70 replies to this topic

[Bench Racer]

The topic tag kind of tells part of the story. The first SCCA race car to tour Road America in under two minutes. Within the story I know one of the talked about five pi$$ed off guys. Ralph, you should enjoy this if you haven't heard the real story. I had heard wild a$$ guess about the desing/build cost, not even close to story comments.

 

EDIT:

Sorry, start listening at approx. the eight minute mark.

http://www.dinnerwit...evel-5-special/ 

 

A true story to keep in mind when yer feeling all puffed about your Spec Miata program.

 

Sean, hope you enjoy another Bench Racer post.

[Jeff Wasilko]

I've heard that....its spectacular.

[38bfast]

The topic tag kind of tells part of the story. The first SCCA race car to tour Road America in under two minutes. Within the story I know one of the talked about five pi$$ed off guys. Ralph, you should enjoy this if you haven't heard the real story. I had heard wild a$$ guess about the desing/build cost, not even close to story comments.

EDIT:
Sorry, start listening at approx. the eight minute mark.
http://www.dinnerwit...evel-5-special/

A true story to keep in mind when yer feeling all puffed about your Spec Miata program.

Sean, hope you enjoy another Bench Racer post.

David thanks for passing that on. I know the effort was nuts but I did not know it was that nuts.

The irony is my garage built DSR has been considered a over dog for P1

[Mitch Reading]

The Dinner With Racers podcasts are awesome... there are many others, all free (I tunes store I think). 

 

Imagine if a Scott Tucker level $$ guy came to SM...

[Jim Drago]

Imagine if a Scott Tucker level $$ guy came to SM...

He would run mid pack to maybe upper front pack with the same effort... Great listen, but I believe tucker was about 6 seconds off the pro test driver. The best thing about SM, despite what some think is you can't buy wins at well attended events.

[Bench Racer]

^ Bait?

[Butch Kummer]

He would run mid pack to maybe upper front pack with the same effort... Great listen, but I believe tucker was about 6 seconds off the pro test driver. The best thing about SM, despite what some think is you can't buy wins at well attended events.

 

Not saying you're wrong Jim, but (from the audio) it sounds like he "only" went a 1:58 because that's all he had to run. As kruck posted on another board, this indeed brings a whole new meaning to the term "full-build effort"!

[Jim Drago]

No bait... my opinions..

How many "real" racers get in a car and run 6 seconds off the pace? I assume even for Tucker this was a cool and fun project.. No way I could get out of that car running six seconds slower than the car was capable and leave feeling any satisfaction or anything more than wasting time. Even at those speeds, 6 seconds off the pace is scrubbing tires. With all the time and effort in this car, you had to figure he was pumped to drive it? My guess is he within a second or so of as fast as he was going to go. We will never know, but I feel fairly certain he doesn't get with 4-5 seconds of the pro driver.. The guy is not close in Ferrari Challenge and thus feel VERY confident that he would not do well in SM or SRF, even with his budget.

[38bfast]

Jim try driving a high downforce car. It's not as much as a perfection in driving factor like SM. It's more of getting past the self preservation factor. It's very evident when your driving one of these things that is shit goes wrong it's going to go wrong in a big way.

I do think tucker would do well in SM. And yes money would get him there. He would hire you as his person driving coach for a month straight

[Steve Scheifler]

We need to come up with a way to goad him into it, but I doubt anyone could. His history in SCCA is to identify a class where an opportunity exists to buy/build an overdog car and then spend whatever it takes. I'm sure that's a lot of fun and also gratifying in its own right, but there aren't a lot of good drivers who are intimidated by his skills as a pilot. Good, sure, he'd have to be seriously deficient to not be pretty good with so much seat time and coaching, but as Jim said he is nothing special when the cars are closely matched.

[dhrmx5]

Steve, you couldn't be more wrong. The DSR project was an offshoot of Scott's having raced IMSA lites for years. He bought the West company that built those cars and the intent was to build the best sports racers on the market.

 

What better way to advertise that then to win the Runoffs and build the fastest SCCA car ever to tour Road America?

