ChumpCar Hallett March 16/17th

[jw33]

Anyone else going to be there? We will be out there in this. The weather looks great on Saturday, but Sunday looks a little sketchy.....

[momo]

i had a blast this weekend. the car was great. hallet is a fun track. i'm a big fan of chump car after this. it was all racing without the nonsense. the only bad thing about the chump series is the competition level is very with some fast cars.

[Baron Von Crowder]

i had a blast this weekend. the car was great. hallet is a fun track. i'm a big fan of chump car after this. it was all racing without the nonsense. the only bad thing about the chump series is the competition level is very with some fast cars.

That's one of the reasons a lot of people are leaving chump, to. Besides the bible sized rule book that keeps changing, the same 3 cars top three nearly every race. It's less a $500 car race and more a deepest pockets wins event anymore.

And BTW, I havent gotten a penalty in lemons in 3 years. They quit doing people's curse, and give a free drive through for your first penalty. If anything, lemons has gotten more relaxed, and chump has gotten more BS.

[momo]

That's one of the reasons a lot of people are leaving chump, to. Besides the bible sized rule book that keeps changing, the same 3 cars top three nearly every race. It's less a $500 car race and more a deepest pockets wins event anymore.

And BTW, I havent gotten a penalty in lemons in 3 years. They quit doing people's curse, and give a free drive through for your first penalty. If anything, lemons has gotten more relaxed, and chump has gotten more BS.

well i dont know that i would have called chump more BS. it didnt make me want to leave chump, it makes me want to get faster.

i havent been to a lemons race in a few years but from what i saw, i will say chump was more real racing from start to finish, IMO. we may not have had enough car, tire, or skill to compete with the top teams but i dont care. i went out to have fun and spend about 4 hours on track and i got to accomplish that. only encountered 1 yellow flag, had no penalties and no contact. i got a bonus experience due to flipping the track direction for day 2 and getting to race on shit tires in cold sloppy conditions.

if anything, it makes me more motivated to improve myself and learn more and try to help improve the characteristics of the car to make it more competitive.

i will say you are right about the $500 thing. a few of the super quick BMWs there have to have more than ~$500 into their cars.

either way, i have no problem racing lemons again either. any series that is nearby, i'm up for it.

[Baron Von Crowder]

well i dont know that i would have called chump more BS. it didnt make me want to leave chump, it makes me want to get faster.

i havent been to a lemons race in a few years but from what i saw, i will say chump was more real racing from start to finish, IMO. we may not have had enough car, tire, or skill to compete with the top teams but i dont care. i went out to have fun and spend about 4 hours on track and i got to accomplish that. only encountered 1 yellow flag, had no penalties and no contact. i got a bonus experience due to flipping the track direction for day 2 and getting to race on shit tires in cold sloppy conditions.

if anything, it makes me more motivated to improve myself and learn more and try to help improve the characteristics of the car to make it more competitive.

i will say you are right about the $500 thing. a few of the super quick BMWs there have to have more than ~$500 into their cars.

either way, i have no problem racing lemons again either. any series that is nearby, i'm up for it.

I pretty much agree with you. We wanted to do more than two races this year ( the season ender may be at ECR again, we dont know) so we decided to look into prepping one or two of our cars for CHUMP, and decided it wasnt worth it. We've been getting hounded by one of the regional chumpsters to come play in thier sandbox.

The $500 rule is pretty dumb, imho. It doesnt matter what or how much you spend on your chump car, your value is from fake CL adds that you print out and bring with you. You can pick up a low mile nicely maintained 325is for $7000, cage it, bring some CL adds that you make yourself showing cars of this type for $300, and you then have a $300 car. Spend the rest on coilovers and such.

