ITS Ford Mustang(s) Build - Stripper Stang Part II

[Ron Earp]

The CCPS race was a lot of fun. It is the first race that I’ve started and following a pace car around with an Easter Bunny in the passenger seat was entertaining. Since I was starting I held speeds way down, or shall I say, held speeds down so that I was turning over about 2.8k in third gear, in the meat of my torque band and giving me the broadest RPM range to my 51-5200 RPM shift point. When the green dropped I was able to get the drop and get out ahead of the field. A fast SRF was directly on me though and a couple of laps in I waved him around. He and I weren’t racing and were just going to slow each other up.

The 45 min race went by quickly and I had some good times racing with Rickey T in his BMW and Ron M. in his Miata. Ron was in first place at one point and ended up breaking, so I got the lead and the ITS win for the day. Good times by all and a clean race. Back in the pits and through impound left us little time to prepare for the SARRC. I rotated the tires and did a bit of other car work, finishing just in time to make the grid for the SARRC race, rolling in under the five whistle.

On the grid ahead of Jeff!


The SARRC was fast and hairy. I got off to a poor start and made a number of mistakes in lap one, something not allowed in a sprint. Steve E took off like a rabbit on the green and quickly set a fast pace for the race. Rickey T went off in turn eight of lap one making that a bit exciting. I should have blocked #59 Tim J into turn twelve but I didn’t and he got around me. Once he was past he and I had to dice for position while the leaders, Steve E, Ron M, and Jeff Y. ran off into the distance. Laps four through seven or eight have us going back and forth three or four times for position. Good stuff. I eventually got around Tim and made it stick, leaving him to dice it up with Russ B., but by then a top three finish was out of the question. Or was it….




[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toGQFkwdxfw[/ame]

At some point I come rolling out of T14 and find Steve E on the side of the track with smoke coming out of the hood. Turned out he had an electrical issue and had to retire for the weekend. And, coming into T7 I run up on a green British car traveling quite slowly, which isn’t the norm for the TR8. It pulled off to the side and had to retire as well, having let out all the Lucas Electrical Smoke it could no longer run. That left Ron M in the lead who won the race putting me in a distant second. Again, Ron gets my Go-Fast award by driving the heck of his Miata. Steve E and Jeff Yound both led the SARRC race, but Ron M. was never more than a couple of car lengths behind. Way to go!

Ron M, Ron E, and TimJ


So the Mustangs had a pretty good showing for the weekend, collecting a couple of pieces of wood for the garage wall. Next time around, in May, we'll be faster. I'm pretty sure we have a good baseline setup and can improve upon it. We'll also be lighter too as some of our new parts to save weight will be in use by then.



Next races are at Roebling Road and I'm looking forward to seeing how we shake out there. We have a decent setup for RRR that netted some 22s back at the SIC and I am pretty sure we can improve upon that for April 2013.