Nelson Ledges 24 Hour ChampCar Race

Information about upcoming races, swap meets & shows

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Fred32v
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Nelson Ledges 24 Hour ChampCar Race

Post by Fred32v »

From one of the ChampCar live streaming posts, last 4 hours with a lot of in car camera,
but at the end it has the Awards and interviews.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg32atFGaBg

If you go to a little after 3:47 you will be able to see the MostMint interview,
at 3:55 Fred the track manager said some nice things about MostMint racing,
more MostMint at 4:02 and 4:12.

Incredible fun!
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Re: Nelson Ledges 24 Hour ChampCar Race

Post by Fred32v »

Had a little celebration at TireSmoke Center last evening.
Ice Cream Cake Reward.
Ice Cream Cake Reward.
Home of TireSmoke!!!!
Home of TireSmoke!!!!
WXO, BP, GMJohnny, "Smoke himself, 69_Malibu, and I were there.
I drove "OH YEAH", everyone had their Hot Rods there.
Hot Rods!
Hot Rods!
Bench Racing at it's best!
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Re: Nelson Ledges 24 Hour ChampCar Race

Post by MostMint »

Mostmint in P1: https://youtu.be/842h5mHgNrE?t=4h29m11s

Here is my mid-race interview with Bill Strong from ChampCar: https://youtu.be/842h5mHgNrE?t=5h4m31s

4 PM pitstop coverage from ChampCar: https://youtu.be/842h5mHgNrE?t=6h28m51s

John was off at turn 12 - caught on in-race coverage: https://youtu.be/842h5mHgNrE?t=8h5m11s

6 PM pitstop coverage from ChampCar: https://youtu.be/842h5mHgNrE?t=8h29m02s In this segment the reports of the green Supra dumping oil on the track and smoking in turn 1 leave clues as to why I may have spun out there

at 8:37:26 into the coverage you can see the Saturn off track almost against the wall in the onboard camera of GMS racing

Post race interview: https://youtu.be/bg32atFGaBg?t=3h47m50s

Race results: https://speedhive.mylaps.com/Events/1552964

Fred Wolfe's comments: https://youtu.be/bg32atFGaBg?t=3h55m42s

We convinced Doc and Paulie we should get the sportsmanship award: https://youtu.be/bg32atFGaBg?t=4h2m42s

There was a professional photographer there he came up with these: https://www.turtlesway.com/Racing/20180 ... nt-Racing/
Bonus second professional photographer: http://photos_by_marty.fototime.com/Champcar

ChampCar Live
Friday practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJwe8CA8ccY

Saturday pre-race up to 12.5 hrs to go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=842h5mHgNrE
Saturday about 10:40PM for 42 minutes: https://www.facebook.com/ChampCarEndura ... 832962346/
Saturday about 11:20PM for 1:20: https://www.facebook.com/ChampCarEndura ... 917887346/
Start at 37:40 - see our near midnight pit stop with the flat tire
Sunday about 1-4 AM:
Sunday AM short clip at 3 hrs 50 minutes to go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub-CjLeZd9k
Sunday AM 4.5 hours to go through post race: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg32atFGaBg
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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Who did we beat in this race

Post by MostMint »

We beat Tommy Byrne: https://youtu.be/842h5mHgNrE?t=1h55m7s
About Tommy Byrne: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Byr ... ng_driver)

We beat from ChampCar

* Jerry Enger. A little about him and his team: https://youtu.be/842h5mHgNrE?t=2h31m44s
* Robin Bank: https://youtu.be/842h5mHgNrE?t=2h32m16s
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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Re: Nelson Ledges 24 Hour ChampCar Race

Post by Basement Paul »

From the pictures, I think DON_o355 looks awesome. Matching wheels, great lean in the turn, and the competition just far enough behind to not ruin the shot.

-BP
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Re: Nelson Ledges 24 Hour ChampCar Race

Post by TireSmoker »

I agree, that's probably the best one.

Honorable mentions:

DON_0424, similar but leading Germany's finest
DJM_5329, matching wheels, lots of competition, Wangler's car in the shot

The Borbets look very good on the car.

