107 replies to this topic

[Motor City Hamilton]

Hope you punched some airholes so they can breath. Nice 'before' picture. Looks (looked?) sharp!

 

Do I spy a '72 Vette in the background?

 Good eye.  It is a 1970 Corvette Stingray.  It is for sale right now too.  I no longer have time to race SM, keep up with the needs of a 40 year old car and spend time with my 4 year old and wife.  

[LarryKing]

What motor is in it? I use to work in a Corvette repair shop and got to test drive a lot of different Vettes. The 1970 LT1 was my favorite. What a kick in the ass.

[Motor City Hamilton]

What motor is in it? I use to work in a Corvette repair shop and got to test drive a lot of different Vettes. The 1970 LT1 was my favorite. What a kick in the ass.

 

454 with 4-speed M22 rock crusher trans.  

[Ron Alan]

You presume a lot my good man. Allow me to suggest that you know nothing about my circumstances.
 
PS: I'm not complaining, just stating facts.

You're right and I shouldn't assume things based on what you write. You did mention several facts in your posts...my bad for assigning a motive for them.

[LarryKing]

454 with 4-speed M22 rock crusher trans.

 

Bitchin! I think I'd keep it and sell the Miata.

 

No worries Ron.

 

Y'all might need antifreeze at MIS this weekend. Good luck all.

[Jim Drago]

Bitchin! I think I'd keep it and sell the Miata.
 
No worries Ron.
 
Y'all might need antifreeze at MIS this weekend. Good luck all.

Didn't know you used y'all up there. AS a northerner growing up in the south I have spent the last ten years breaking them of the y'all habit

[LarryKing]

 Didn't know you used y'all up there

 

Result of living with Carolina girl for 25 years. I can give you many examples of Ohio farmboy dialect too. Frinstints (for instance), Newark, Ohio is pronounce "Nerk, Ahia."

 

When Deb first moved to Ahia she worked in radio. Hearing her accent a DJ told her "I can fix that."

She said, "Fix what?"

[Caveman-kwebb99]

Day of practice n the books, the usual suspects were fast...

 

Bednarz, Williams, Anderson 2, Novak... 

 

Best laps of the day were 131's , who says renting a track 6 months dont pay off???

 

Qualifying in the morning at 8:35!  Should be fun,  had a blast today learning a new track, sure it a lot trickier than it looks!

 

My money is is on Novak for tomorrow! so far it looks the rest of us will fight it out for the rest of the spots...

 

So far all of my objectives have been met or exceeded, have had a ton of fun wih some of my best racing friends!!!

 

Had some good laughs with Novak, Frank, and who knew tha Kieth Mellen dude is pretty funny Just finished a late night track walk with Mike and the better looking half also the  Faster third  of the Novaks    alot of grey hair on the fast one.

 

Glad I got talked into coming up here to the great white north where we awoke to light frost this morning and saw a snow flury when parking last night, followed by cold rain. 

[Bench Racer]

Glad I got talked into coming up here to the great white north where we awoke to light frost this morning and saw a snow flury when parking last night, followed by cold rain. 

Talk to some of those that raced Gingerman a few years ago, first national race of the season to the tune of 8-10 inches of that stuff the sate is know for.

[Caveman-kwebb99]

Todays SM race:

 

Bednarz, Novak, and Anderson 2 on podium Bednarz won with a pass on Novak on the last lap. 

 

Tomorrow qualifying race grid:

 

Bednarz

Novak

Andersen

Webb

Williams

Slattery

Lukritz

Spencer

Billicki

Mellen

Todaro

Hamilton

Piku

Novak ( the nicer one)

 

Top 5's fast laps to set the grid were within 1 second! and my fast lap came after my spin that created 1/8 toe in on the front which dont work to good with a mile long straight

 

Great group of people to race with, no drama...  Everyone seemsto be having a good time, I know I am havingthe mnost fun weekend I have had in a long time even after being spun while in P3.  Should be some good racing tomorrow...

 

Congrats to Bednarz for a nice win, and Novak for a valient effort, and Andersen for a nice race!

