NASA National Championships
Don't think so. I was about to start a thread as well. Wish I could of made it but Uncle Sam had other plans for me. Hopefully next year. Enjoyed watching all my buddies in PT, ST, and TT the last couple of days via the live internet broadcast. Congrats to my Southeast buddy Scott Perkins... who won the PTA National Championship with a hole in piston number 5... now THAT is impressive 
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Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 321
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From: SFBay
Let's not talk about motor issues... my C6 is at the dealership and is likely to be there for a while. Rod or main bearing issues in the LS2 -- here's hoping the GMPP extended warranty was worth the money. My RX7 still needs the 13BT looked at but it's stuck waiting for TLC on the rest of the car before that can happen... there's been some progress there, at least, even if minor. Just ordered reman calipers from RockAuto, Mazdaspeed wanted near $1k for them, the Raybestos reman were something like $150.
My Tahoe won't idle and stalls even while rolling if the revs drop below about 800rpm. A 5700# hunk with no power steering is exciting. My Miata hasn't had a battery in it for a couple of years and needs a smog to be legal. Etc. Etc.
I'm not having a good vehicle week++. :-( :-) :-/ And here I sit watching the NASA Championships thinking that the RX7 & I should have been doing that for several years now...
sperkins tore it up. I watched the reply on SpeedcastTV this morning. 1-2-3 sweep for C5Zs in PTA; they all run 275 square tire set ups! The ST2 Mustang challenging for overall was insane to watch.
Let's not talk about motor issues... my C6 is at the dealership and is likely to be there for a while. Rod or main bearing issues in the LS2 -- here's hoping the GMPP extended warranty was worth the money. My RX7 still needs the 13BT looked at but it's stuck waiting for TLC on the rest of the car before that can happen... there's been some progress there, at least, even if minor. Just ordered reman calipers from RockAuto, Mazdaspeed wanted near $1k for them, the Raybestos reman were something like $150.
My Tahoe won't idle and stalls even while rolling if the revs drop below about 800rpm. A 5700# hunk with no power steering is exciting. My Miata hasn't had a battery in it for a couple of years and needs a smog to be legal. Etc. Etc.
I'm not having a good vehicle week++. :-( :-) :-/ And here I sit watching the NASA Championships thinking that the RX7 & I should have been doing that for several years now...
Let's not talk about motor issues... my C6 is at the dealership and is likely to be there for a while. Rod or main bearing issues in the LS2 -- here's hoping the GMPP extended warranty was worth the money. My RX7 still needs the 13BT looked at but it's stuck waiting for TLC on the rest of the car before that can happen... there's been some progress there, at least, even if minor. Just ordered reman calipers from RockAuto, Mazdaspeed wanted near $1k for them, the Raybestos reman were something like $150.
My Tahoe won't idle and stalls even while rolling if the revs drop below about 800rpm. A 5700# hunk with no power steering is exciting. My Miata hasn't had a battery in it for a couple of years and needs a smog to be legal. Etc. Etc.
I'm not having a good vehicle week++. :-( :-) :-/ And here I sit watching the NASA Championships thinking that the RX7 & I should have been doing that for several years now...
That's a bummer man! I saw your thread on CF yesterday
Hopefully your GMPP covers you as it should. I can't imagine it won't. They've been really good about taking care of things. Maybe even get an LS3 out it Keep the faith on the racecar. You'll still have many of years to race it once you are able to get it done. Hopefully no more getting jerked around by crappy mechanics.
We scored a 2nd place in PTD class this past weekend. Ben Anderson drove my 89 RX-7 non-turbo. There were 12 cars registered in our class and 9 started the championship race. This was our first time at Mid-O and while Ben has enormous natural talent the combination of trying to learn in the rain one session then in the dry the next made for slow progress on Thursday and Friday. In the Friday race we got collected in a spin in front of us and we spent the better part of Saturday making repairs which ended up being fairly minor and tweaking the setup.