-Dave
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After 20 hours

Post by Fred32v »

I enjoyed the pictures, I agree Don_o355 would be the unanimous choice.

I do like the way Don_1139 depicts how grueling a 24 hour race can be after 20 hours,
racing in the early morning mist with fewer than half the competitors on the track.
I like what the haze, empty track, headlights, and the miss-matched wheels say.

Just my thoughts.
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Re: Nelson Ledges 24 Hour ChampCar Race

Post by MostMint »

Well... I wrote a lengthy report...


In preparation for the race – team

new drivers. After our VIR event in 2017 one of my drivers decided to start his own team. I wanted five drivers and was having a difficult time finding another, so I chose to invite a new driver onto the team. He asked me if he could split the seat with his brother and so the team was locked in.

Catching up to the rules, we added a Megasquirt ECU, our Superbird style rear wing, wider wheels – thanks to GWR we went with Bassett 15x8 wheels – cheap and easy and order to size and thanks to cheap prices we got some Borbet 15x7

Engine build. We blew up at VIR in 2017 which wrecked the block, the head and a rod, learned the piston skirts were cracking and bores were out of round. We had to get another block, bore it out and get matching pistons and a new rod. Also had to prep a cylinder head. Unfortunately I installed the second compression rings upside down and the problem did not manifest itself until my private track day on May 31. So then there was a mad dash to disassemble, reassemble and gt the car to a track day on 6/21. This rebuild moved us from 1.9 liters to 1.92 liters moving us up to B class.

Track day to train new drivers. I set up the 5/31 track day to shake down the car and acclimate two new drivers to the car and night driving. With solid connections to NL I was granted the opportunity to have a night practice session. When the car failed we were at least able to salvage the night practice for the new drivers. They were excited! They were the last ones out there.

Re-rebuilt engine. Some of the guys helped with the tear down early June weekend. Quickly ordered replacement parts and in a mad thrash the next Saturday had the engine re-rebuilt and we put it in the car on June 10.

Second attempt engine shakedown. Took the car to the track on 6/21 for a shakedown. Nelson Ledges has race car only track days and the Tim Wing track days. This was a Tim Wing day where they want experienced drivers with common sense. Anyway the car dropped a shift cable clip but otherwise performed well.

Busy Thursday before the race. I had sacrificed race weekend prep in exchange for having an actually running car. I spent the entire day trying to get organized and pack up.

In car camera. I was intrigued to find out we were being selected for camera for this race. Expecting to be at least three seconds/lap slower than the faster cars I did not expect any special attention


Friday setup/practice

Base camp. OMG I had not raced here since 2013 and totally forgot what it takes to set up pits. Usually rent a garage so paddock space predetermined. All the prime spots were taken, and there were plenty of low areas. I settled on a close place over the bridge on the left but the grass was fairly high there. Fortunately I got some help from the track by borrowing their mower. I have a great working relationship with the track management so I pulled some strings. I also used this mower to help out my neighbor over there. We also set up an air condition tent – I brought an 8x10 canopy, tarps and a window air conditioner. It was popular though in heat of the day you needed to sit down to feel the cold.

O2 sensor. Practice was uneventful – everyone who paid into this got their seat time and we used up some of our old tires – that is until our AFR meter started giving us an error code. Sadly no spares for this so we had to go on a wild goose chase to procure the right part.

Pre-race prediction from Bill who said we were one of his top picks for this race. I might have rained on his parade a little when I told him we had two new drivers.

welding – Mini Cooper cage bars, Civic window net – late departure. My son arrived at the track at 5:30 we already had two requests for welding. The Mini was the biggest challenge it needed a lower bar on the driver side. With a new plasma cutter and a couple welders and a borrowed generator he went to work setting it up. The generator was big but was apparently not creating consistent enough power to put down consistent welds. We have much to learn about this. We put some additional welds on the Civic window net near the end too. This kept us here late and I did not get home til 12:30 AM and had more packing to do when I got home. Probably 5 hours of sleep Friday night was not good!

engine hoist loan – some time in the AM Friday my Dad loaned out the hoist. It was back before I even knew it was gone


Race day

Routine start. We started a little past mid pack. It was fairly soon we were in the top 10. Considering there were 14 cars with faster FTD this is somewhat surprising. Our first driver has a ton of experience here and is a NASA certified instructor and he likes the traffic at race start.

