mark kibort

Great weekend of racing.
Scots car and the Holbert machine worked almost flawless on Saturday. Scot had to start at the back of the 66 car field and after a 5th place qualifying, i was on grid saturday morning when the 5 min board was shown, i had forgot my helmet (rookie mistake!). had to drive back to the pits way up on the hill (paddock was crowded like a pro event), made it back in time to start in the rear of the pack. to add agony to injury, the added miatas in the back, decieded to do their OWN split grid! anyway, i got by all of them before start finish and then had to start picking off about 55 cars. i made it up to 7th place and the corvette ended up in 4th behind the camaro, M3 and supercharged S2000 who were all running good times in the 1:49 range . (track was a little slick for all).
I actually had a mechanical issue with howling wheel bearing on the driver side that just made a racket on all right turns. fortunately, i had a spare kind of new/used one. it was the inner that was really grindy, i changed that and the outer without changing the races. used some high temp grease that the mazdas guys pitting next to us had. worked perfect, fixing the vibration and noise.

Qualifying on sunday AM went pretty well. qualified 5th again, but this time ahead of the Vet. With the GT3Cup car missing qualifying (there was another wild card, a 1:49.xx honda Speed Touring type car).
I was now going to be on the grid in 5th behind the camero, while the BMW and S2000 shared the front row.

RACE ON SUNDAY. As the flag dropped the 395rwhp vet pulled ahead and now i was backed up by traffic and a pro in the T1 vet was knocking hard at my door. I did my best to drive wide and hold my line, as he almost got ahead. fortunately, he didnt and was able to pressure Rob Wardrow in the Vet for most of the race. toward the end i had a few places were i was getting a run but no where to really make a move. Then, a pretty nasty spin from a lapped car in the blind area of turn 4 . the vet almost hit him and i really came close to hitting him. with yellows waving, i was the first to get the jump off the next corner and now was in the lead. we could see the next few cars but with only a couple of laps left, thats how it ended.
The Vet and i are in the lead for the points, but now, only 2 points separate him. At this rate, the S2000 could get within 6 points of us, and if there are any more stupid mistakes or mechanicals, its anyone's championship for 2007. we ran almost the exact same time, of 1:49.7 and our qualifying was near .005 seconds off from one another. all the top 7 cars were within a second of each other.

scot hung in there and had a great race and pretty heated battle of his own, and ended up 7th running a 1:54.xx (1:53.7 best).

The announcer came up to us afterward thanking us for the racing, as it was the closest of the SCCA weekend and said he had a blast calling race. He got a lot of mileage out of our 928 grass roots racing story with the all the SCCA officials during their social event.

Mk

svp928

Way to go Mark and Scott!

IcemanG17

MK
Nice......the good news is the S/C S2000 is VERY loud.....it will never pass noise at laguna without some serious mufflers....so that opens the door for you more..... So the ??? remains...will the S2000 engine hold together for the rest of the season & will the additional mufflers cost him so much power that you guys can beat him?

928autobahndreamer

Did you have the camera in the car for both races? I would love to see the race where you had to pick off 55 cars over the course of the race. Way to go Mark.

mark kibort

Hey, Thanks for coming out!

Yes, that's a good point. anything we can take off on the power of the S2000, the better the chance we will have. Interesting enough, he is not quite as fast at Laguna seca. The 928 is best suited for Laguna, and i dont think there is any question there. at thunderhill, the first 8 turns, severly favor the S2000 or light and powerful cars. Laguna, doesnt have the handling challenges that the tight tracks have. However, the S2000 is fast enough now to make me wonder if I can catch him, even there. However, get this, the first race has a 101db sound restriction for our practice, qual and race, only loosening up for the last race to 103. I need to put a 2.5" opening muffler to assure i make 101, however, a turn down gets me generally to 99db but i have to be sure. I wonder what the s2000 will have to do, and will that hurt his power or maybe increase the exhaust temps from back pressure to the point where that can be an issue?

The big issue here is beating the Vet more than he beats me at my home track over the next 4 scoring races! Too bad we are such good friends now, i cant even dislike my competition, even a little!! what a sport! Its pretty funny, the entire ITE group has become pretty frendly over the past few years.

