Seefo

A member on here requested a race report for our SC300's chumpionship contention.

(light) History
To start off, we qualified for the chumpionship after having a pretty strong showing in our first race. We we easily top 10-ish for fastest lap of the race and due to previous experience crewing for another team and ALOT of help from our pit crew, we came in 2nd and could have contented for 1st if not for a mistake in pit. Our car started out as a Black 93 SC300 manual, and was rear ended in race 2. Damage picture included:



Including a cut brake line and 2 destroyed rear links, the wheel well had started to crumple and seperate from the frame rail (which had moved about 4" upward). There is a video of the wreck from another car.
The accident happened under a local yellow that the Red car missed (along with the braking zone). After the car was repaired, a teammate painted it white and put some vinyl on it. Here is how she looked for Race 3.





For this race we tried to resolve some issues we have been having, particularly a serious lack of straight line speed compared to other cars and possibly other SC300s (based on video, rather than racing). We had been running insane amounts of rear toe due to a miscommunication with our alignment guy and as part of that we decided to turn down the camber a touch in the rear and the front. The thinking is we had too much camber in general and it wouldn't really be a detriment to lose some, which would also help us under braking and in some semi-static load situations. I had tried to take the car out to test it at an HPDE, but unfortunately it was during the weekend of the hurricane in NC/VA and I couldn't really make a good conclusion on the car due to several factors, including taking out students and some guests. In hindsight and during the race, we realized we are a tad slower than last year (at the same race) compared to other cars. I think our approximation is something like .75 seconds on VIR-N (in total our fastest lap of the weekend was 1s slower than last year). Our old alignment was 3.5* Camber R/ 3.3* Camber F. Our new alignment was 3.0* on both R & F.

Actual Race Report
Our race was off to a rough start. In normal chump fashion, people drive a bit crazy at race start and we usually try to stay out of trouble. Our driver was doing a good job, but about 1:35 minutes in (our stints are 2:00h+5min stop for gas/driver change/etc.), he did get hit into turn one and was spun out into the grass. A bit of paranoia on our part brought him in early to check the car out. We sent him back out to drive the rest of his stint as this wasn't in our pit window. Obviously this dropped us further, so I think by the end of the first stint we dropped down to 32-34 position. Next driver went out and had a mostly clean session, but in the last 5 minutes of his stint (during pit window) he was hit again and we called him in due to a slight case of red mist. I went in and was driving well, but had an off in the first 6 laps or so that made me realize I was starting to over drive the car. During my stint, I started to realize the reality is our car just isn't as fast we were expecting from last year and a lot of the places we lost time where ones that could use a lot more camber. In any case, but the end of day 2 we climbed back into low 20s in position. Since this is a 16 hour race split into two 8hour sections, we opted for a very aggressive pit strategy. We would not pit until day 2 and would wait for a yellow, we hoped it would come in the first 30 minutes. Unfortunately it didn't and I had to pit within about 25 minutes under green. In any case, our pace was good enough to get us moved up a few positions. Next driver had a clean stint. During the last stint I hit some on debris on track. I knew it hit the exhaust because there was an audible change in our exhaust note, but my initial thinking was the rear section, which had a propensity for getting hit and falling off. I decided to keep driving thinking it would eventually fall off or we could fix it in the next stop. We climbed up to 12th-ish place at this point, but unfortunately the exhaust issue culminated into breaking our header, and the mid pipe disconnecting from the header and dragging under the car...ending our race about 1:30 into that stint. The really frustrating part for me is our pit strategy would have worked since 10 minutes later a pretty big full course yellow was dropped and would have let us do our pit stop under FCY and keep a lot of the positions we made up on people.

In anycase I think the race just reinforced the strong need to thoroughly test changes before races. And to make sure you can keep your race as clean as possible. Hope you guys enjoyed this, let me know if you have questions!

TXMAG

iTrader: (1)

First off, holy crap... That hit in the first video was brutal and just REALLY bad luck.

Second, I'd love to know more about your car and its setup. Do you have a previous post(s) or some sort of page detailing the build? I wouldn't think of building an SC300 as a competitive car but you guys seem to be making it work so good on ya!

Seefo

We don't really have a build thread. The car is relatively "unmodified" except for the suspension. Besides the safety equipment and the fully stripped interior. Overall what we have done:
-We are running revalved bilsteins
-1100 lb hypercoil springs in the front. The rear springs are the front springs after having been cut to an approximate ~540 lbs.
-The car weighs in about 3050-3100 lbs with driver and full fluids.
-intake box has been cut open
-firewall back "rewiring". Basically every non essential wire has been removed from the factory connector/harness. Wires and connectors are still factory, except where we had to add in wiring for kill switch/door lights/fuses/etc.
-Spare wheel well has been removed and in place a flat sheet.
-3" brake ducts.
-Modified LS400 calipers to run 8-series/early 90s high end luxury pads. This is mostly so we can run an actual race pad, otherwise we would be stuck with EBC yellows which are awful. We run hawk DTC-60 front and Carbotech XP10s rear. We are still working out some "brake" feel issues. Its mostly a vibration we get after a few hours of racing, but I think its because we haven't been doing a good job of bedding the pads/rotors and not scrubbing them when cold.

We are partially competitive. We are losing points for next year, so it will be even harder to compete, but with a fresher engine and some more suspension work and possibly losing 80-100lbs, we should be set to nip at the heels some of the ridiculously well prepped E30s. Our drivers are consistent and if we can improve on our pit communication, we should be set to compete where others make mistakes.

HiPSI

iTrader: (2)

Saw you guys at the VIR Holiday Lap event recently. We were in the black Audi TTRS. Nice car and build (it made me research the sc300 as a Chump car candidate lol) but recently did they increase the points for the car to 500? I would love to get into chump car!

Seefo

They did. I wrote a big post about how much chump is moving away from cheap racing, to NASA style racing without classes (yet). But its not really on topic I think. In general, I think we will be competitive for the near future for now. There is definitely some loopholes and areas that a new car being built could take advantage of, but the reality is it will probably be 6-12 months before one is built and a bit more time to get reliable probably. We are looking for help in general with the races. Currently we are a 3 man outfit and 2 people are not nearly as active or won't be in the near future, so we are looking around for members and/or drivers and/or crew to help us out.

I am not sure what your experience is with HPDE/Racing, but if you or anyone is looking to get into this stuff, let me know and I will do my best to answer any questions/concerns you may have. I also instruct with NASA and a local club called THSCC.

NCpilot

Thanks for the write up...that was a seriously hard hit!

I am local and although part of another team I have some ideas on how we could help each other and better contend with the BMW brigade next season. Hit me up on messenger, as I dont think I can send messages yet.

John