Results!

Awesome, awesome fun.

Full write up to come of the chaos leading up to the race (and there was chaos a-plenty), but here's the nutshell: ran strongly and we were running 75th (in a field of 160) when a conrod bearing gave in Sunday around noon.

The team drove clean and the car was quick (105mph on the main straight). Not too bad for a 330,000km engine.

Volvo, we salute you.

 

Photo credit: HeadOn Racing

Roadblocks

Time's ticking down and we are still progressing, but despite the good run we've had with great people and with helpful people and awesome deals, sooner or later we were bound to hit trouble:

The internet is ripe with deals a-lenty, but what the internet giveth the internet taketh away.

Bought a hitch for our F150 Tow vehicle - found out yesterday it's for a GMC.
Bought a pair of seats from someone of the web, a month later they're nowehre to be found.
Ordered a set of sweet 15x7 rims for the race rubber... 3 out of the 4 rims were bent.


On a better note, Jason tuned the mix and we're now using 1/2 the gas we were, the cage is installed, and the racing seat & pads are days away.

(Jason has to explain to us what an engine is)

Still going to be a little tight, but we're still on track!

We've been busy!

New member to the team, say hi to Jason.

Jason is a mechanic AND rally drives a 240. Great addition to the team, and by God he knows his way around a Volvo.

We though we had lightened the car pretty well, but Jason & his air tools proved us very wrong. Another 40-50lbs of excess trim were pulled out of the car (most of it in the enormous cast iron bumpers.)

Using my rough calculations, that 50lbs should equate to an extra 300+ hp at the wheels. Handy.

AutoX results: 4th!!*

* In our class*

* A class of 5.

PHOTO BY RICK @ vcmc

Turns out, running rear springs with rates twice that of the front results in marginally severe oversteer (surprise!). Liftoff oversteer, power oversteer, trail braking oversteer... you name it, & the car would perform a smoky sideways oversteering version of it.

Not exceptionally competitive, but epic fun.

However, in the spirit of a true AutoXer I'll place the blame squarely on the tires.

Motomaster Tires: When you absoulety, positively 100% don't care about performance.

Big thanks to VCMC for the awesome day!

WE'RE IN!

Got the confirmation back, out of 180 teams vying for spots we made it in! Woohoo!

Still a lot to be done. AutoX on Sunday, time to shake the car down.