After repairs were completed and I got the alignment dialed back in, the open run session on Saturday evening was invaluable in tweaking the car setup and giving Ben valuable seat time in the dry (something hard to come by on thursday and friday).
Sunday morning in warmup Ben turned the fastest PTD lap of the weekend up to that point. A 1:40.7. We seemed to have everyone in the esses and under braking being we were running super sticky Hoosier A6 tires. And we were crushing people in turn 1 as this was the only corner on the whole track where the car was dead in the middle of the engines power band. We really missed the gearing setup for this track badly. The stock non-turbo RX-7 gears are fairly worthless and on this track they are downright awful. Even with a 5:12 we would have been in tough shape with the stock trans ratios. What is really needed to compete in this class is a miata gearset or a jerico (if you can afford the points) and perhaps a couple different options for final drive ratios. Or an engine swap. We were getting pulled HUGE out of the keyhole by every car in PTD.
All that being said Ben ended up driving a flawless Championship race. We started 6th in class because of the mishap on friday and due to a horrible start (my fault, i missed the green flag call) he fell back to last place into the first turn. He passed 4 cars in the opening lap and then settled into 5th behind a 4door BMW. It took him about 4 laps to get around the bimmer because he had no grunt off the corners onto the straights. So he would loose 6-8 car lengths down the long back straight and make it all up under braking only to be stuck behind the BMW for the rest of the course all the way back to the key hole. Finally the BMW made a mistake into the China Beach turn and he was able to get around and move into P4.
The rest of the race was him turning consistent race pace laps and having a little luck with people going off and in one case breaking stuff in the process. We got beat by a ridiculously fast honda civic si driven by a very experienced driver. Probably not classed correctly being he has about 20 more WHP than everyone else in class, and far better gearing with that stock 6-speed.
What a fantastic course, and what a great event. We will definitely be back.
After repairs were completed and I got the alignment dialed back in, the open run session on Saturday evening was invaluable in tweaking the car setup and giving Ben valuable seat time in the dry (something hard to come by on thursday and friday).
Sunday morning in warmup Ben turned the fastest PTD lap of the weekend up to that point. A 1:40.7. We seemed to have everyone in the esses and under braking being we were running super sticky Hoosier A6 tires. And we were crushing people in turn 1 as this was the only corner on the whole track where the car was dead in the middle of the engines power band. We really missed the gearing setup for this track badly. The stock non-turbo RX-7 gears are fairly worthless and on this track they are downright awful. Even with a 5:12 we would have been in tough shape with the stock trans ratios. What is really needed to compete in this class is a miata gearset or a jerico (if you can afford the points) and perhaps a couple different options for final drive ratios. Or an engine swap. We were getting pulled HUGE out of the keyhole by every car in PTD.
All that being said Ben ended up driving a flawless Championship race. We started 6th in class because of the mishap on friday and due to a horrible start (my fault, i missed the green flag call) he fell back to last place into the first turn. He passed 4 cars in the opening lap and then settled into 5th behind a 4door BMW. It took him about 4 laps to get around the bimmer because he had no grunt off the corners onto the straights. So he would loose 6-8 car lengths down the long back straight and make it all up under braking only to be stuck behind the BMW for the rest of the course all the way back to the key hole. Finally the BMW made a mistake into the China Beach turn and he was able to get around and move into P4.
The rest of the race was him turning consistent race pace laps and having a little luck with people going off and in one case breaking stuff in the process. We got beat by a ridiculously fast honda civic si driven by a very experienced driver. Probably not classed correctly being he has about 20 more WHP than everyone else in class, and far better gearing with that stock 6-speed.
What a fantastic course, and what a great event. We will definitely be back.
We scored a 2nd place in PTD class this past weekend. Ben Anderson drove my 89 RX-7 non-turbo. There were 12 cars registered in our class and 9 started the championship race. This was our first time at Mid-O and while Ben has enormous natural talent the combination of trying to learn in the rain one session then in the dry the next made for slow progress on Thursday and Friday. In the Friday race we got collected in a spin in front of us and we spent the better part of Saturday making repairs which ended up being fairly minor and tweaking the setup.