[Danny Steyn]

Thanks for the updates Kyle

Congrats to Bednarz, Novak and Andersen

[mellen]

Just got back from MIS. Great weekend of racing and meeting new people. had a blast racing with Frank Todaro,Jeff Luckritz, Josh Bilicki. looking forward to seeing you all again Friday at Mid-Ohio.

 

todays race finish

 

 

Bednarz

Novak

Webb

 

Andersen II

dropped out after 4 laps, not sure what happened

[dbednarz]

Wow, what a weekend!

 

First, special thanks to Chris Williams, Rusty Unterzuber, and Dave Wheeler for helping me solve my blown fuse issue - which caused my engine to suddenly shut down during Saturday morning qualifying, with no CEL light. It was a fuse in the engine bay, not under the dash. It is this type of support and camaraderie that makes Spec Miata the best class on the track!

 

MIS was a pleasant surprise. The infield was much more technical than I expected, with a lot of runoff area in the infield. The "orange-cone hairpin" entering the NASCAR oval was much safer than running straight at a wall.  The viewing areas on top of the suites were open to everyone, and had a great view of the track.  On the down-side, the track really needs curbing at the tight right hander, there was gravel in that corner almost every session and track out had a huge rut if you put two wheels off. The infield is pretty narrow in most places. Overall, WMR did a good job running the event, it ran well.

 

Saturday's race was a strategy battle between, Mike Novak, Bruce Andersen, and myself. On the last lap, Bruce was challenging, Mike for the lead in the infield, and gave Mike a look inside entering the banking.  This appeared to push them both to track out early and lift on the exit. My exit was perfect, had a great run, and with the help of the draft, passed them both before the finish line!

 

 Sunday's race was a battle between Mike Novak, Kyle Webb, and myself, after Bruce lost a transmission early.  My early lead was short lived when Mike and Kyle worked together to catch me mid-way.  A back marker messed up Kyle, he lost the draft, and I was able to pass Mike a few laps from the end and get the win!

 

-DavidB

 MIS Last Lap b.jpg   105.6KB   12 downloads

[Caveman-kwebb99]

The weekend was my favorite since the Watkn glen Dbl National in 2011...

 

The track was very easy to learn but hard to go fast.  Great clean racing by all, it seemed a bit disorganized but ended up coming together.

 

Now for the real bad, TECH...   I cannot express my disapointment enough with this part, every time dealing with tech there was one indivdual that must have been put on earth to just harass all racers to assure they never want to come back to a WMR event.  This persons attitude needs a real improvment orneeds reasigned to another duty, TECH is your first line of CUSTOMER SERVICE, something the WMR is greatly lacking the moment you walk or drive into the TECH shed, from going in to voluntary weigh to impound afterwards.  Heard from a few races they would probably not ome back, not sure if this was an influencing factor or not but it makes me notwant to come back and makes me not want to go to Gingerman!

 

Good part of Tech was that Barry from OVR region was there and acted as a buffer to the ill will, also he actually made sure that SM got responsible PERORMANCE ISSUE TECH.  On saturday I cannot say all what got teched but I do know that top 3 was checked to make sure they were not by-passing the alternators amongst other things.  On sunday top 3 were all weighed and RP pulled and measured.  There was never any issues with th top 3 cars either day!

 

The other bad thing about this track was that while they have some of the best track cleaning machines in the world fr NASCAR appently they never used it for us.  Someone litteraly oiled down the etire track on Saterday night so the crew layed oil dry the fast line through the entire track and did not remove the oil dry before Sunday morning activites.  Its not muh fun running thruough oil dry for your race, thank god we were not group1 tey blew most of it off for us beforeour race. 

 

I just want to say Congrats to Bednarz and Novak for their consistency at podiuming and running 2 really great races.  It was two bad Bruce blew a trans it was shapping up to be a 4 way battle for the podium untill that unfortunate event. 

 

Mid ohio should be the most competitive at Mid Ohio that we have seen since the NASA nationals, with everyone from the MIS podiums coming as well as the National Champ.

