172 replies to this topic

[JRHille]

 

video from todays race as the hub failed

[38bfast]

What a great weekend, SM gang showed some very clean tight racing throuoght the entire field. The track was very fast. The SM7s wore like the old RA1s but much faster. Lots of new names to the fast list. Best racing class comerdery by far. What a great bunch. I raced my P1 car this weekend and had my SM rental out as well. The SM gang is so much more fun to hang out with. The king was finally able to beat Kristen on Sarurday but she bested him once again on Sunday. I think Kyles car has seen its last days on track, time for a new one. Car prep and preventive matianance is becoming more of a priority. Dotting all the eyes and crossing all the Ts is paying off vs It's good enough. The prototype tires that Jim tested were even better that the SM7s. Jim beat the crap out of the tires and they came in looking almost like new. If he had driven the SM6 like that they would have been though always. Wish I could have spent more time with my SM friends but having the renter run SM and STL and my P1 car it keeped me occupied most all weekend. Not sure what the tech in SM. In big bore wings and things they only tested fuel, wings and weights. And the bonus for the weekend,I won a set of BFGs at the party on Saturday night. Thanks go out to Hoosier, carbotech brakes, all the great volunteers and BFG.

On a side note yes Jim builds fast cars but you could visually see his driving was much better than the rest. Truly a treat to watch such smooth on the edge driving. Braking, corner in, mid corner, corner out, all getting the max out of the car. He put on a school this weekend. Hope no one was sleeping in class.

[svvs]

I heard there were a few hub failures down at NJMP for the pro-it this weekend too.

[Caveman-kwebb99]

Was a very trying weekend, Car rolled off trailer and was fast from the start, SM7 created a lot of wheel spin, figured out the fix for that, Moved my way up to about p6 before the unfortunate incedent that ended with a smashed car...  Bright side I have a New car 75% built in the garage and another roller tub ready to go.  Plan is to try to finish new car for the Sprints, and then swap all the good parts from this car to the roller thats sitting waiting.

 

It was some great racing, by all, it was good to see Charlie Hayes from Cali make the trip!  

 

Yes Jim builds great cars, but the last .5 he had the field covered by was all in the driving, just looking at his data shows it all to well.  

 

Huge thanks to my Crew Derrick!  Rebuilt my undrivable car in a day to get me back out for the Feature race, but had some new grimlin in T1 where car would shut off mid corner every lap...  It was Derricks first event crewing and it was really baptism by fire.  When York says to you "your crew guy did and awesome job"  thats almost like Jim telling you your driving really really good.

 

One thing did go well this weekend the Kings will be making an appearance in the Stanley Cup! sorry Mellen and Wheeler I told you so!

 

Davis was the real deal all weekend, Congrats.  Frank Gets award for the safest mirrors!  

 

Gotto go work on cars Now  that is all i will say for now. 

[Bench Racer]

Great job gals and guys.
JR, bearing race or hub flang? How many track sessions?
Anyone else with hub failure? Hub or flange.

Vick, at NJMP Pro, SCCA or NASA? (tires?)

[Michael Novak]

Lots of hubs it appears.  I failed a hub during Saturdays race also.  I believe packed and installed properly, but only lasted about 2.5 hours. SKF   Failed the same one at Blackhawk last month---same everything...

[Jim Drago]

On a side note yes Jim builds fast cars but you could visually see his driving was much better than the rest. Truly a treat to watch such smooth on the edge driving. Braking, corner in, mid corner, corner out, all getting the max out of the car. He put on a school this weekend. Hope no one was sleeping in class.

 

Thank you for the very kind words, a few others have also said similar things, so thank you as well. 

 

 

I was excited to drive the new VVT car. We built the car in a little over two weeks, by far the fastest we had ever built one. I expected a little sorting. We did the 10/10 th DE day to sort the car, to my surprise, the car never missed a beat and the set up never moved. Usually with new cars, they shift and settle and you chase the set up all weekend, no idea why this one was so different, glad it was. 

 

Saturday was one of the best times I have had in a race car in a long long time. I knew after a lap or so that I had the field covered, never really looked back, didnt really care about burning the tires down, didnt really care if they caught up later in the race.  I just wanted to drive the entire race as fast as I could and enjoy the car we worked our asses off finishing over the last few weeks.  The only issue on the car was wheel spin.   I think we had that corrected for Sunday. Not sure if the wheel spin had anything to do with the axle failure or just one of those things. I had not seen that before.  The shaft itself broke in half right where the clip holds it in on the outboard joint,  right through that groove.  

 

I guess I have been doing this too long now as instead of being pissed etc, I was actually happy it broke when it did. It could have been in turn one in front of the field, it could have been two laps earlier when I had a commanding lead with a 1 lap to go. I categorized it in the Oh well, shit happens file

 

Congrats to Johnathan Davis, Voytek and Mike Novak on their podiums.   The Ohio crowd is a fun bunch, we had great times on and off the track. much more low key atmosphere, more of a regional race feel than a majors ( which is good)  Lots of fun, lots of ball busting.   I feel for Hille and Webb,  both have had some bad luck  the last two years of majors at their home track and I know that is frustrating.   I have finally gotten to atleast 50/50 with Kristen at Mid Ohio!

 

Lots of questions and calls on the VVT car.. Truthful answer.. It is as fast as any VVT car out there, is it better than our 99-00's? I have no idea. The VVT car is definitely a better car at Mid Ohio, the track is tailor made for the VVT cars.   I am bringing to VVT car to the Sprints and running test session in it to see how it does there, but the plan is to race the 00 at the Sprints and I will stick to that plan unless  I am very surprised by the test session.  I can tell you that I feel I have atleast two of the best versions of both cars now. I will make my data and dyno sheets available to the SMAC.   