After repairs were completed and I got the alignment dialed back in, the open run session on Saturday evening was invaluable in tweaking the car setup and giving Ben valuable seat time in the dry (something hard to come by on thursday and friday).
Sunday morning in warmup Ben turned the fastest PTD lap of the weekend up to that point. A 1:40.7. We seemed to have everyone in the esses and under braking being we were running super sticky Hoosier A6 tires. And we were crushing people in turn 1 as this was the only corner on the whole track where the car was dead in the middle of the engines power band. We really missed the gearing setup for this track badly. The stock non-turbo RX-7 gears are fairly worthless and on this track they are downright awful. Even with a 5:12 we would have been in tough shape with the stock trans ratios. What is really needed to compete in this class is a miata gearset or a jerico (if you can afford the points) and perhaps a couple different options for final drive ratios. Or an engine swap. We were getting pulled HUGE out of the keyhole by every car in PTD.
All that being said Ben ended up driving a flawless Championship race. We started 6th in class because of the mishap on friday and due to a horrible start (my fault, i missed the green flag call) he fell back to last place into the first turn. He passed 4 cars in the opening lap and then settled into 5th behind a 4door BMW. It took him about 4 laps to get around the bimmer because he had no grunt off the corners onto the straights. So he would loose 6-8 car lengths down the long back straight and make it all up under braking only to be stuck behind the BMW for the rest of the course all the way back to the key hole. Finally the BMW made a mistake into the China Beach turn and he was able to get around and move into P4.
The rest of the race was him turning consistent race pace laps and having a little luck with people going off and in one case breaking stuff in the process. We got beat by a ridiculously fast honda civic si driven by a very experienced driver. Probably not classed correctly being he has about 20 more WHP than everyone else in class, and far better gearing with that stock 6-speed.
What a fantastic course, and what a great event. We will definitely be back.
After repairs were completed and I got the alignment dialed back in, the open run session on Saturday evening was invaluable in tweaking the car setup and giving Ben valuable seat time in the dry (something hard to come by on thursday and friday).
Sunday morning in warmup Ben turned the fastest PTD lap of the weekend up to that point. A 1:40.7. We seemed to have everyone in the esses and under braking being we were running super sticky Hoosier A6 tires. And we were crushing people in turn 1 as this was the only corner on the whole track where the car was dead in the middle of the engines power band. We really missed the gearing setup for this track badly. The stock non-turbo RX-7 gears are fairly worthless and on this track they are downright awful. Even with a 5:12 we would have been in tough shape with the stock trans ratios. What is really needed to compete in this class is a miata gearset or a jerico (if you can afford the points) and perhaps a couple different options for final drive ratios. Or an engine swap. We were getting pulled HUGE out of the keyhole by every car in PTD.
All that being said Ben ended up driving a flawless Championship race. We started 6th in class because of the mishap on friday and due to a horrible start (my fault, i missed the green flag call) he fell back to last place into the first turn. He passed 4 cars in the opening lap and then settled into 5th behind a 4door BMW. It took him about 4 laps to get around the bimmer because he had no grunt off the corners onto the straights. So he would loose 6-8 car lengths down the long back straight and make it all up under braking only to be stuck behind the BMW for the rest of the course all the way back to the key hole. Finally the BMW made a mistake into the China Beach turn and he was able to get around and move into P4.
The rest of the race was him turning consistent race pace laps and having a little luck with people going off and in one case breaking stuff in the process. We got beat by a ridiculously fast honda civic si driven by a very experienced driver. Probably not classed correctly being he has about 20 more WHP than everyone else in class, and far better gearing with that stock 6-speed.
What a fantastic course, and what a great event. We will definitely be back.
You may have already seen this, but the SU/ST/PTA/PTB race starts at 220:00
Will we be seeing you out there next year?
