track tires ??

100% agree!!!!!!!!!!!! This is why i preferred the Pilot Cup Sports for dry/damp and Pilot Sport PS2 for full wet. At LRP during a monster downpour at the same 2006 Historic Race NO ONE was going on track during the hard rain but myself and one other guy. The other guy called it quits after a small handful of laps, while i stayed out and had full open track alone for quite a few laps UNTIL they black flagged the track (probably due to them feeling it was just too wet and/or hard for them to see flag station to flag station). DARN as i was doing well and LOVE car control clinics. If you have never done LRP in full downpour wet, it is VERY SLICK, but they are now repaving the track this year so...

As for slicks in damp.... Even in damp conditions the Hoosier slicks on the Formula 2000 car (newly released in late 2007 model R2500 compound R35 rated) and these are STICKIER than their the mainstream tintop R model were extremely touchy. TOUCHY means you had better be CAREFUL and NOT something i'd suggest for someone new to the game.

If you want to see what FULL WET racing is like, my first event in the Formula 2000 in a downpour (so was being careful) http://www.enjoythetrack.com/video/nhis090807/sun_race.wmv

Real men drive in the wet This aint NASCAR

 

In My first real year of racing , I had 6 out of 8 events in the rain. I decided I was going to enjoy it or quit. Fortunately I went to skip barber in the early 80's @ LRP it rained 2 of the 3 days & I learned the secret from f-5000 champ bruce mcginns . To this day I love when it rains, I know I can win. last year @ R/A I qualified on the pole in a down pour out of 65 cars in class. I was DQ for passing under a yellow when a rookie came to a stop when a car crashed in the down hill, we had no choice but to pass him. Knowing a protest was fruitless I started 65th. I finished 7th if only we had a few more laps. It was sick passing 58 cars in a 20 lap race.

 

CONGRATS!!! i agree with you, they should have upheld your protest. LRP has some (relatively) ok grip in he rain if you know where to find it. Like you, did Skippy. Also, each morning before a race i do my beest to track walk plus use the opening lap behind the pace car to verify a few things (and get tires/brakes to temp of course).

A most humble thanks. As i said, it was my very first FULL wet event in the Formula 2000. In hindsight should have done better, passed the car on first lap at T3... yet did not want to ball up the car or go off or pass a nebie too fast as visiblity was impared due to the water spray off of tires from the car in front of you. Was bascially almost totally blind at the start due to water spray from the cars in front of me and while virtually every nerve in my body said to lift off the gas, i kept on it. Come to think of it, i came in second or third in class at that race.

Being self-financed means sometimes disgression is better than taking unknown risks as it was a learning experience.

So, imho it is better to error on the side of caution. With each elevation of 'chance taking' means talent must be higher, equipment must be tuned that much better for the situation, and the odds of 'making it' is reduced.

Next rain race, though...

Man-o-man i sooo love the rain

 

Just to clarify, my advice to Lou to "not worry about rain/wet" aspect of track tires was intended to just simplify his choice of tire, that's all. The logic being that since it rarely rains here, why add an additional factor into his "needs equation" that isn't very pertinent?

Like I said, he may miss 1 track day out of 100 here in sunny So Cal if he just decided to get the best "dry" tires possible and just not go out when it's wet. Totally understand that if we lived in Enjoy The Music territory (VIR, if memory serves me), we'd never get any track time at all if we didn't factor in the ability to drive in the wet. Hell, most Ferrari owners out here don't take their cars out of the garage when the humidity is over 60%!! What I miss most is driving in the snow!! Give me a VW Bug, a fresh foot of snowfall and a race track! THAT would be some fun!

Ironically, my last race was in December in Phoenix and it rained! As luck would have it, all my group's practice and qualifying runs were in the dry, but it started raining about one lap into the race and contiinued through about the first 1/4 of the race. Luckily, the spec Dunlop treaded tires on my Vintage Formula Ford worked just fine, but the newer Club Fords - who run a spec American Racer slick - were having some problems!!

 

That's the plan, as break-in prep for the race the following weekend.

BUT.... they told me on Saturday that there's a new problem!!! Damn engine rebuild from HELL!!!!! Still hope to make it, though. Anybody know a great engine builder – preferably an actual race shop – in Los Angeles who does Fiat engines?!!! (PBS is retired, btw). If I have to go through this again, I'll blow my brains out.

 

Before you blow you brains out how about I buy that Dallara from you and ease your pain? The devil is in the machine shop assuming proper design if doing special things? Who is doing the assembly? I bet we could do it in a few hours in my garage if you have all the parts and a manual. I lost count on all the engines I have rebuilt. You want a pro? Santo's seems to make some screaming Alfa motors that most importantly stay together.

