard anything on the radio and I was ok to go back out...Well when I was on grid to go ouy for qualifying another guy walked up and asked if I had fixed my transponder. I looked up and said what??? Panic time, Jason had to run up to the tower and let them know that we had lost our transponder and they would have to time us by hand.
There were no more transponders available to rent so they agreed however, they only took my warmup lap that was a 1:47, not any of the 1:43.3's I was turning.

So I started in P6 in GTS class, the video will tell the rest:
http://vimeo.com/4951609

Race 1 as seen from Tim's 924 S: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JinnYH5KvTc

Race 2 video: Jason Aranha
http://www.vimeo.com/4987936



On Sunday, Jason's qualifting session got cancelled due to a Mustang exploding down the straight and trailing oil down to turn 1 where it proceeded to catch fire.
Jay started his race using my grid position and also managed to pull through and take class win. Will post link to his video tomorrow, enjoy.
Everyone at the event was very friendly, lots of Mini folk dropping by to say hello.

 

wow, what a finish! nicely done. i have a few questions, if you don't mind. i know that you race in both CCA DM and NASA GTS-3. i have seen that you are competitive (at least!) w/ both sanctioning bodies. what do you weigh and what is your hp? the reason that i ask is that i am building a DM car. i would also like to run w/ NASA to spend any extra $ that finds its way into my pockets or better fits my schedule. i have a target weight of 2050 lbs. dry and a goal of 250 hp. this would put me in GTS-4 even w/ my fat *** in the seat. are you running slicks or dot tires? if i end up in -4, i might as well run slicks here as well as w/ CCA. i look forward to chasing/following you around some tracks in the SE in the future.
greg

 

Yes Bean,
It is possible to be competitive in GTS-3 and D-Mod.
Check out the 2nd video with Jason at the wheel, he is very smooth and consistent. Just look what he does with the Corvettes, as they say "power is nothing without control".
PM me and I will be glad to help you with suggestions for your build.
Thanks for the compliments on the car.
Steve

 

Added the video fro Tim's 924-S, fun to watch the Mini from his mirrors and when I slide past him!
See original post

 

Just watched the video. That looked fun. Good job.

 

Thanks Alain,
Would love the opportunity to come race with you in Canada, would my car be legal in your series?
You have been doing great lately, are you going to have a two car team now?
Looking forward to seeing the new car project completed.
Regards,
Steve

 

Wouldn't be very hard to make the car legal. You'd have to remove the aero bits and use a stock engine.

Rules available here:

http://www.touringcar.ca/competitorinfo.htm

Or I could rent you a car when the second one is ready. Take advantage of the exchange rate while there's still a good difference!

You can PM for details.

Alain

 

Excellent videos, espically the drag race to the finish line against the silver M3 for the win

When you approach the one but last bend (where the pit road is) and the back end gets all loose, it seems really bad in some of the videos but then seem to get a lot better, did you adjust something and dial it out?

 

Thanks Paul,
Yes, it was fun passing the M3 on the final stretch which I never thought would happen.
As far as the back end getting loose? Which video were you refering to?
Jason was trrying different lines than me going into that final right-hander. Getting the tail to slide around is desirable in the Mini, I typically try to get it to slide around corners for the point-n-shoot exits.
Most Minis have huge understeer issues that take time to eliminate inorder to make the car rotate. On FWD race cars you want them tail-happy!