[FTodaro]

I had a good weekend, it took me to long to find the speed but it did come on Sunday and I was able to get down to the low 1.31,s. Sorry Mellen for almost Killing you Sunday, appreciate the racing room you gave.

Dayle, I thought the event was well run, and your workers an volunteers were all great, and hospitable with one exception, and I agree with Kyle the chief of tech is going to cost you business, it will be a factor in considering to run you region, you can do that job in a way that dose not feel like BS harassment, and I am the calm one between Kyle and I

Enough of that had lots of fun and had an opprotunity to drive with a big draft. That was cool.

[38bfast]

Frank, Kyle, I can't agree with you more about tech. Something needs to be done about the attitude. I heard things said that were completely uncalled for. On the plus side they did check things. I personally was treated very well in tech but I witnessed others that were less fortunate.

Kyle I was in group one and the oil dry was a complete disaster. I could not see 30 feet in front of my car. It looked like a complete snow storm white out. My air filter had about a pound of oil dry in it when I was done, my face shield is sandblasted as well as every forward facing surface on my car. Driving the oiled track would have been safer. I am sure it was not WMR responsibility to do the cleanup themselves but rather MIS. But it was their responsibility to provide us a safe running surface. They should have had MIS go out and clean the track. The race should have been delayed till the clean up was done or black flag it when they saw how bad it actually was. On the plus side I am sure the lesson was learned and will never happen again.

The SM races were by far the best to watch. Constant lead changes and sone very close clean racing. The draft was more important than at RA. If you were not working with someone you were screwed.

I talked to Pat and his dad and they may think it time to find a good 99

All in all a fun weekend but I can't say it will make my list of favorite tracks.

On a side note my podiums combined age was 186 old. And I was the kid at age 51

[Motor City Hamilton]

 

This cone decided to ride with me for the final ten laps of the race and right into impound.  The workers were all making bets at what lap it would catch fire.  

 

Took it home with me as my weekend trophy.

 

[Tom Sager]

Wow, what a weekend!

 

First, special thanks to Chris Williams, Rusty Unterzuber, and Dave Wheeler for helping me solve my blown fuse issue - which caused my engine to suddenly shut down during Saturday morning qualifying, with no CEL light. It was a fuse in the engine bay, not under the dash. It is this type of support and camaraderie that makes Spec Miata the best class on the track!

 

MIS was a pleasant surprise. The infield was much more technical than I expected, with a lot of runoff area in the infield. The "orange-cone hairpin" entering the NASCAR oval was much safer than running straight at a wall.  The viewing areas on top of the suites were open to everyone, and had a great view of the track.  On the down-side, the track really needs curbing at the tight right hander, there was gravel in that corner almost every session and track out had a huge rut if you put two wheels off. The infield is pretty narrow in most places. Overall, WMR did a good job running the event, it ran well.

 

Saturday's race was a strategy battle between, Mike Novak, Bruce Andersen, and myself. On the last lap, Bruce was challenging, Mike for the lead in the infield, and gave Mike a look inside entering the banking.  This appeared to push them both to track out early and lift on the exit. My exit was perfect, had a great run, and with the help of the draft, passed them both before the finish line!

 

 Sunday's race was a battle between Mike Novak, Kyle Webb, and myself, after Bruce lost a transmission early.  My early lead was short lived when Mike and Kyle worked together to catch me mid-way.  A back marker messed up Kyle, he lost the draft, and I was able to pass Mike a few laps from the end and get the win!

 

-DavidB

MIS Last Lap b.jpg

Well done Dave and I know you'll be tough at Mid-Ohio this coming weekend.  You've been very good there.  Would love to hear more about driving the oval, how much of it was utilized and the speeds you reached.  

[mellen]

 Sorry Mellen for almost Killing you Sunday, appreciate the racing room you gave.

 

 

we're all good Frank

[mellen]

as long as Kyle opened it up i will also say something about the tech guy. not once did he have a civil conversation with me, everything was said with a shout and said like i was a complete idiot.  i was also yelled at about a car that wasn't even mine! i understand he is a volunteer but that doesnt give him a right to act like a jerk.