Texas Mile, Oct. 24-27
 

Howard Coleman is coming to Texas and plans to register on Oct. 24th.
Lets try to get some locals there to support him.
Anyone with a RV that can share cost with others, etc?

TEXAS MILE // OFFICIAL SITE // 3 DAYS, 1 MILE: NO SPEED LIMIT

Beeville is about 270 miles SW - 2.5 hours drive from Houston. Just a short distance past Victory.
Good drive to clean out the carbon from your rotary engine.

Actually a Freudian slip, Victoria, not Victory.

I see your car must be running great... 270 miles is a 2.5 hour trip :bigeyes:

If I am not at MSR Houston that weekend it would be a great cruise down to Victoria.

I'm down.

Chuck,

I would love to go to this... Just sucks being so far away.

Someone post up some videos of HC's runs, that would be great :)




.

it would be really great to be able to meet club members.

i have been wanting to do the Mile for at least 3 years but reality has always interceded.

i crossed the first hurdle Aug 11 when they opened Registration. there were 640 registrants for the 220 spaces.

i was registrant number one. i even received the car number i wanted, 7 of course.

we plan to arrive when the gates open thursday Oct 23, 3 pm. tech, reg and a driver's meeting and of course get a good paddock space.

friday the track is open for business all day. i have to run 165 max, 185 max before i can try for 200.

no matter what happens we will be around all day sat running or watching. please stop by. the car is white and will have red and blue markings somewhat like the Racing Beat FD although we hope to not finish in the same attitude.

if all goes well the car will show w 600 rwhp running E85. 200 is 8400 in my fifth gear.

i have no idea what will actually happen and if it will be the most fun ever or big time scary but i do know i want to be there. the car will be dyno'd at 200 mph. i was at Beyond Redline today and they dyno'd a Subaru FRZ or whatever it is called and they ran it to max speed in fifth which was 165. (single turbo, 250 hp)

let's see what 80 cubic inches can do in the mile!

we are staying at the Fairfield Inn, Victoria.

howard

Sounds like a fun trip, I've always wanted to go check this out. I think I should be able to make it.

I've never been out to the Texas mile. ... I need to make a trip of it one day

I wanna run the lemon!

update:

engine passed the final test and we will be on track. we will tech and reg thursday aft and will be on track friday.

format is to run one run limited to 165, another to 185 and if both are successful subsequent runs can be up to 215.

i have no idea what will actually transpire but we will give it our best shot. we will be at the track all day saturday whether we are still running or not.

it would be great to meet fellow board members so please so stop by.

the FD is white w a blue "7"

howard

Good luck Howard, I need to check this out one day.

Hmm. I went to this event a few years ago and have not been back since. I'll have to see if I can make a day trip out from Austin. What days are other people going to be there?

You got this Howard!

G/L man.

I will be there Saturday and hopefully will have TWOKRX7 with me.
Any Houston area people want to convoy there early Saturday morning?

Man would love to see your FD run, hopefully we get some good footage of you breaking your goals.

Everything going fine, please update when it´s done.
Good luck.

I am working plans to drive down tonight or early tomorrow. Does anyone recall when we'll actually see cars running down the strip?

Howard's motor went weak on his second qualifying run. He is leaving to go back home Saturday morning.

No need to go now!

:( man that sucks to hear, do you know what happened? I'm sure he will chime in on the forum.

This is all he wrote: "I qualified for a 199 limit for run two and was planning on going for it. For some current unknown reason I lost power in 3 and 4th."

We will have to wait for him to post anything, if he so wishes.

As this is a big loss in cost, effort, traveling time, and emotions; let Howard take his time to deal with it.
Do not pressure him for details!

Yeah that's understandable, hopefully he can make it out next year, but I know it's expensive just to make that kind of drive and get everything rolling.

Was there any other rx7's out there? I imagine there would be at least an LS rx7.

Wow. Sorry to hear that. I'll keep my eyes peeled on the forum for more.

Congratulations to Howard for his qualifying run. Johnathon of goopy, told me about it at the track yesterday. 199mph is a great feat, Im sure he'll come back and go faster, best of luck.

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/1899/t81l.jpg

having raced for 22 seasons (SCCA NATS GT3) i arrived at the Texas Mile with nothing other than a "let's see what happens" outlook. i had traveled previously to one of the events a couple of years ago to get the lay of the land.

it sure did convince me that i wanted to be a part of it.

our prep was adequate but somewhat rushed.

we made an effort to arrive thursday when the gates opened. i figured there would be 20 to 40 cars at the gate given it was thursday. not quite. there were over 100 of the 220 entrants ready to roll. we tech'd and grabbed a paddock space.

we returned to the track friday at 6 am and finished the final details by 10. i headed to the grid for run one. the grid was 8 lines of 20 cars. time between runs was around 3 hours.

the Texas Mile seems to be well run and features a license classification based on speed, car and experience.

my car passed tech and it was qualified to 215 mph. the tech process was pretty good/serious as it should be.

since i was a newcomer with no runs i was limited to 165 on my first pass. go 166 and you do not get credit for the pass and do not move up to the next classification which is 199.

i eventually did get to the start line for my first pass and pulled off a clean start. my first gear is a 2.66 V the stock fd which is around 3.5 so it, being more like a normal second gear, can bog. no bog and an instant 9000 in first and second. shifted at 8800 in third and fourth.

so i am now looking at my tach in fifth and it is 6800 on the shift and starting to climb like crazy. the problem is 6900 is approx 165. oops.

i got off the gas and coasted. the 1/2 mile marked passed by. i pretty much coasted the last half mile and was timed at 152. (speedo not working)

i now move up to the next classification, 199 limit.

my motor seemed to have more vacuum at idle than before the run and i noticed my AFR was 10.42 thru the lights. conservative.

back in line for run two. i decided that i would go all out as the side wind had turned into a headwind and i figured i wouldn't bust out above 199.

this time i bogged the start and then hit all the gears well except for when i shifted to 4th the motor seemed to lose power.

ball game.

1430 miles one way and no clean full power run.

oh well.

i expect to be back next spring. i think the FD, with its small frontal area and low drag combined w a healthy 2 rotor can run 200 and would like to find out.

i will probably take the car to a drag strip before the spring event to log some 4th gear data.

next event we hope to have more of the ducks in a row.

two other rotary powered RX7s were at the event. a really clean black FD w a GT40 that should have run well and an FC w a GT35 that generally runs around 170.

next year.

howard