Roland Endurance Racing

[thedemoguy]

Roland

One more time, Thanks for all you did with the 24 of Nelson.

You know I didn't think I would like an endurance race and thought you guys that run them are out of your mind... ...but after the 24 of Nelson I keep finding myself on this endurance racing forums...lol

I've become obsessed with it and can't what for the next one.

I would like to get together with you and Scott some time to talk about what I should do or get, to run this series next year...Would my Jetta be a good car for it ? or should I have a car just for endurance racing ?

Keep in mind this is my first year racing SCCA so be patient with my ignorance and foolish questions...

One thing I do know, I'm going to get one of thous big ass gas cans...lol that 1/2in pipe on the 5 gallon can didn't work out very well...lol but we did ok for a bunch of rookies.

[Knestis]

Woo-hoo! Fish on!

Seriously, welcome to the disease...

We're always willing to share whatever information we can to help new competitors get better at the long races. Having been doing them since the mid-'80s, we're starting to have a clue even if we still screw up every once in a while.

Get in touch if you have any specific questions or post them here.

I don't know anything about your car in particular but VWs make good enduro cars. They tend to be a little on the overbuilt side (compare VW and Honda suspension pieces some day), and they don't have to get wound very tight to make reasonable power.

For the record, while we've made some compromises to our MkIII to shift it toward being an enduro specialty ride (e.g., big cell), it's in basically the same form it would be if I were just doing sprint races. We haven't detuned it to make it live longer or anything like that.

The real key is to understand lifing of parts, so you chuck stuff BEFORE it breaks. We're getting that pretty well figured out, I think. There's a great body of knowledge around these cars so someone can tell you when to change front hubs and bearings, for example.



Refueling is a huge issue. We used pretty nice home-made 5-gallon vented dump cans with 1" hoses, that would empty in about 45 seconds (above, when they still had 3/4" hoses to fit the unleaded restrictor from our SSC days). This spring we installed a 25-gal cell and dry break, so we can empty twice that much fuel in about 1/5 of the time. It's a HUGE difference, to the degree that driver changes are now the weak link, time-wise. On the other hand, I invested about half of what a good used MkII ITB Golf would cost to get outfitted to do that, using eBay and other used parts and dump cans.

Kirk

[thedemoguy]

Kirk

I was one of the drivers in the #9 ITB Checkered Motorsports car, we used the stock fuel tank and changed drivers every 2hr or so, at that point we would only have to put in about 10 gal. of gas but with a can like yours excepted with 1/2 in. pipe and no vent, it would take about 3 days to put 10 gal. in the car...lol

With a 25 gal. cell how long would a driver stay in the car...? I could have driven a lot longer then the 2 hr shift, but I don't know if my performance would be acceptable.

What's a good time to change drivers, in your experience...?

[Knestis]

The vent trick we put on those little jugs made a huge difference. Well, relatively huge.

We averaged 6.5 gal/hour at Nelson so we have a reasonable 3.5-hour stint length. We haven't used it because of issues of driver fatigue (that might change in the cooler weather of VIR in November) but it's sure nice to have the flexibility to do so. One of our guys ran a gen-u-ine 3 hours at the Longest Day and his only complaint was of a urinary nature toward the end of the stint.

I confess that I don't have time figures for driver changes alone. We were going to do some timed practicing at Nelson but got behind with an electrical issue during the test/practice day.

K

[Hahn63]

Heck Kirk ... the fish is flopping in the boat!


Yea, welcome to our additiction! I'll help you feed it!


Roland

[thedemoguy]

See, I told you enduro guys were crazy... :026:

I'm trying to get info about endurance racing and Roland thinks we're talking about fishing...

What about the car, do you do much sprint racing or do you just race enduro...?

How much time do you put on the engine before rebuilds...?

[Knestis]

The Golf has two seasons on the current engine, described at...

http://it2.evaluand.com/gti/events06.php

and http://it2.evaluand.com/gti/events07.php

That works out to about 80 hours of time to date. I've done more sprint races in past seasons but this year has been very busy with a move and new job, so I've been kind of a slacker. I also find that I'm reluctant to risk the car at Regionals when I've got codrivers counting on it being ready for the big enduros.

K

[Hahn63]

I would like to get together with you and Scott some time to talk about what I should do or get, to run this series next year...[/b]

Once I'm done playing with the fish!

Would be more than happy to set down with you and give you some info. Email me at [email protected] and we'll figure out a time to get together, your buying the beer!


Roland