PhilsTireService.com Team to Endure 13 Hours

[Knestis]

For Immediate Release – May 29, 2004

Contact Kirk Knestis - [email protected]

Greensboro, NC – a team of four part-time sports car racers has confirmed its entry for the Charge of the Headlight Brigade 13-hour endurance race, October 22-23 at Virginia International Raceway. Among races on the Atlantic coast, this Sports Car Club of America (SCCA®) event is shorter than only the celebrated 24-hours of Daytona in Florida, and will run around a 3.27-mile circuit, in all weather conditions and well into the night.

PhilsTireService.com Team GTI will be looking for victory in the Improved Touring B class. Cars in this category are essentially stock and this particular 1996 Volkswagen sport compact has few performance modifications beyond KONI racing struts, uprated suspension springs, and extreme-duty brake pads from Cobalt Friction Technologies.

Driving duties will be shared by car owner Kirk Knestis (Greensboro, NC), Southeast Honda Challenge and ITC standout Scott Giles (Leesburg, GA), past SCCA® Run-Offs® bronze medallist Greg Amy (Middletown, CT), and Northeast division IT journeyman Evan Webb (Elkridge, MD). These amateur racers have pooled their resources to tackle this event because it is simply not possible to go it alone on an operation of this magnitude. Driver Scott Giles’ sentiments reflect another motivation for joining the team, however: “I've always wanted to do a long distance event like this one, but I'm not crazy enough to subject my own racecar to that kind of abuse.”

The team anticipates that a trouble-free run will cover more than 900 miles at an average speed better than 70 mph. Drivers will take turns in the car, running stints approaching 2 hours in length, between which an all-volunteer pit crew will perform service as required. The more heavily loaded front tires – Toyo Proxes RA-1 race rubber from Phil’s Tire Service, in Haverstraw, NY – will be asked to go two stints before changing. Early-season testing suggests that they can expect to average 11mpg on the track, a surprisingly high figure under race conditions. Even at that, increasing gas prices have forced adjustments to the budget for the event.

The PhilsTireService.com team is documenting the season-long effort toward its endurance-racing debut at http://it2.evaluand.com/gti – a site that will be updated with text and images describing modifications to the car in collaboration with Bildon Motorsports, logistical preparations for the event, and stories of the team’s adventures during the race.

http://it2.evaluand.com/gti/images/phils2sm2.jpg

http://it2.evaluand.com/gti/images/windgraph.jpg

[Bill Miller]

Nicely done Kirk!! Best of luck to you guys, do the VW marque proud!

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MARRS #25 ITB Rabbit GTI (sold) | MARRS #25 HProd Rabbit
SCCA 279608

[Knestis]

This is kind of cool and *mostly* accurate, from http://albanyherald.net/sports.html

ALBANY — First came a parking lot. Then it was a road up a mountain.

Scott Giles will get plenty of time behind the wheel during a 13-hour race in Virginia.
Scott Giles' world is based around the phrase "have car will travel." Or more specifically, have car will race.

The Atlanta native who moved to Albany a year ago, has been competing in some capacity with the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) and National Auto Sport Association (NASA) since 1995.

"My dad (Deryl) was a drag racer," Giles said. "And when I turned 16, I really got into sports cars."

Whether it is zooming his Honda in between orange cones trying to post the best time in the north parking lot at Atlanta Motor Speedway or racing up a 3.5-mile road that increases in elevation many hundreds of feet before the finish line on top of Beech Mountain, N.C., Giles has gone for what every racer chases — the coveted checkered flag.

Later this year, however, Giles is going to try something different. He will be part of a four-man team that will race Oct. 23 in the Charge of the Headlight Brigade 13-hour endurance race from 9:15 a.m.-10:15 p.m. at Virginia International Raceway. Giles' teammates will be Greg Amy of Connecticut, Evan Webb of Maryland and Kirk Knestis of North Carolina.

The only race on the Atlantic Coast that is longer than this event is the 24 Hours of Daytona.

"This is probably the biggest thing I've ever done. Doing a 13-hour race is kinda nuts," Giles said with a laugh. "You're racing for 13 hours. You literally use everything you brought to the park.

"We know we will have to change tires four or five times and will have to change the breaks. And assuming nothing else will break, hopefully that will be it."

Giles added the team would have a Volkswagen technician there just in case.

Being part of a team, Giles won't drive the entire 13 hours on the 3.27-mile, hilly road course that has 19 right or left turns. The drivers will rotate at the wheel with no definite time frame.

"The plan is for each of us to drive it until it runs out of gas," said Giles, who owns a lawn-care business. "Probably each driver will do two stints of an hour or one-and-a-half hours."

Since there are no lights at the track, the team will have to put lights on the car as the evening progresses.

"During the race, it's going to be more important to conserve the car and make it hold up for the 13 hours," Giles said. "The goal is not to drive conservative, but to drive it consistent all the way through."

The sport of driving in between orange cones, known to the SCCA world as autocross, is an event in which Giles finished next to last in his first try. He eventually won it twice. He won the Beech Mountain Hillclimb twice and in 1998 set the record in his class at 1 minute, 28.3 seconds. Giles won the SCCA Southeastern Division Time Trial Championship three years in a row from 1998-2000. And on top of that, he won the NASA Honda Challenge Series championship in 2002.

Presently, Giles competes in Touring Class C in the SCCA Southeast Division by himself in the Sprint Series (30-minute, non-stop races) and with his girlfriend Renee Hines in the Enduro Series (90-minute to three-hour races). Giles is third in the Sprint Series points, and he is in second in the Enduro Series with Hines. Giles and Hines have raced in just two events this year and won both (at Virginia International Raceway and Carolina Motorsports Park). In those Enduro races, Giles and Hines rotate and drive 90 minutes each.



K



[This message has been edited by Knestis (edited June 15, 2004).]

[bobpink]

>"We know we will have to change tires four or five times and will have to change the breaks."

I'm sure "change the breaks" was not what was meant in the context of the above sentence, but in a 13 hour race it could be pretty accurate overall.

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Bob Pinkowski
Atlanta Region SCCA
OPM Autosports
ITS Honda Prelude (for sale)