TheRealLefty

Our Bergsteiger sponsored 944 NA was out in full war paint at the Blue Mountain Region/PHA Jefferson Dash at Summit Point Labor Day weekend.

E Production is a very nice class for NA's. It's like the "best of the big hair 80's". RX7's, Alfa GTV's, E30 325is cars are common. 2.5 liters, roughly 2500 lbs.

My bro and I ran second and fourth repsectively, sharing the car. Class winner was an untouchable super lightweight Alfa. At the end of Saturday I was still within striking range, but on Sunday morning the dude laid down a class track record 58 second run and I was toast at 62.2.

Great fun, cool little road course, great format. Three lap flyers with a half lap warm up. You get three greens and a checkered and you keep your fastest single lap of the weekend.

Pics tell the story. The Alfa and our gang watched each other like hawks all weekend...going out when the other guy did to make sure we didn't give up a good condition run to our rival.

Here's our tongue in cheek event story at the web site of our imaginary sponsor If you are a history and marketing buff, read the "Lies" section of the site. It's a hoot!

http://www.bergsteiger.us/photos

Scootin159

so.... basically it sounds like an auto-x format, but on a full-size track?
where do I sign up?

TheRealLefty

That's about the size of it, Scott. A delightful two days of track attack with something to show for it in terms of winning a class or simply improving your times at a place you come back to over and over again...unlike an autocross which is usually brand new every time out of the box.

The event was officially an SCCA Level 3 Time Trial with associated safety and license requirements. Safety equipment is bascially same as club racing. The PA Hill Climb Association Series (PHA) holds two of these per year as part of their annual schedule.

To my suprise I discovered (this was our first one) that in the Spring they run clockwise and in the Fall they run counterclockwise....thus there are a set of class records in each direction. The course is faster counterclockwise as we ran over Labor Day.

944's fit nicely in E Production. Right out of the box with a good car, but not a fully tubbed lightweight (which is perfectly legal in Production classes) I was running within 2 seconds of the EP track record holder. That is until the freaking Alfa beat his own record again, putting us four seconds in arears.

Our car has a full cage and fiberglass doors, front fascia and hood but still has the factory sunroof, windsheild and hatch. Only major engine mods are a JME Stage 1 cam and a custom one piece exhaust system with a small Flomaster 40 on the back, still OE diameter.

Often, Porsche water cooler folks end up some disadvantageous categories but our crew is pretty excited to build to the EP spec as we now think we can be competitive in the whole PHA hill climb series, which blends some of great old hill climb venues with two Jefferson time trials.

http://www.pahillclimb.org/Schedule.htm

Nice folks and some wild places to race! Downside is SCCA oversight, but there's no free lunch I suppose.

Acetylene

Man, that sounds like a lot of fun!

TheRealLefty

They sometimes launch as many as three cars in sequence depending on your relative speeds. Ideally you stay 1/3 of a lap apart and peel off to Pit In before anyone catches anyone, but it doesn't always work out that way.

On my fastest run, I was yakking with my brother/co-driver as we did a driver switch and I got out of line with my "color group" that puts folks of similar speed together. So I went last in the Orange Group.

They launched two DSR cars that were lightning fast behind me. By my third and fastest lap, they had both caught me and completely unbeknowst to me had their noses up under my butt, turning slow-for-them 59's to my 62 second pass. That's actually proper form to show the steward that you're being held up and need a re-run. Bro half-jokingly thinks that was my ace in the hole, getting a shove down the backstretch through the lights

Owain

Congrats, that's awsome.

What size are those Fuchs? They look great on that car.

333pg333

Hey Lefty, did you ever do any back to back dyno'ing with the different cams?

TheRealLefty

Those Fuchs are long traveled. When I first started to autocross the car, I bought them from George at 944 Ecology for $175 each. They were good condition, round and true 15x8's. They are the jazz for 944 track and autox because you can mount 225/45/15 Hoosiers on them all around. This set improves your rear gear, lowers the car an inch and widens the front track by roughly 12 mm (1/2 inch) on each side in the front. The wheels are 10.6 mm offset, OE rears for early offset factory Fuchs option.

Last season I struggled through all of 2006 with 16's, thinking I needed 245 in the rear, they looked nice (see avatar) but my car was awful with them. Too heavy, too large in overall diameter with the rubber. Sooooo, I went out and bought the 15's back from the guy I sold them to the year before...sorta like what happens when you divorce but keep the house

All good again and the car has handled well all season on one set of Hoosier A6's. Three autox's, a hill climb and this track weekend and still enough rubber to close out the season. I swap them back to front w/ each outing.

As for the cam, no dyno print out....but this Jefferson weekend was really the first time that my "butt dyno" fully appreciated the stick. With a 2000 ft backstretch and 1500 foot front stretch, this course allowed for long two-gear pulls and the cam really showed it could get the motor breathing!