 

 

Thanks to all my guys that helped and all the friends at the track. See most of you at the Sprints. 

 

 

One last thing...  I put a new seat in the car, I love it. Kirkey full containment.  Made a VERY rookie mistake.   I never tried getting out of the car in my gear. When I was stranded on the side of the road in race two ( I wasnt sitting in the car with all those crazy #$%^& going by) I tried to get out quickly and it was a  REAL struggle with helmet and HANS getting around the halo etc. Thank god I didnt find this out during a fire! Please do yourself a favor and practice this a few times a year and whgenever you change seats /cars.   

[svvs]

Great job gals and guys.
JR, bearing race or hub flang? How many track sessions?
Anyone else with hub failure? Hub or flange.

Vick, at NJMP Pro, SCCA or NASA? (tires?)

 

The guys were running SM7's I believe....Pro -IT.  Both had those new bearings from Mazda.  Haven't cracked them apart yet to see why the wobble.

[Bench Racer]

The guys were running SM7's I believe....Pro -IT.  Both had those new bearings from Mazda.  Haven't cracked them apart yet to see why the wobble.

Thank you, it will be interesting to know the type of hub failure. I don't lean on the hubs hard enough to cause a failure while at the same time this hub issue or issues is not good for the class.
David 

[svvs]

Thank you, it will be interesting to know the type of hub failure. I don't lean on the hubs hard enough to cause a failure while at the same time this hub issue or issues is not good for the class.
David 

I ran all of last season on SM6's and one set of front hubs that I repacked using Mobil 1 grease...IE not the good stuff.

 

I'm wondering if some bearing suppliers got some bad batches of raw goods.

 

Running the major next weekend at NJMP.  The front hubs on the car are currently a set of Timkens Kessler packed up for me with one NASA weekend at NJMP on Toyos.  I'll check them out all weekend and let folks know.

 

BTW sorry for the thread hijack.  Didn't mean to do that.

[SaulSpeedwell]

I would say the big news story out of the race was, the SM7 was rocket fast, and did not fall off, Also however several bearing failures were reported this weekend, I wonder if there is a connection.

 

Faster times, more grip, more force, it is a reasonable suspicion.

 

Fun question:  Did cars that towed long distances fails hubs at a higher rate than cars that towed short distances?

[LarryKing]

So Jim, do you like Mid-O now, or at least dislike it less?

[Bench Racer]

 

BTW sorry for the thread hijack.  Didn't mean to do that.

From my corner of the world this hub failure hijack is not a bad hijack. It seems to be an ongoing issue that may be increasing in numbers.

[Todd Green]

Faster times, more grip, more force, it is a reasonable suspicion.

 

Fun question:  Did cars that towed long distances fails hubs at a higher rate than cars that towed short distances?

I'm not running SM7's (RR's under NASA), tow 0 miles (car is kept in a garage at the track), and never had anything like my hub failure until this year (though the hub is from last year.)  I agree that stickier tires is a logical assumption.  The sudden increase in failures, on some cars where nothing else has changed, makes me think something else is at play.

[Jim Drago]

So Jim, do you like Mid-O now, or at least dislike it less?

Well like I told drennan via text Saturday when he asked the same question, I always liked driving the track, just never liked racing it much. I finally figured out a way to enjoy the track at a race weekend, unfortunately most times the other guys don't cooperate I actually had fun racing STL as well and passed in places I didn't think I could. So yes I am liking it more and more.. It still seems to hold a solid dislike for me though

[davew]

Faster times, more grip, more force, it is a reasonable suspicion.

 

Fun question:  Did cars that towed long distances fails hubs at a higher rate than cars that towed short distances?

 

4 cars in the same trailer, lost both front hubs on Tom Browns car, all others are fine

 

Dave

[Tom Sager]

I think it was Mike Collins that suggested a while back that we should consider a smaller tire?  Front hub life definitely was shortened when we went to the SM6 tire and may now be shortened further with the SM7.  If there is another new tire being tested and possibly considered, maybe we should look at a 195 tire to reduce grip a bit and increase hub life?  Increased cost for more hubs is one thing but when it gets to a point where people aren't finishing races even on low hour hubs that are checked in advance, we'll be looking for an answer.  Maybe a smaller tire or maybe there are better hubs and bearings to be had.  

[pat slattery]

Just what we need, another new tire compound 

[Bench Racer]

The guys were running SM7's I believe....Pro -IT.  Both had those new bearings from Mazda.  Haven't cracked them apart yet to see why the wobble.

Vick, again, thanks for the info. Don't know any gory details untill Vick does his thing. I presume these new bearings from Mazda means their super duper hubs/bearings. In my mind the bearing/outer race failures are minor compared what the results will be from fractured hub flanges. Fractured hub flanges could be serious driver injury and or a kiss off of a car. No one is going to do anything about this except, we the Miata owners and drivers. 

Those of you with G force load data care to look at your info for RA1, SM6 and SM7  and report your findings in a seperate thread specifically for Different Tire G Force Loads by Track and Corner. For all I know the difference in G force loads could be noise. Jim Drago/Saul care to comment about G force loads?

[suck fumes]

video from todays race as the hub failed

Either that hub was dragging huge or you must be way down on power cause those cars were freight training you down the straight.