John Anderson

What a great weekend!! We were at willow springs again this weekiend (thats two weekends in a row up there)for the TCRA event.
We arrived early friday afternoon to get everything set up for the weekend and to start doing a few adjustments to the suspension and some tuning to the motor.

Huntley Racing showed up sometime around 10:30pm that night. We were excited, finally, a race between the two teams was about to be a reality!!

Saturday morning and the call for the first practice session..It was close, our times were almost identical between Huntley Racing and Anderson Motorworks, I was a little nervous, but I also knew we had some adjustments to make..so we calmed down and stuck to the plan...tune the car, and just get it ready for the qualifying session later in the day.

We run another practice session...and the car is getting much better, the handling is really starting to show and the car is sticking pretty good. I kept tuning, wanting everybit we could get. I knew Huntley was there to race and they had a built 914/6 and a 951 they were throwing against us.

Qualifying round. Derrek ends up a position behind us, and Ikes 914/6 is not racing. After a warm up lap, the green flag drops...Derreks takes to the dirt on the far side of the track to gain a position on our car...he keeps the lead on us until round three, we are all over him ...not able to do enough damage on the straights and pull away from us, I knew it was just time until we pass Derrek...he is a very good defensive driver, Neal backs off, and on lap three, Neal and Derrek are screaming down the straight, diving into turn #1 very hard, Derreks goes wide and off track...Neal makes his break and puts Derrek behind him...

Now we are gaining on another 951...and we take him about lap 9 and start to close in on the Vette. on the last lap the 951 takes his position back, so we finish the race in fourth place.

1-Don Dicker, 996
2-2002 Vette
3-951
4-Anderson Motorworks 84 944 NA

Sunday we only drive in practice session two, to get the car ready...we are off the track in five laps. The car is ready!

call to grid for the race, HUntley Racing left early in the day to head home, and the other 951 dropped out due to valve problems...so we are now in the three spot, behind the Vette and the 996 taking the lead.

THe green flag drops and we get a good start, quickly leaving the traffic behind. By lap three, We pass the vette, and that leaves the 996 in front...we know we can't catch him, so Neal just keeps his position for the remainder of the race..and we finish 2nd in GT3, and 5TH overall.

It was a great weekend!!!

1-Don Dicker 996
2-Anderson Motorworks 84 944na
3-2002 Vette

Very fun time!!!

"see you at the track"!!!!

Huntley Racing

We enjoyed running this weekend at Willow. The Touring Car Club is a great organization to run with, especially with a new driver since they have many slower groups to build confidence in a new driver. We brought up Chris Williams daily driver (a 87' 951 with HR-MAF, HR-Coil-overs and the required safety equipment, booming stereo system too!!), the Huntley Racing HSR 916/6 2.0 ltr, and Tony Garcia came with his daily driver (88' 951 with big turbo/MAF and HR-Coil-overs). Chris ran in the time trial group with Tony and I drove Chris's car in the Red Race group. Ike ran in the Purple race group for 2.2 ltr and lower cars. I was amazed how well Chris's daily driver did against Anderson's full-blown racecar! With a 900+ lb advantage, 275 Hoosiers on big 17" rims, stiff chassis with a full cage, low center of weight etc... the Anderson car was only a few tenths of a second faster all weekend! The other surprise was seeing our little 2.0 ltr 914 pass the Anderson 3.1 ltr on the front straight like they were chained down!! Our 914/6 was in 2nd place in it's race group on Saturday until a poorly driven Opal tagged us in the left corner and broke the car for the weekend <img src="graemlins/cussing.gif" border="0" alt="[grrrrrrr]" /> . Chris's car was cooking the tires off it because they were so small and the car was so heavy but we continued to run-what-we-brung until those old water hoses he said 'will go a little longer', didn't!! We popped the hood to a 20 ft geyser out of this tiny pin sized hole <img src="graemlins/c.gif" border="0" alt="[ouch]" /> . Tony was running 3rd place overall in the BLUE group on Saturday turning 1:42 laps but his street tires started chunking so he stayed home Sunday. Chris climbed up to a 1:41, not bad for his first time out!! He had a massive OFF in turn nine spinning outside then back around inside at well over 100 MPH making his car a new shade of desert brown instead of silver <img src="graemlins/burnout.gif" border="0" alt="[burnout]" /> . Ike turned a 1:33 lap in the 914/6. I turned a 1:34 lap in Chris's car. So with lots of good track time under our belts, an officially banished Opal driver <img src="graemlins/wave.gif" border="0" alt="[byebye]" /> , a little less fiberglass on our 914 than we came with <img src="graemlins/cussing.gif" border="0" alt="[grrrrrrr]" /> , a couple gallons less coolant <img src="graemlins/c.gif" border="0" alt="[ouch]" /> , and a couple of bottles less Vodka <img src="graemlins/drink.gif" border="0" alt="[cherrsagai]" /> , we headed home. I'm just wondering what Anderson is going to do when our regular race car, the Boxster runs against him in the same GT3 class!?!? Or if we really want to mess with him we could jump the 914/6 2.0 ltr up from the -2.2 ltr class to the +3.0 ltr class just to mess with him!! <img src="graemlins/burnout.gif" border="0" alt="[burnout]" />

GhettoRacer

nice reports guys. sounds fun. what were the lap times for the 944 NA car?

