Garage queen to track whore?

Any of you transformed a cherished longtime automotive possession into a full time race car?

Case in point...say you have a relatively nice sports car that you've owned for several years. You've maintained it faithfully, rebuilt things as they've worn out, upgraded performance accssories, etc along the way.

It was once a daily driver but now it's being used as a weekend toy and occasionally for a track day. Because of the age, mileage, etc. it will never be a rare collectible...at least not in your lifetime. But it's still worth pretty much what you originally paid for it.

At wgat point and how do you decide it's time to make it a dedicated track/IT car?

I think I qualify for that. I bought my ’87 Toyota MR2 in college for $4,000 with only 40kmi. It served as my only form of transportation for a few years and through moves through a few states. With snow tires, a ski rack, and a bike rack it was the perfect utility car! I started autocrossing it on the weekends and then doing HPDE’s. At 120,000mi I through in the cage and started IT racing.

www.racerjake.com

Well, for me it was more like 'Let's have a look out back and pick out the best from the sea of old Z cars.'

One of my 'nice' Z's into a track car? Not in this lifetime.



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Ty Till
#16 ITS
Rocky Mountain Division

I purchased my Rabbit brand new in 1981. Drove it for around 300k miles on the street, before the final straw broke the camel's back.

It needed a heater core (defroster actually made it worse) and when I lost a spring in the clutch disk, I decided to convert it to an IT car.

Since I had already converted it to a GTI along the way past those 300k plus miles, it was pretty easy to transplant all my old IT Scirocco parts to the Wabbit.

I'm the only owner of this car, and it still has the original point.



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Tim Linerud
San Francisco Region SCCA
#95 GP Wabbit (Bent)
http://linerud.myvnc.com/racing/index.html

Well I've gone the route of building an IT car from something I drug out of someone's yard...actually twice. Destroyed the first one in a horrendous crash...sold the second one after building it from the parts from the crashed car.

What I'm looking at now is a 911 I've enjoyed on the street and at track days for a while. It is still a fine little car, but with over 130K on the odo, it'll never be much more than a $15K car. I have a roll bar for PCA events and have upgraded the suspension as per the stock PCA rules and the racing there is a little less....errrr..."agressive" than IT. I understand I'll have to go full cage, but beyond that it is "ready."

I realize it'll run in ITE and know it will keep up with all but the quickest ITS cars and be smoked by other ITE's (like ZO6's) but I'm looking at increased track access...not winning some piece of wood.

Bit of a dilemma.

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

Thank GOD, the CRB set the weight too high on the recent ITS 911 classsification or I would have been tempted to turn my ole E into a rce car....phew!

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Jake Gulick
CarriageHouse Motorsports
ITA 57 RX-7
New England Region
[email protected]

LMAO, lateapex....so you understand my PAIN!!!!! Truth be known, my car is probably too nice to thrash in SCCA IT...it is just such a sweet track car and I enjoy competing in it. PCA events are fun, but the level of competition in the stock ranks coupled with the 13/13 rule and my prior IT days makes me crazy sometimes.

To answer your original question, when I was ready to be "ok with it" if I balled up my car on a Saturday afternoon was when I started racing my car in IT. Something to think about.

If you have real cool older sports car (like an MGC, 65 mustang, TVR, Austin Healey ...) well, you might want to think it over. VW Rabbits are easier to fix and replace.

If you have a Porsche, that's another story! Porsche's are made to be driven on the track. From Speedsters to RSR's. They are made for one reason... racing!

When I was time trialing with COM, we had one guy who used to drive his 2 year old 911 (or whatever the new version was called then) to the track, race tires in tow. He had these magnetic strips that he would apply to all the forward facing surfaces to protect them from rocks and such. And then he would go out and thrash that car at Watkins Glen. I mean smoke those tires. End of day, off comes the magnetic strips and race tires. Off he drives home.

Used that car for exactly what it was made for. Gotta respect that.

Jim

While I didn't build my GTI into a race car, I did end up racing one. I started tracking my '84 GTI shortly after I bought it in '87. After the first event, I was hooked! Drove it to work during the week, drove it on the track on the weekends. I was actually ready to build it into a track car, when a deal on an already built AW11 MR2 came along, and I just couldn't pass it up. Plus, I still got to drive the GTI on the street.

I'll always have a warm spot in my heart for an A1 VW on the track. Which, is why that, when I sold my ITB GTI, I bought an HProd Rabbit. I've got a '76 Scirocco that I'm really tempted to build into a race car, but it's too nice, and it's going to be a fun street car!

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

The right time is when you don't have to ask if it is the right time.

Being able to have the car written off without too much grief also helps.

My #1 rule of racing:

If you can't push it off a cliff and walk away, you shouldn't be racing it.

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Jason
ITB 17 (NER SCCA)
VW Scirocco

[This message has been edited by itracer (edited June 16, 2004).]

I did it with a 944. Mint condition. Started doing Drivers Ed events, upgraded suspension here and there, got addicted (and stupid according to my wife) ripped out interior, put in the cage and drove the crap out of it. Although it was the wrong car for ITS, it's what I had and never regretted it!!



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Jeff L
#74 ITB GTi

grayracer, where are you located? You might find that GTS Challenge gives more of the IT-level competition you're looking for, yet a much more Porsche-friendly environment to race your car. We run (currently) in the Midwest, VA, and SE with NASA. Check out our website, watch our videos, and let us know if you think it's something you might be interested in being a part of...