 

I have worked so damn hard to get this car together - at this point getting at least ONE race weekend out of it has become a personal quest, my own little Heart of Darkness. THEN I'll sell it to you!!!

What happened originally is that the motor blew out one cylinder - rod broke. Not even totally sure why. No block damage. But in order to save time (which seems almost funny now), I agreed to use the engine builder's "extra" 1300cc block he had on the shelf, which was already rebuilt for his SCCA X1-9. My head, however, was set up for a different type of piston and had the "wrong" valves in it, so they sent the head to PBS for some machining. They also put the "right" valves in it. Fitting the motor into the car was also a challenge for them, as some of the mounts and brackets were stripped and had to be redone, all of which added time and complexity to the process. But last week they finally had the motor installed and running (!!) but were having problems with the mechanical fuel injection. I know a shop that knows the Bosch FI system intimately, so I told the engine builders that I would pick the car up, have the other shop go through the FI (which he could do easily, unlike the engine builders who are carb guys), and THEN bring the car back to them for "fine tuning". The engine builders' intent was honorable: they wanted the engine running perfectly before they gave it back to me.

So, on Saturday (pickup day), he calls me and says there is metal debris in the oil. Now, he doesn't know if this is from the "new" engine, or if it is leftover junk from the old engine failure. Obviously, one of the things they did was to flush out the oil lines and whatnot to clean out the old debris, but maybe they didn't get everything. OR...the new engine has a problem. Needless to say, this is infuriating. The car was supposed to be ready in November!!!! So it seems that there is now a good chance that the engine will have to come back out and at the very least get completely cleaned out. So now it means that I'll miss the Pantera club weekend - a PERFECT venue for breaking in a new motor and get used to a new car. I will also miss the following week's VARA race at Fontana. I had already passed on having the car ready for the February season-opener, but wasn't too broken up about it because of my own schedule (but the princple of it still pissed me off, that a car that was supposed to done in November wasn't ready for the February season opener). But the fact that I'm going to miss the March - MARCH!! - race in a car that was promised - promised! - to be ready in November is so insanely maddening. The moral of the story, no matter how good an engine builder may be (and these guys are good, they have run Fiat X1/9s in SCCA for years, their father was a local Fiat powered legend in SCCA racing in the 60's and 70's), if it is a sideline business (these guys run an auto repair shop), you are at the mercy of their available time.

At the very least, I should have taken the car to a proper race prep shop, had them remove the engine, and take the engine alone to get rebuilt at these guys' shop. The race prep shop would have been much better equipped to deal with the fabrication needs that cropped up as well as doing a better job cleaning out the oil lines (or just replacing it). That way, the engine guys could have had a more focused task of just getting the engine done. Ironically, I did it the way I did it because it seemed like it would save time!! (and the shop said they could do everything). If I had known that there was no way to make that November due date, I would have done things a lot differently, including doing some of the work myself. Save time - painful thought, now!

So now, I don't know what the hell to do. I feel like taking the original blown engine block and find a new shop to rebuild that and start anew. But I am so far down the road with this shop. And any cleaning/repairing of the new engine is will be their responsibility since they either screwed up the rebuild or screwed up the cleaning of the oiling system. Why should I pay to have someone else fix their screwup? And of course, if they do have to take the engine back out of the car and redo any part of the motor, they know full well that that will be on their dime, so what motivation will they have to get it done quickly? (at least they're not arrogant assholle types, who can't admit they've screwed up; they know the blown due dates has been a big screw-up) But if they have to re-do everything? On their dime? Well, I guess THEN I'll see how straight they really are, because that could mean they'll lose a lot of money on this job.

I just want to to do these March track dates!!

It's all PBS's fault!! Why did they have to retire?!! (they still do minor work, like the machine work for my head, but only for long-time clients - PBS sponsored the engine builders' father's car back in the 60's)

What a damn mess.

And I contacted Santos when I was first looking for a rebuilder. They were kind of non-commital about the whole Fiat thing. The guy I spoke to openly admitted to having no real specific expertise with Fiat motors. And I have learned that there are some definate tricks of the trade (the best valve to use is from a Nissan engine, the rod bolts have to be from a certain supplier or they'll just fail in race conditions, etc, etc.). They said they'd do it, but I was more comfortable going with the Fiat 1.3 liter "experts". And they are experts. They just need to buy a damn alarm clock.

 

Well, the crank wasn't damaged, just some scratches on the bearings, so the engine doesn't have to come back out. Guy says that he must not have gotten all the debris from the old engine failure out of the lines. So everything's got to be re-flushed out. Saturday is targeted date, but says Monday at the latest.

So I am signing up for Saxton's thing. He says there's still room in Red and Green. Think he'll let me run in Green but still do the race?!

Cross fingers.

Call me if you want to do the tires!