Pass under yellow. Our second driver made a mistake and passed under yellow. This cost us a few positions. I did not complain since I've done the same thing myself. It was legit and our only black flag of the event.

A couple laps at P1. Thanks to our new Megasquirt we can now make two hours on a tank with a little more margin for error. This allowed our driver to stay out until 2:05 and give us a couple laps as the race leader.

gas can malfunction - During our 3rd or 4th pit stop my son went to fuel the car and the hose came off one of the cans! Tyler (Crank Yankers) heard what was going on and gave us one of his cans minimizing the time lost. Many thanks sir!

pit mates had problems starting hour 1. Band of Brothers and Mostmint Racing have been pitting together at Nelson since 2012. Scott has raced in my car and I in his. Unfortunately they were plagued with problems. The first setback was early in hour two when the driver came in early since his coolsuit was not working and he was overheated, with no working radio to call it in. This was followed by a broken header, bad transmission, trans linkage, wheel bearings and I can't remember what else.

tire wear. At the end of hour 6 our brand new Bridgestone Potenza RE71R were completely shot and showing cords on both front tires. We had a total of 7 new tires to start, a few fair condition and a bunch of well worn tires to use up. These tires have a lot of grip but they do not last too long with all that heat and my setup.

welding on ZX2 and Beretta exhaust pipes. Our (Tiresmokers) 7kw generator did a great job providing power to weld thinner metal like exhaust headers and pipes. My son made quick work doing these repairs during the day on Saturday

Mostmint crew. We had a lot of support. My son handled fueling, oil and whatever else needed done. My daughter had crew chief duty. It was a big relief when she showed up on Friday afternoon to help get things organized. Robin and Lisa from Band of Brothers helped us out quite a bit on pit stops – particularly at night. My friend Tony handled the other half of crew chief duties and lended mechanical expertise. John H came late in afternoon and provide crew support in the 2-6 AM window and more. My Dad and his friend Walt were there and kept us supplied with fuel. This support is priceless – many thanks to all of them for their help!

in race interview 2:30 pm. I was testing out my coolshirt at the cooling station in the tech shed and Bill Strong came by. We chatted for a bit then he had me do a liver interview for the race coverage. First interview – just a small taste of what the big time drivers do. Had the chance to brag on my kids it was fun.

off at 6:05 pm. I got in the car the first time at 6 PM. With so many things going on I did not focus on preparing to drive. It's my car and my home track right? Well I got out there and in no time a Miata was closing on me. Oh that's right this is a race! So with little thought I started pressing the car and I lost it in the exit of turn 1. I fishtailed a bit and almost saved it, but devolved into a long slide which ended less than a foot from the tire barrier! Please don't be stuck down here! Well it luckily moved out, I went back up and got on track and behaved perfectly good for the rest of the stint. Post race analysis of ChampCar footage revealed the Supra was smoking in turn 1. I presume it was dropping oil and I was a bit off line and likely slid in it.

Local yellow for grass fire – someone dropped something hot in the grass on exit of turn 1 and the dried grass clippings were smoking there. Track brought out a water truck and put it out

What class are we in – While I was in the car Mike came over and asked about our engine size. I finally caught up with him at 4:30 am and explained that we had bored out the engine which moved us up from A to B since we are now over 1.91 liters. Remarkably someone else knew Saturns came from the factory with 1.9 liter and were wondering why we were in B.

battle with Shok Em Porsche – We were reasonably close in lap times but I was able to catch this car. Try as I might I could not get by. The Saturn actually has good power and good exit speed from the carousel so I powered by a lot of cars there and on the front straight. Not this car. He would pull away from me every time. Took a while for me to figure out I needed to try a different approach. I was finally able to find a place to get my nose in and the driver recognized this and gave me a lane to race in and I got by. Shortly after that we got a FCY and he passed me back under yellow. Oh well no one bats 1.000.

engine hoist loan – ZX2 had a bad trans and needed to pull the engine to change it. They did not have to go far to find a hoist

Fetching more tires – as it got dark we were in the top 3 and I made an assessment we might not have enough tires to make it to the end, so my wife and I took a drive home to pick up three tires and wheels I had at home which were not intended for this race. It was nice to get away for a bit and chill out in the truck AC.

