Mid-Ohio pics, news, and vid
 

First of all special thanks to my guys Pat, Duck, Joe, Jeremy, and Jason. We doubled up this past weekend at Mid-Ohio. Taking down 20+ cars in ITS and all 40+ cars in our run group both days. The Ludwig Motorsports/BFH Racing crew finally has the RX-7 tuned up. We now have the striaghtline speed we've lacked the first part of the year. Duck was overheard saying "BMW what?" :D

In five races this year we have 3 wins and a 2nd and 3 poles. We missed the track record at IRP by only 2/10 earlier this year and came within 7/10 of the 12 year old track record at Mid-Ohio this past weekend. Thanks again to all the guys for their hard work!


The vid below is from Saturday morning qualifying. It's just two laps as the camera battery went South on us. We guessed horribly wrong on the setup Saturday and qualified 10th overall. After some work between sessions we clawed our way to the front Saturday. Sunday we put the car on pole and won ITS by over 15s.

http://www.kyrotary.com/rrxp689/midohio04.wmv


And here is a group pic of the RX-7s we paddocked with. From left there is myself, Paul D'Angelo (paulydee on RX-7 Club), Doug Ford, and Bill Denton.

http://www.kyrotary.com/rrxp689/M-OGROUP1.jpg

Hi Chris,
Will any of you guys be at M-O for the Brat bash event 7\30. Seems like I've talked to or sold some parts to each of you over the years. Would be nice to put a face to the voices.
John

:bigthumb:

My in car videos always look slow compared to what your eyes really see. Yours looks fast so you must have been flying! I want to drive Mid-Ohio someday but it's a long haul from Texas. So is Laguna Seca, Watkins Glen, VIR and every other cool track I want to drive :(

Way to carve therough the traffic! :D

Damon, you'll definitely have to schedule a weekend to get up here. I'm fortunate enough to live about an hour away, so I'm over there all the time. Mid-Ohio ranks up there as one of my three absolute favorite tracks (Laguna and Road Atlanta being my other two). Trust me, it's well worth the drive to come up here.

-Rob

Thanks guys. And yes EProd myself and Paul will be at the Brat Bash. Don't think the TN duo will be though. Not sure on everyone else.

Damon, feeling the car squirm around underneath you always makes it feel faster than it looks. We get into turn 1 at M-O at around 100mph. It's a bit of a blind apex and in the car it feels like you're going to drive off the end of the world. On video it's a bit ho-hum IMO. BTW, those two laps are in the 1:47 range. We ended the weekend with a fast lap of 1:44.6. Wish I would of gotten the race action on video!

went in too hot and made the mistake of letting off the throttle too quickly there..
luckily there was enough runoff for me...
;)

it was a great weekend. chris was absolutely flying, especially on sunday.

Nice vid!!!

I'm just curious... were you on 3rd gear on turn1? What rpm range were you in the vid? Was it like 6K to 9K range?

Turn 1 is taken in 4th gear. In the vid we're seeing around 8k before braking for 1. With the 5.12 gear that works out to just a bit over 100mph. We'll see as much as 9000 rpm at certain tracks but the shift point is around 8500.

It looks your tire is 16" but it looks smaller than stock (205/60 15"). It means yours are lower geared than 5.12? And 5th (if I am not mistaken) sounds close to 4th compared to normal FC's 5th. Do you have cross ratio gears?

Wow, excellent driving there! You floated through the turns with minmum fuss, and were passing people without losing your good lines too. When that Neon blocked you I said to myself, "This won't last long" and zip! you easily drove past him into that right-hander. Good work.

Thanks for the vid!

Kiyoshi,

We run 225/45 tires on a 15" rim (the biggest rim we can run by the rules.) The stock 5th gear ratio is .756 (compared to 4th being 1 to 1). The GTUs fifth gear is .697

I added a car power adapter for the camera to my car. Never have any camera battery charge concerns. I also like using a wide angle adapter lens. Puts me in the picture so I can review my driving, and lets you see more of the side-by-side action.

I'm going to see if I can interleave a lap of your video with mine, to help me see where/why you're faster. Should be interesting.

When you changed your setup, do you know if there are particular spots you picked up speed, or just generally all over?

Paul's correct except that the .756 OD gear is the GTUs gear. The other 2nd gen NA gears are .711 in 86 only and the .697. Sure Paul just made a typo. With a stock 4.10 gear we would use 2nd, 3rd, and 4th at most tracks. With the 5.12 gear you use 3rd, 4th, and 5th. The GTUs OD gear becomes pretty much mandatory with the 5.12 gear. The advantage of the 5.12 is that in using the taller gears in the tranny the gear spacing is tighter.

Marty, I've looked at power adapters for the camera but they plug into the bottom of the camera where it mounts to the car. So it's a no go. I didn't research enough before buying this thing. It was just cheap on ebay. :) I was looking at a wideangle lense for it the other day. Might have to pick one up.

And Marty we just had a huge loose condition Saturday morning. Words can't describe. :) I'd thrown something on the car at the shop before we left and it didn't work at all. We just put it back where we'd baselined there last year and away we went.

I stand corrected. It seems I was reading the Spec sheet backwards.

Trailing Bimmer driver: "I kept waiting for you to lose it so I could take the lead but you just kept saving it."