 

As far as the other classes he chose to run, they were chosen based on his interest in the cars, not in any perceived notion that the class was underacheiving. Take T1 for example: One of the most hotly contested classes for years. You can claim that the 430 was an overdog, but Randy Pobst couldn't get the Weathertec 430 within several seconds of Scott's times. Heinricy brought a Grand sport that outqualified the 430 but he broke at the start and destroyed half the field. STO and DSR? Who wouldn't want to run a class that allowed nearly unlimited development of a car?

 

Are you seriously telling me that the majority of SM drivers wouldn't own and drive a faster class of car if they could afford it?

[dhrmx5]

Jim, there were two reasons Scott didn't go any faster. He didn't need to, and it wasn't safe for him to do so. Talk to any serious car designer out there and they will tell you it is insane to take a tube frame sportsracer to those speeds. Crash protection is nonexistent compared to a CF monocoque.

 

There wasn't anything ego driven about Scott. He would do what was needed in the car, and many times I saw him drive as fast or faster than his pro co-drivers.

[David L]

,   I don't understand why some in this community always want to diminish a persons talent, he has over 100 professional wins he would probably laugh at the competition in SM. If you listened to the interview he had No seat time in that car.

 

Remember Ernie Francis Jr. how's he doing? as I remember he got bullied right off of this forum. Was it because we were outraged that he was cheating or was it because he had more talent, and we don't like that. i would guess the later as we do not care about cheating/cheaters.

[dstevens]

Little Ern was pretty welcome here.  Big Ern was another issue.  He was boisterous and arrogant and would double down when called on it.  The rules transgressions weren't simply from pushing the envelope but were straight up cheat-um-up.  He behaved like an asshole and was treated accordingly.

[High Chair]

He would run mid pack to maybe upper front pack with the same effort... Great listen, but I believe tucker was about 6 seconds off the pro test driver. The best thing about SM, despite what some think is you can't buy wins at well attended events.

We certainly can agree on that! SM is very competitive and sometimes just finishing in the top10 can be an accomplishment. 

[Cnj]

,
 
Remember Ernie Francis Jr. how's he doing? as I remember he got bullied right off of this forum. Was it because we were outraged that he was cheating or was it because he had more talent, and we don't like that. i would guess the later as we do not care about cheating/cheaters.

So my choice is either to be covetous and insecure or to be a supporter of fraud and trickery?

High horse?

CNJ

[High Chair]

Little Ern was pretty welcome here.  Big Ern was another issue.  He was boisterous and arrogant and would double down when called on it.  The rules transgressions weren't simply from pushing the envelope but were straight up cheat-um-up.  He behaved like an asshole and was treated accordingly.

I think that is exactly right. Many of us tried very hard behind the scenes before it ever made it to this forum; it just didn't work out and I think we know why. He is doing well and most of us here wish him the best in his future endeavors. However, it is still my opinion that he would not find the level of success he is enjoying in his current series if he was still in SM. This class is a lot more competitive then where he is or likely to be in the future. 

[David L]

No the choice should be to open up our eyes.

 

I am not quite sure when this forum turned from being an extremely welcoming place to start an incredible journey into club racing into a forum and community full of hate and disrespect for the fellow competitor.  

[High Chair]

,   I don't understand why some in this community always want to diminish a persons talent, he has over 100 professional wins he would probably laugh at the competition in SM. If you listened to the interview he had No seat time in that car.

 

Remember Ernie Francis Jr. how's he doing? as I remember he got bullied right off of this forum. Was it because we were outraged that he was cheating or was it because he had more talent, and we don't like that. i would guess the later as we do not care about cheating/cheaters.

His dad was called out for being what he was. The kid has talent and many people said just that. however his talent was being over shadowed by the will to win at any cost. Drago, Todd, Alex, Danny, myself, and many others might not see eye to eye on everything but I think we agree that we would rather finish in the top 10 of a strong field than to finish first in a weak one. Trust me, true racers like to race against other talented drivers; even if we lose sometimes. Ernie was more than welcome!

[David L]

Yes because we all know the BEST drivers in the world run SM. As a matter of fact I got a chance to talk to Lewis Hamilton at Homestead a few weeks back and he was telling me if it wasn't for the money, he would rather run SM.