Engine hoist loan again. The all German driving E36 needed an engine hoist. They found my team and we loaned them the hoist for a late night engine change.

sparky tire. We arrived with the tires just after midnight. The car had to come in just a few minutes early since we had a flat on track. Apparently we were about to get black flagged for tires emitting sparks due to cords on the race surface or something.

warped rotors - in at 2:05 AM and quickly found we had warped a front rotor. Unclear when or how but there it was.

off at 2:10 am – in my first couple minutes in the 2-4 AM stint I got in traffic due to FCY. In the first lap of green I went to make my regular move through turn 12 but someone apparently was trying to make a move there and I got a good hit on the left rear bumper which punted me into the grass in the infield. Someone ended up off on the other side of 13 not sure if it was the guy who hit me. Fortunately I hit no one else and was able to exit the grass by pit road and after the entire field passed I got back on the track and continued.

battle with TeamKoko E30 – getting in the car I knew they were now ahead of us and we were off the podium. I was pointing by cars who were catching me, and I unknowing did so for them. Once he passed I decided he was not going to lap me again and the best way to do that was to keep up. There was not a lot of traffic but we occasionally came on cars and would get separated. Eventually I would close up the gap. Then we had a long string of no interference and I was clearly gaining every lap. I then started thinking if I catch him what am I going to do? Well this is racing so I went for the pass. It took a bit but I was finally able to overtake. Then I went at it at this same pace trying to open a gap. After a while (4-5 laps maybe) I slipped on carousel exit and put two off. The car wiggled and while I saved it he got by. At that point I decided I was driving too close to 100% and better not wreck so I backed it down a notch. Still an epic race!

1:22 lap at night. My team was impressed I was able to run a 1:22 at night (actually ran 1:21.45!) - only a second off my fastest day laps. There are a lot less visual cues but once I adjusted to the new cues and got to racing I was able to put down some nice laps. I'm guessing this was racing with TeamKoko.

3:37 AM – some time after the race with TeamKoko I started to feel like I was losing a bit of concentration. At that point I really felt like I wanted to get out of the car. I started asking myself why I was doing this? I mean it's my team and my car so I found it curious I was questioning the purpose during my stint. Weird things happen at 3:37 AM. So far I had zero sleep from 6:30 AM Saturday until now.

off at 5:20 AM – One of my guys went off near this time. He was tired too and lost concentration for a second. Unfortunately he got stuck and they had to pull him out. Then it got weird. He brought it in and complained about smelling a radiator leak. My crew looked under the hood did not see anything. Wonder if it was water splashed up on the engine. Anyway shortly after he went out the alternator light came on and he was back in. The accessory belt was completely gone! My night crew located the spare and had it on the car. We gave up a bunch of our cushion but did not lose a position. At the next pit we added over ½ gallon of water replacing what was pushed out running with no belt. This was one of the bullets we dodged.

Attrition monster helps us. Visceral racing crashed out. I'm not one to wish misfortune on anyone. However their misfortune became our good fortune as the spot we lost to TeamKoko overnight was gained back when they crashed and had broken parts. Glad it was not significant damage to their car so they can fix it up and be ready for their next race. We had nothing to compete with them on lap time. Actually we had nothing for Crank Yankers, Rbank and many other cars. 14 cars had better FTD than us. As many of us know, speed helps but you need to be well prepared and have some good fortune to finish up front.


Post race

broken wheel bearing – post race impound uncovered the left rear hub was broken. The hub ring had broken free from the center of the hub! That hub was brand new on Friday night. Still unclear how that broke.