For my part, I was going to do that conversion with my first 924, which had once been my daily driver. In the process of getting a parts car, we realized the parts car was in better shape than my "racecar"!!! So a quick shift of gears and we instead parted out the daily driver to make the racecar. It was a good choice. http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/smile.gif

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Vaughan Scott
Detroit Region #280052
'79 924 #77 ITA/GTS1
www.vaughanscott.com

Another question: Do you think it is cheaper/better in the long run to convert a good example of the car to race duty or to drag a car out of a field? Or do we pick the old rust buckets because we realy like putting them back together and like Tetnaus shots, and seeing our own blood....it has been fun. Also if you buy a car that has all kind of reciepts of when what was replaced when I might let some things slide that would get replaced in the car I had to chase snakes out of.

I have to agree with Jason. If you can't afford to replace it, you can't afford to race it. Unless you look at it like a car deserves to die a noble death.

Ty, how many cars do you have in that "sea of z-cars"? Do you have a 4:11 ring and pinion set?

Tom

I appreciate the input, guys.

Vaughan...I looked at your website but didn't see an email addy. I'm in the SE so there may be some events that are "doable" for me. Email addy?

Cherokee...like I said before I have resurrected two IT cars from their graves. And it is not an inexpensive proposition...you're exactly on point that you have to go thru EVERYTHING to make them trackworthy. And while some may think the notion of taking a perfectly good 911 worht about $15K and upgrading to the level needed to run IT, I point to the money people are putting into SpeedSource RX7's and BMW e36's...Upwards of $35K for a professionally built car. A big nut for someone running for a piece of wood and some contingency here and there. Atleast with a 911 or the like, the platform is already at a level where major bucks aren't required to make it a quick track car for the amateur racer.

Team Rocket...about a Porsche beng made for racing...my sentiments exactly. They are tough pieces and will withstand a ton of abuse on the track.

Tom D...I know you're looking for a 4:11, but have you tried the gear from the front diff on the older 4WD Nissan pickup? I think it's a 4:36 and it may be an R200 rearend (been a while since I did this). I welded diff and with the 280 5 speed it made a big difference on the tight tracks...first gear was totally useless but it made a damn fine budget 4 sp CR tranny...

Finally...ITRacer...I like the "push it off a cliff comment." You know that guy is gonna take o the limit and understand the notion of instant depreciation. Been there, done that...lol

[This message has been edited by grayracer (edited June 16, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by grayracer (edited June 16, 2004).]

Ty, how many cars do you have in that "sea of z-cars"?

Um, five at the moment. Plus my two drivers and the race car. Yeah, I know.

Do you have a 4:11 ring and pinion set?

Well, I have two complete 4:11 (R180) diffs, but one's in the car and one I'm saving. I don't have any extra gear sets with which to build another one.

...front diff on the older 4WD Nissan pickup?

I think that the diff's Grey is refering to are R200's. Nothing wrong with an R200, except that it's heavier. An R180 seems to be holding up fine for me, so I don't see the reason to carry the extra weight. You might want to check into an early Sentra (I think) turbo. IIRC, that's where mine came from. You'll have to change the output shaft flanges, not a big deal.

Sorry Greyracer. Hijack complete.



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Ty Till
#16 ITS
Rocky Mountain Division

Argh! Yeah, I've been meaning to add a "Contacts" page! You can reach our series director, Mark Barr, at mark "AT" gtschallenge.com (replace the "AT" with @, eliminate the spaces, and pray for less spam), and he also lurks on here, IIRC as zracer22? I am one of the Tech Directors and founders of the series, but I won't bother giving my email since my email is currently flaky.

We are coming your way - real soon! We'll be at Road Atlanta, as you probably noticed, June 19-20, again sharing the road with the American Iron guys. Gives us someone to pass in the corners! http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/wink.gif Stop by and say Hi to Mark, he'll be there with the BMW and GTS Challenge flag.

You can also reach the SE Region of NASA, with whom we race in the SE area, at:
http://www.nasa-southeast.com/

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Vaughan Scott
Detroit Region #280052
'79 924 #77 ITA/GTS1
www.vaughanscott.com

Being a Honda nut, I purchased a very cool looking 1975 Honda Civic back in the mid 80's. It had fibre glass flared fenders, panasports, sidedraft weber, stiff suspension, header and a roll bar to boot. I took it drag racing at the local track. When Camaros and Mustangs were the cars of choice, I showed up with this little Civic. I got no respect at all, until I drove a 15.95 sec 1/4 mile run with it. Then they stopped laughing. I guess, now looking back, I was a frontier of the Import Drag wars. I drove it for a few years and tried to sell it for only $1500 on several occassions. A lot of kids looked at the car, but no one wanted it. That was 1987. The car just sat.

In 1992 I decided to go road racing. I gutted the Civic, added a full cage and entered it into the GT5 class. I didn't know the early history of the car until I got into road racing years later when I met up with the original owner. He spotted my civic in the paddock and immediately recogonised it. Apparently, it was the 4th Honda sold at our local Honda dealership back in '75. The guy entered it in the Molyslip series in 1977 and it was raced for a few years after that at our local track. He sold the car and never seen it since.

My buddy still has the old thing parked out behind his garage. Anyone want it?

Racer025...you ought to hang onto it. Would be a great budget vintage racer someday.

Speaking of racing 911's: I went to Watkins Glen the weekend of June 6th for the historic races. It was Porsche heaven. They had a reunion of the old 70's vintage IROC series when they ran the Porsche RSR's. Also a great showing of 914-6's. Must have been 60 or 70 Porsche's there that weekend. 10 run groups with most having about 20 cars or so - or more. Vintage racing is alive and well!

Best car of the weekend was a 1930's or so vintage Morris Trike. This guy got around the track almost as fast as my ITB level VW GTI - and it was raining! http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/eek.gif Come to think of it, my Rabbit goes around that track on 3 wheel too.

Sorry for hijacking the thread, but it was a cool weekend!