IPC

Great job by everyone this past weekend. I am sorry I missed it. I would have loved to see Mark M spin or at least been a thorn in his side. I guess you will be safe Mark, as I will be in SP2. See you guy's next race

84-944

You're very welcome and you did great! I was surprised to see you dicing it up as hard as you did during the fun race but you were clean and left enough room where necessary. Your go kart experience was obvious and I'll be watching your back bumper disappear in front of me soon enough!

Congrats on getting your license and welcome to the club.

Brian.

P.S. Remember to shift at the start!!!

MarkM

It was a great weekend! I turned 140's all weekend, but didn't quite break into the 39's.

I have to say I did have my 'best' spin ever, which included two wheels up in the air about 3 feet. I thought It was going over. The corner workers in 10a stopped by the paddock and congratulatedme on the save. I guess that is saying someting.

Brian, I'm sorry you didn't get that on tape.

Anyway I learned alot on Saturday. Mostly, that I need to take the emotion out of racing, as that is when I get my self into trouble.

Sunday was great race too. I started on the back row (about 60th) and finished 6th.

See you guys next time!

mm86911

E-Class

Here's my soap opera. . . . discovered earlier in the week that my limited slip was spent. Oh well - no time to rebuild, just go race and make the best of it.

- Practice 2 - fastest time in class with 1:39.3

- Practice 3 - traffic in paddock prevented gridding 6 (new rule, loosely enforced, about having helmets on before entering grid - wish they had told someone about this - my helmet was on) - forced to start in back, no hot laps

- Qualifying - gridded 35, qualified 2nd with 1:39.5 in traffic. Doug Roach was 1st in class with 1:38.9!

- Race - started 6 overall right behind Roach. several C, D and E class cars behind me. A bit slow on the start and let some C cars pass after lap 1. Time to reel in the 1st place qualifier. . . got close but too aggressive and over heated the tires. All 4 tires off in the grass after track-out on 12 - boy that wall was close! Safe recovery and held position. Oil in the Esses, coated tires, lost position on back straight. Frustrated as all setbacks so far are MY error. Fell back as far 6 in class but after attrition and DQs I ended up 2nd. Ran several 1:39xs during the race - the track is definitely good for low 1:38 or 1:37 on a good day.

Congrats to Derek (#333) in the 944T winning E-class!

Cris Brady

What's this? You're not allowed to have your helmet on before you're on the grid? Where that come from? Its not in the rule book. And you get sent to the back of the grid? I usually come to the grid fully prepared, harnessed on but loose, HANS and helmet on, misc things plugged in depending, such as water/radio. With all the safety gear - HANS, full containment seat, side nets, etc - and no pit lane crew, this rule would be a royal pain.

mm86911

No, they we requiring drivers to have helmet on BEFORE entering grid. Problem was they never announced this, hence hold-up for people to gear-up at grid entrance. Funny thing is they didn't enforce it the rest of the weekend. I was fully set but got stuck in traffic due to this.

Chris M.

Yeah where's the video?

IPC

Hey Mark, I will race you to :39's. Looks like I am going to have my work cut out for me. All the guy's in the :44's now.

Lemming

Results have been placed on the PCA site, looks like some fast times were posted.

Cris Brady

Ah, thanks for the update. Seems a silly rule, if you're not ready to go when they release the grid, you should sit there and watch the rest of the pack head out per normal procedure. Only will take one time to cure you of that habit.

And if you're going to make a rule like that it stands to reason that you need to publicize it pretty good in the supps, the drivers mtg, etc otherwise you'll end up with exactly the traffic jam you described. Which is probably why it wasn't enforced the rest of the weekend.

analogmike

Wow those results were put up fast.

Top four E class cars qualified faster than D for some reason, I was 3rd. I raced carefully as I am on probation, but made it up to the lead by midrace. Swapped the lead with Doug Roach several times due to traffic, he was just ahead when the checker came out. My car ended up doing fine on the long straight as the cars I was battling (Doug and MM) have W I D E 911 turbo bodies with a lot more drag. They would pull me out of T8 (more torque) but I could catch them by 5th gear, and get to T10 earlier in my skinny RS. But I could not brake as well so I could not pass them in the braking zone easily. Got a great video of mm86911's off track excursion after T12 as described above, he did a GREAT job keeping it on the track, I was really worried.

Doug's car and the RS America that was behind me were underweight (scales were reading about 30 pounds lighter than at Sebring I think). My car was ok on weight so I thought I was 1st in E class. But they moved me to GT4S due to missing glovebox door and mats (see Bruce Anderson's book, the '73 RS did not have these) and missing lower dash pad (my bad). And my permatune CD box came out of a 1975 911 so they said it was a later model box and not legal. I thought I was in the twilight zone as my car has passed scrutineering in this configuration (including compression ratio, cams, etc) since 1998.

A few days later they realized that stock rule 1M allows the permatune box so I did end up with the win in E after all

MarkM

Mike, it was good to meet you, your car looked great.

I think the scales were screwy too. I weighed my car after every session on Friday. At the end of the day, and with a totaly empty fuel tank, I was 5 lbs short. Before the sprint race on Saturday, I topped off my stock 22 gal tank. Somehow after the race, with well over 1/2 tank left, I was 42 lbs light. Big DQ instead of a second place. Then on Sunday, most of the cars came in heavy. Seams fishy.

I agree the scruits were pretty **** this weekend too. If they are going to tighten up like that I think notes in the logbook would have been better than re-classing people on the spot. Carpet, seatbacks, heater motors are not performance items, and making people fix them for the next race seems a reasonable approach. Several cars that have been racing for a while were bumped.

Mike, if you are switching out that CD box let's talk, I need to get back to G!

RSRRacer

SMACK SMACK, SMACKSMACKSMACK

Just had to do that given the title of this post.

mm86911

Mike - sorry about the reclass - you certainly drove a great race! PCA is gonna have to make some changes to the stock class rules. Another E-class car (LB's) was running with stock fuel tank and he was required to reinstall the factory carpeting in the trunk to stay in E stock - can you say safety hazard?

Any chance you can post the video of my recovery after T12?

84-944

[QUOTE=MarkM]Mike, it was good to meet you, your car looked great.

I think the scales were screwy too. I weighed my car after every session on Friday. At the end of the day, and with a totaly empty fuel tank, I was 5 lbs short. Before the sprint race on Saturday, I topped off my stock 22 gal tank. Somehow after the race, with well over 1/2 tank left, I was 42 lbs light. Big DQ instead of a second place. Then on Sunday, most of the cars came in heavy. Seams fishy.

The scales were not accurate. I weighed before leaving for the track and my weight matched to the pound with my finish at NASA a week earlier. I bolted in an additional 43 lb weight and a filled the tank till it over flowed for the enduro because of their scales.

I even rolled off and back on only to come up 45lbs different.

At PCA events, the only scales that count are PCA's.

No offense meant...just the way it is.