Tim Comeau

Lap times? In a word, "respectable." During the cars first outing in Oct., I turned a 1:33.7, 1:33.8, and 1:33.9. The ambient temp. was in the mid 80's. We were on 225's and 245's. Our team received many nice comments,which was both encouraging and appreciated. 2 weekends ago, again with the POC, it was cold. Only 40 degrees at 10 AM! The best we could do was a 1:35.xx. After Neal Wright's engine let go(NOT an Anderson Motorworks engine), we had the opportunity to bolt on Neal's 275's all around! I dropped 2 seconds almost immediately. My best lap in the "Little gold thunder cloud"(Man, is that 3.1 liter with side pipes loud!)was a 1:33.5 in Sunday's Cup race. I've been a 911 driver since 1984, so I'm still adjusting to the different Porsche platform, but I imagine the car, if driven optimally, will go at least 1 second faster as it is right now. I brought all the lap time sheets for the entire weekend, for myself as well as everyone in my class, back to Anderson Motorworks. With John Anderson's constant attention and tuning, Neal's driving input, and ultimately, my driving effort, the timing sheets show that we got more and more efficient. We were extremely pleased to see not only the continual progress, but also the fact that we hadn't plateaued yet. Can't wait to do further testing for next year's POC racing season! The future's so bright... TC

JackOlsen

Wow. 133 in a normally-aspirated 944 is pretty awesome. A 133 would be a 'respectable' time for most 951's.

GhettoRacer

1:33's are impressive! so this is a 3.1 NA? curiously how much power (ball park) is it making and what's the race weight?

John Anderson

Right now I would "guess" the power to be at 220 rear wheel with the same or slightly more (10lbs) torque. This is based on our dyno tuning before the very first session at willow that showed just over 200 at the tires. Since then I have added headers and a MAF conversion. Now we have much better tuning of the fuel vs just adjusting the FPR, and the added benefit of the open intake of the MAF vs the barn door flapper.

I'm working on a head right now that will be installed for next season. We are keeping the stock valve size, but the valve seat/port has a little room to take some material out and get better flow. Titanium valves with smaller stems, custom valve springs, titanium retainers, exhaust porting, some intake port work....this should add quite a bit to the power. Right now we are a using a bone stock head. Infact its soo stock, it came right off a core engine and I installed it on our new 3.1 in the race car without even a freshening rebuild.

Theres room for advancement on this engine, and we are doing what we can to improve on it.

Edit: The car weighs 2245lbs.


Take Care!

Craig W.

220 HP at the wheels, and ~2200 pounds, all on 275's?

What's the suspension like? Rear wing?

That can break the 1:30 barrier IMO.

JackOlsen

Yeah, it's a good number, but I was assuming you has less power and more weight. With 220 RWHP in a 2245 pound car, you've still got some room to improve. My street car weighs 200 pounds more than that and has (slightly) less power -- and I ran mid 1:32s the last time I was at Willow.

Then I crashed the car at Laguna. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Huntley Racing

I agree. The power to weight numbers dictate a much faster lap than what the car is doing. With a 3150# car with 290 HP we turned a 1:34.2 on stock rims with small tires which is more in line with the capabilities of the car. Our 914/6 2.0 turned a similar time with 190 HP and 2000+ Lbs of weight on small tires.

John Anderson

I know there are faster times available for the car. Tim is getting very comfortable behind the wheel, and I believe, is driving it pretty good. Both Neal and Tim believe the car has more to give. But to date, we have never had the car on an alignment rack. We have been using the strings, as taught to me by Jay Lee at Mirage International. We had the tape measure out for ride height...I think we did ok like that, but I would love to get it corner balanced and aligned.

We are young and learning every time out. But so far, things look pretty good. And, with the addition of Neal Wrights red 944 to our team (we are turbo charging it right now), we should have a great couple cars out there next year. It'll be fun watching Tim and Neal dice with each other in the same group.

Take Care!

Huntley Racing

We will have two cars running in POC R5 next year too, the HR 914/6 2.0 ltr driven by Ike Bruckman and the HR 911 3.0 ltr driven by Rodger Lai. Both cars have lots of room to grow in that class points wise too. Should be fun. The Boxster will run against the GT3RS cars in POC R1. The yet to be finished HR/CMW EVO GT2 4.0 ltr TT car will run in the top class and is being built to win the Tribute to Le Mans next year with a few hot shoe drivers.

JackOlsen

I don't want to sound too critical. You made the podium for your class, so you're definitely doing something right. And anything below 1:35 at Willow is an exhilerating experience, to say the least.

John Anderson

Thanks Jack!

Your input is appreciated :-) We will definately keep at it and get faster. Thats the point right!

Are you going to be turning that 1972 911 3.6 coupe into a racer?

Take Care!

JackOlsen

Thanks. The 72 911T is the replacement body for the 73 911T that I've been driving for the past two years -- right up to the crash last month at Laguna. Now, all the good stuff will go into the 72 body, along with a few improvements. My goal is to break the 1:30 barrier at Willow with the new version of the car in March.

But it won't be turned into a dedicated track car. I don't trailer it, so it's got to have air condiitoning. I'm going to be adding a cage, in addition to a fire safety system, but it's still a car that's just for the fun of ten or so track events per year.

Right now, I like not having to build to a particular group's specs for a particular class. If I want to add a C2 motor, custom-made wheels and a big-*** wing, there's no penalty. I may one day to a track-purpose car, but this one isn't going to be it, unless some group is willing to let me in with all my tricks and mods intact.


Here's the sad story of November 10, in pictures:



And <a href="http://bender.annenberg.edu/cars/pelican/JackOlsen/Laguna_Seca_Crash_11-10-02.html" target="_blank">here's a web page</a> devoted to that one really unfortunate lap.