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ITLBTU
03-17-2007, 07:26 AM
Anybody watch the Forza Motorsports challenge? I saw that Air Rides car won the challenge so I Tivo'd the last two episodes. Where do they find some of those clowns? The one guy had a minor spin and backed the car into the wall, and then he quit. The next guy did one race and then he quit. Another kid was driving a new vette, and he should have cleaned up, but he couldn't drive, and he had a mouth on him as well. The '69 Camaro would have won but he broke his transmission. The Cope girl couldn't drive either, but she won because everyone else broke. It was cool to see a couple old musclecars racing the new cars though. I wish that I had seen all of the episodes. I would have loved to be there and give those kids a good "spankin" with my car...:drive1:

bigvegan
03-17-2007, 08:54 AM
No kidding. I posted on this in the off topic section, but good grief.

I mean, given that your car is going to be on national TV, wouldn't it make sense to give it some shakedown time first?

I mean it's making me reconsider my desire to start racing. If these guys can't keep their cars running through a handful of events, and they're suppliers/builders, etc., how am I, a non-mechanic on a budget, ever going to make it through a race or two, much less a season?

Very disappointing.

Or maybe it's a conspiracy by the video game companies that sponsored it. Maybe they sabotaged the cars each night when the crews went home.

"See kids, real cars break down and then you have to spend many hours and many thousands of dollars fixing them. On the video game console, you just hit reset and you get a brand new car for free and get to start racing again."

Wait a minute. I started typing that as a joke. Now that I typed it in, it looks a lot less far-fetched. Is it really possible that that many cars, built with that much skill, would really be that craptastic at the same time.

Maybe its a conspiracy! Maybe it's not the hot rodders fault.

Dan Sherwood
03-18-2007, 08:57 PM
I also found it hard to believe that there were that many mechanical failures, even on the newer cars.
I also could not believe they did'nt have some real tires availlable for the different venues, that would have let the cars perform better.
Certainly, driving skills (or lack of) were an issue at times. The kid with the vette was indeed a mouthy sucker, but his team leader opted to NOT put in a better radiator, and that cost them $100,000.

barraza
03-19-2007, 05:54 AM
Is it really possible that that many cars, built with that much skill, would really be that craptastic at the same time.


Simple answer, YES.

In amateur classes cars break all the time, Murphy loves race cars, especially production based ones. We have all become used to Nascar or F1 having most of the cars running at the end of a race, but they have enormous amounts of money to spend on preparation. The ratio of manhours of prep to hours spent racing at professional levels, and the resultant reliability, is unbelievable. The top F1 teams like ferrari or McClaren have 400-500 employees, on track time a year is probably less than 50hours. Thats about 20,000 manhours per hour of track time. Of course that includes designing and building a car, but you get the idea.

When I raced, I figured 10-20 hours prep per hour of track time, and that was without crash damage. The level of commitment and money required to go racing makes the expense of other hobbies look like pocket change. BTW I'm not trying to talk you out of it. Do I regret racing, hell no; I love racing, I had tons of fun and met lots of great people. I also found that while I had moderate talent, I was never going to be a pro. Now that I am a semi-old fart, I am satisfied that I gave it my best effort and it is not something I will wonder about for the rest of my life.

ITLBTU
03-19-2007, 11:48 AM
I took my "stock" '00 SS Camaro to a track day at Thunderhill Raceway in N.Ca. It was probably in the mid 80's. We ran all out for 20 min. I did experience a little detonation, but it never over heated, my brakes and power steering were also fine. I think I ran 4 or 5 sessions, and then drove 120 miles back home.

David Pozzi
03-19-2007, 12:48 PM
While we were building my wife's 73 Camaro, I attended some open track events as a spectator. I helped some friends with their cars and got some rides. This gave me some insight into what problem areas I needed to address in my wife's car.

We've had some minor problems like crankcase venting, oil leaks and wrong brake pads, but the car has been very reliable so far. I can't imagine just building a car and entering it in an event like this with zero track time to debug it. There were so many breakdowns I couldn't follow it all!
David

Varkwso
03-19-2007, 04:04 PM
They would not let Lou install a lot of the parts for the Vette - to include the radiator. But the real problem was a loose headbolt and a blown head gasket.

I run C5 vettes at Road Atlanta often - they will not overheat in 20 minutes at the track. Oil temps will get to 300 degrees if you do not manage it well but they run fine at that temp.

In my son's stock 1999 130,000 mile C5 fixed roof coupe we ran back to back 1:42s to 1:43s at Road Atlanta last weekend - for 200 miles.

HOSTILETAKEOVER
03-20-2007, 03:05 PM
If I could read through all the bad driving one thing that shined through was the fact that Corvette is (at the risk of offending someone) head and shoulders above many sports cars available today. I realize that the old muscle cars are bound by the rules of physics, but the Corvette really stomped the imports and Mustang.

Imagine what the Z06 could do! I don't own a Corvette and am thus unbiased, however the irony of the whole thing is that in many minds the affordable price tag of a Z06 is the last hurdle to super car status.

Y-TRY
03-20-2007, 03:15 PM
The gist that I got about it was that the LG team was pretty much walking away with the competition, so the producers limited what they could upgrade. Notice that they were #1 in points but only got to choose from a spoiler and radiator while the other teams, with far less credits, got to choose turbos, brakes and nitrous. Hmmm.

The musclecars even got to 'cheat' some. The idea was to bring relatively stock cars to begin with. I'm pretty sure '69 Camaros never came with a 600+hp 572" crate motors and completely aftermarket suspension.

vintageracer
03-20-2007, 04:28 PM
Try to run a 3 hour Vintage Enduro race at Sebring in Florida with a vintage race car and you will appreciate superb preparation and top notch equipment. Ever wonder why they only run a 12 hour race at Sebring in the Spring? There is not a car in the world that could last 24 hours at Sebring. Sebring is absolutely the roughest road course race track in the county and definitely one of the most fun!

Varkwso
03-21-2007, 02:40 AM
Try to run a 3 hour Vintage Enduro race at Sebring in Florida with a vintage race car and you will appreciate superb preparation and top notch equipment. Ever wonder why they only run a 12 hour race at Sebring in the Spring? There is not a car in the world that could last 24 hours at Sebring. Sebring is absolutely the roughest road course race track in the county and definitely one of the most fun!

We ate a set of pads there the last weekend of December (New Year's Eve Weekend) - well worth $300 worth of pads and rotors. At least it is gentle on tires. Sebring is a great track and if I ran there in the summer the Dewitt oil cooler radiator in the living room would have to get installed!