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Ok, I'm going to add some of my buddies video's here:
Here is Scott Perkins in his C5Z in the National Championship PTA race. He lost his number 5 cylinder that morning and some how pulled a "hail mary" as he puts it and won the race. A little luck, but he drove a great, smart race:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNZ5x...layer_embedded
Mark Nunally, who finished 2nd in PTA and works in video production stuff, put a little teaser video up. He said it'll be about a week before he can actually edit everything. This is Scott, Mark, and Jason.
http://vimeo.com/28990111
Justin Matthews in his STI running ST2. Had a helluva race going since it was raining. Really fun video to watch. He's very animated in the car. You can hear him getting excited/pumped going 3 wide through one of the turns.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouuz_JXFvqI
I'll post some more as they become available
Here is Scott Perkins in his C5Z in the National Championship PTA race. He lost his number 5 cylinder that morning and some how pulled a "hail mary" as he puts it and won the race. A little luck, but he drove a great, smart race:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNZ5x...layer_embedded
Mark Nunally, who finished 2nd in PTA and works in video production stuff, put a little teaser video up. He said it'll be about a week before he can actually edit everything. This is Scott, Mark, and Jason.
http://vimeo.com/28990111
Justin Matthews in his STI running ST2. Had a helluva race going since it was raining. Really fun video to watch. He's very animated in the car. You can hear him getting excited/pumped going 3 wide through one of the turns.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouuz_JXFvqI
I'll post some more as they become available
It was good meeting you guys and glad you did well. The customer I was there with in the M3 took 3Rd in GTS4. Was definitely an up and down weekend between the crashing and the rain, which was just no fun at all. I did help get a wounded BMW that hit the wall hard on Tuesday back in action in time to make his main race and at least but a finish in the books.
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Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 305
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From: CA
Congrats on P2! Very impressive with a 4.10 final drive.
What was up with the Civic? Dyno re-classed? did it get dyno checked at the track?
How was tech done? Doesn't sound like you are confident it was a level playing field
What was up with the Civic? Dyno re-classed? did it get dyno checked at the track?
How was tech done? Doesn't sound like you are confident it was a level playing field
There is credence to the complaints that the PT points system is dying. Basically because of how involved and how many are needed to be involved with tech/teardowns for the other classes, especially the spec classes, they really gloss over the PT classes. Its a manpower and technical expertise issue. Its at the end of the weekend, they are still tearing down other cars and so the detailed tech inspection of PT races is not undertaken. It's basically down to dyno pulls for the top finisher to ensure he meets the minimum adj P:W for the class. Short of a specific protest if you make weight and your power is under your specific max you are all good to go...
Personally I understand and dont mind it has gone that route. It is just not feasible to do it otherwise. This is especially true for internal modifications, gear ratios, internal engine mods etc. The suspension, aero, and tires are all easy enough to verify and maintain the points system for that kind of thing. The engine section should probably be dropped and just use adjusted P:W ratio. I think the unwritten reality is that's what is happening.
We talked a lot this last weekend among our little team about potential solutions to a system that is simply not policeable (not even a word, i know). Even if they were able to put manpower into it. I think they have to figure out a system using an area under the power curve calculation and base class each individual car according to that and weight. I'm not sure how else to avoid issues. I look forward to the GPS/accelerometer ideas they are toying with....this would make it far easier to monitor.
That said i think that Civic Si is simply in need of another 7 base points...but what do i really know about it. He was not a dyno reclass. He was an HC2 crossover and claimed a bone stock motor / trans gearing other than intake and exhaust. He actually dynod well under his max power based on adj P:W minimum for the class.
The system is simply currently too ambitious to maintain compliance by all competitors.
Personally I understand and dont mind it has gone that route. It is just not feasible to do it otherwise. This is especially true for internal modifications, gear ratios, internal engine mods etc. The suspension, aero, and tires are all easy enough to verify and maintain the points system for that kind of thing. The engine section should probably be dropped and just use adjusted P:W ratio. I think the unwritten reality is that's what is happening.