MK

mark kibort

yes, i did .
The first race is good for lots of passes, the second is good if you like looking at the rear of a corvette, up close.

Ill have to get that video on youtube.

Mark

krazik

My car is only 101 db with the current muffler. I have another one that is 94 db that doesn't lose any power but weighs 8 lbs more.

I'll be fine (sound wise) for laguna.

BTW mark (only 1 engine this year for me *knock on wood*)

kjslider

Would it have made a difference if I brought the Evo?

mark kibort

Hey Kent, i thought you retired racing after reaching the top!
No, but i think it may have mattered to Rylan!

mk

mark kibort

I dont know, everyone was saying you were the loudest one out there. Did you get a sound check this weekend with the blower?
mine is 101 in its current state, but sometimes i get into the 102db range, LIKE you did!! (didnt you see you sound advisory on the qual? that means 102.xx)

did you dyno the 94db muffler? when i do the 94db muffler, i loose 5hp.

We hope your engine is fine with the extra stress. I guess if Kent can run 100more hp, you should be fine. the only difference is that engine is built for boost, and has a lower compression, i would imagine. but 5psi vs 25psi should give you some safety margin.

what do you mean about the one engine thing? If i remember, didnt you drive to Sacramento and pick up an engine and put it in at the track with your new cherry picker at Sears April 1st? So, you mean 2 engines this year.

AND dont use the knock on wood trick. I have rights to that right now!!
(6 seasons, 90 race days!! (20 year old engine, no bolts turned on it.
Knock knock!!!!)

Mk

krazik

Yes I blew the motor I had ran for the previous 3 years on the test day before the first event of the year and then I went to sac to get a new junkyard one and thats what I have been running.

And yup I checked my sound readings. I do every event.

I'm only runing 5.5 lbs of boost, my stock motor can handle 9lbs before I need to start changing internals.

-Ry

krazik

Of course, I would have finished 2nd. BTW driving around seconds in front of 2nd place is pretty boring. I don't know how you could do it for 2 years and actually bother to show up.

mark kibort

Youre probably not going to get many takers on that incar video either.
wasnt it more fun when you were near someone with matched performance?

Rob and I had one of the closest battles ive had since laguna 2 years ago (smith, prall , matesso, and Gavin). I was WORKED when i got out of the car.
I dont think there was one lap where I even let up for a second!

Turn up the boost a little more, and you can have a season of time trialing like Kent did!

I dont think ive ever had a race where i just knew i was going to win. the jitters before, planning out the start strategy, making sure you are consistant, keeping control, etc, all is what make "Racing " such a blast. If i just got in a 6.5 liter stroker engine in my 928 and ran 1:34s at laguna, what fun would that be??????? hmmmm........... see me in 2008.

by the way, you were only a second or so faster for much of the race while we were in battle traffic. 1:48.7 is quick, but my car can do a 1:48.0. I just wonder if the track was the issue (which would make you faster too) or was it my engine just being 90hours of racing old, tired. )

mk

krazik

BTW mark I was crunching points to see where I stood and after adding in this weekend's finishes and calculating drops Wardlow is ahead by 2 points.

He had a 0pt finish at laguna and you had a 4pt finish (13th) at thill. So that means he has 192 points to your 190 . I have 160 now and randy is at 158.

Jusyt FYI.

-Ry

krazik

315hp, 195ftlbs and 2600 lbs. You guys just need to learn to drive better I still have the lowest power of all of us. I plan to make a video of some of the excitement lapping traffic, but no, the video is boring.

Yes you and I have had battles like that in years past too. That's what racing is about and the other half of why I come out. I come to win -and- race.

Bah, I'm working on plans to turn the boost down. Because I want to race you guys and if you can't keep up now then I'll make adjustments.

If you put a stroker in I'll add boost to keep us close.

Ask anyone who was watching how much wheel spin I had in T2, 4, 7 and 11. had my car actually been handling halfway decently I would have been a lot faster. I did 48.0 in Sunday qual and was atleast .7 seconds a lap faster than anyone one track in every session of the weekend and once I had a decent lead I slowed way down. Not to mention my car was a handful in the 2nd race.

Laguna will be interesting because sears is such a handling over hp track that I had a big advantage there. Laguna won't be the same. I'm figuring the next 4 races should be very interesting.

-Ry