Post race interview. So two interviews on race weekend! Still not sure if I'm a fan but just like making impound I take it as a sign of success.

My son drove the car home. After a quick wheel bearing change and packing up all the stuff in stifling heat we left at 11:30 and were home by 12:30.

Many thanks to ChampCar and Nelson Ledges for putting on this event.

Many thanks to my team, my family and friends who came out to support us.


Observations

Mostmint Racing Saturn has three class wins and two P3 trophies in the past 5 races, and has now logged over 11,000 miles of racing with the same car.

The mighty Saturn completed its first 24 hour race with no significant mechanical repairs

With significant contributions to bringing ChampCar back to Nelson Ledges, four welding jobs, three engine hoist loans and mowing the neighbors space we made an earnest effort to help people and get the sportsmanship award. Can't win 'em all congrats to the 500 team on that award

Two out of three podium cars were sporting GM engines! When you consider how many GM engines were there that is impressive.

My night time fast lap was within .1 second of my daytime fast lap.

Nelson Ledges:

Brian Ross was busy the whole time running around sweating the details. This type of commitment was very positive.
pavement held up well
tents/tables/food were nice touches
not a premier facility yet but they are improving at a steady pace and I still love the place
the light towers at night were fantastic

History

belts – In 2013 we were running 3rd at NL in the 14 hour race when the power steering pulley broke. We put on bypass short belt which the car spit out in turn 1 25 minutes later. We were unable to recover and finished 12th. Ironic we spit out a belt again – we have never had belt problems anywhere else

wheel bearings – last year at Watkins Glen we broke hubs for the first time. I upgraded from Autozone quality to SKF. Put a brand new bearing on left rear since there was just a bit of play in the prior one and did not want to chance it for 24 hours. Well it made it just barely. At WGI I blamed it on the bus stop. Here I'm guessing extra downforce from the wing was a factor or possibly one of the offs

in the tech shed post race. Last year after the car flipped at track day I put it in the tech shed in a spot directly behind where we were for impound. Amazing how far this car has come in a year.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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Re: Nelson Ledges 24 Hour ChampCar Race

Post by MostMint »

starting to look at the data

We spent 13 laps total in 10th or worse, never lower than 15h
From lap 125 on we were never lower than fourth position

Joey's early morning off and belt repair cost us 18 minutes or just a little more than 12 laps. We were 14 laps down to second place I have serious reservations as to whether that rear hubs could have handled another 14+ laps.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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Fred32v
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Re: Nelson Ledges 24 Hour ChampCar Race

Post by Fred32v »

Did I miss something?

Quote" The SOHC transmission experiment though is an epic fail the gears are too tall and are slowing us down."Quote

I seem to remember a little thing that came out of the 6/21 Track day.
There was some dissatisfaction with the transmission ratios and
the tranny was SWAPPED OUT the Saturday before the race.

Just another little detail in a mountain of details, good recap, really nice total job!
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Re: Nelson Ledges 24 Hour ChampCar Race

Post by MostMint »

True. What you see here is the same report I put on the ChampCar forum. I left that out as I did not want to share all my secrets with the general public :wink:
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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Re: Nelson Ledges 24 Hour ChampCar Race

Post by TireSmoker »

If anyone is interested, I bought the album of pics from these guys.. https://www.turtlesway.com/Racing/20180 ... nt-Racing/

-Dave
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Re: Nelson Ledges 24 Hour ChampCar Race

Post by MostMint »

Dave I would like to add a couple of those pics to the Mostmint Racing Facebook page how can I get them?
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
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Re: Nelson Ledges 24 Hour ChampCar Race

Post by TireSmoker »

There's a 400+ MB .ZIP file on our Google drive that has all the pics. Download that and pick whichever one you want.

-Dave
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Re: Nelson Ledges 24 Hour ChampCar Race

Post by wxo »

TireSmoker wrote:There's a 400+ MB .ZIP file on our Google drive that has all the pics. Download that and pick whichever one you want.

-Dave
"our Google drive" ??? How do I get to it??
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