We talked a lot this last weekend among our little team about potential solutions to a system that is simply not policeable (not even a word, i know). Even if they were able to put manpower into it. I think they have to figure out a system using an area under the power curve calculation and base class each individual car according to that and weight. I'm not sure how else to avoid issues. I look forward to the GPS/accelerometer ideas they are toying with....this would make it far easier to monitor.
That said i think that Civic Si is simply in need of another 7 base points...but what do i really know about it. He was not a dyno reclass. He was an HC2 crossover and claimed a bone stock motor / trans gearing other than intake and exhaust. He actually dynod well under his max power based on adj P:W minimum for the class.
The system is simply currently too ambitious to maintain compliance by all competitors.
Time to consolidate, not only PT but several other classes. Bring them all into an adj rwhp/weight classing formula.
BTW, congrats on your 2nd! Job well done.
The power/weight ratio system is also flawed, as it is just too easy for a competitor to have different maps with a selector switch to change them. I KNOW this happens, and is simply too difficult to police.
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Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 305
Likes: 0
From: CA
I watched the race last night
http://speedcasttv.com/#/races/243 Race starts at the 260 mark
It looks like Patrick had a good run in the Miata and was keeping the Civic behind him until the off. I wish they would have showed more of the PTD race other than the top two.
I'm not sure what the answer is as far as classing goes. It seems a basic wt/hp per class would be best. Everybody get to the target however they see fit (big hp or lighten the car). The problem then becomes controlling the rest of it. Does suspension and aero need controlling? Does FWD deserve an advantage? If somebody wants to max out their cars, they will spend the money to do it. Sure I could build a second gen for 20-30k that would take advantage of PT ruleset, but whats the point?
It looked like a good portion of the cars in the PT C/D/E/F race were supersized from GTS/HC/SM. I don't see hoards of people coming from the TT ranks as was anticipated/envisioned. I think PT does not get the support from NASA that other classes do. I guess the key to racing in a large field is to build a spec/specish car.
http://speedcasttv.com/#/races/243 Race starts at the 260 mark
It looks like Patrick had a good run in the Miata and was keeping the Civic behind him until the off. I wish they would have showed more of the PTD race other than the top two.
I'm not sure what the answer is as far as classing goes. It seems a basic wt/hp per class would be best. Everybody get to the target however they see fit (big hp or lighten the car). The problem then becomes controlling the rest of it. Does suspension and aero need controlling? Does FWD deserve an advantage? If somebody wants to max out their cars, they will spend the money to do it. Sure I could build a second gen for 20-30k that would take advantage of PT ruleset, but whats the point?
It looked like a good portion of the cars in the PT C/D/E/F race were supersized from GTS/HC/SM. I don't see hoards of people coming from the TT ranks as was anticipated/envisioned. I think PT does not get the support from NASA that other classes do. I guess the key to racing in a large field is to build a spec/specish car.
Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 10,672
Likes: 413
From: Charlottesville VA 22901
Good vids guys 
Scott P is kicking booty as usual.
Ben Anderson is my kind of driver throw it in and pray you can hang on
May not be fast all the time but hey he's giving it 110%.
Justin has more DNFs than checkers. Poor dude that sucks He needs a c5 hehe.
Scott P is kicking booty as usual.
Ben Anderson is my kind of driver throw it in and pray you can hang on
May not be fast all the time but hey he's giving it 110%.Justin has more DNFs than checkers. Poor dude that sucks
He needs a c5 hehe.
"E0, E1, E2, and E3 ENTRANTS [...] we will be implementing GPS measuring to ensure correct HP readings for all cars in these classes regardless of base classing. Expect to have TraqMate monitoring added to your car at some point during the weekend including testing sessions and also plan to visit the dyno after the race for a further compliance check if you are lucky enough to achieve a podium finish"
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