[jw33]

The weekend was great, we all got tons of track time and the car hardly gave us any trouble at all. The only issues were a missing radiator cap on Saturday morning and an exhaust hanger that broke Sunday afternoon. The radiator cap was completely my fault. I checked the water level on Friday night and just forgot to put it back on. I was the first driver on Saturday and after about one lap of green flag racing the windshield and I got a steam bath coming out of T2. Fortunately we had a spare cap and only lost 4-5 laps after we put it on and topped off the water. The rest of Saturday was smooth and the car gave us zero issues. You could drive it as hard/angry as you liked and the brakes were the best they have ever been. Stock 13-inch cobra fronts rotors, ST43 pads, 3-inch cooling ducts/backing plates, v6 rear discs with Autozone pads, and a 2.3l brake booster. The pedal was firm, but very easy to control and I'd think we had some of the best brakes out of any car on the track. The pads were a little loud right when you came off the track at slow speed when they were hot, but they never felt like they got weak or too hot. We ran some old Nitto NT05 that had about 14hrs of racing at TWS from last summer and they were very decent for what they were. Car had a best of 1.36 that day and the weather was perfect from green to checker.

Sundays weather was much different. I don't know what the temperature was in the morning, but when we put the car on the trailer at 5pm the truck showed the outside temperature was still only 43 and there was a steady drizzle pretty much all day. The Nittos appeared to be spent on Saturday night so we switched to some junk ass Falken 615's. We probably would have been better off with the Nittos even though at that point they had over 20hrs of hard driving on them and few flat spots. With the Falkens after two hrs or green flag racing the tire temp was only 70 degrees. I knew they would be shit when I could spin the rear tires in 2nd gear from a roll during the parade laps. They also decided on Sunday to run the course in the opposite direction and do a rolling start with the cars two wide. That was kind of interesting and there were no incidents surprisingly. Sunday's race was scary at first because the car had no grip in the rear. It would drift around most of the corners the moment you even touched the accelerator pedal. After you got used to it though it was kind of fun to see how long you could keep it in a slide through some of the longer corners. I was more than eight seconds off my best from Saturday and I think the fast time on Sunday was around 1.43, but most laps were in the 1.5x area. One driver hit a rumble strip right down the middle and ripped off an exhaust hanger. After a few more laps the exhaust pipe was dragging the ground and we had to bring it in for a quick fix. We didn't even have the driver get out of the car or unbuckle his belts and probably lost only 4-5 laps.

All in all I think everyone had a great time and the car didn't have a new dent or scratch on it. Plus there isn't a new panhard bar to fix or replace, the motor still seemed strong, the tranny was shifting fine, the brake pads still looked awesome, and it wasn't leaking out any kind of fluid or making some horrible noise. Hallett is a great fun track to race at and is my second favorite right behind TWS. A lot of the paddock area is up on a hill and you can see much of the track from there. Even the bathrooms weren't too bad an the showers had hot water. I hope ChumpCar keeps it on their schedule in the future and I will definitely try to get back out there for another event. We were so busy with only four people we paid the $40 for the track pictures/videos so i might post a few when it comes in the mail. Mo had some outstanding GoPro footage from inside the car.

[momo]

^ditto for me. very well said.

[momo]

You can pick up a low mile nicely maintained 325is for $7000, cage it, bring some CL adds that you make yourself showing cars of this type for $300, and you then have a $300 car. Spend the rest on coilovers and such.

i dont think anything there was that extreme. i might argue that some of the cars might be $1000 over budget and i dont think anyone was running coils... at least i hope not.

everyone in every one of these series is always running something with a bit of motor and suspension work that goes unnoticed however.

[Baron Von Crowder]

i dont think anything there was that extreme. i might argue that some of the cars might be $1000 over budget and i dont think anyone was running coils... at least i hope not.

everyone in every one of these series is always running something with a bit of motor and suspension work that goes unnoticed however.

If it is in thier rule book that you can use them, you can bet they are out there. We looked at a few different cars that were prevously run in chump, and got to chat with the owner/racer/builders. The promoter himself is pretty open that he would like the series to be a carbon copy of 90's SCCA Showroom stock. Bring the best car you can find with the best prep you can afford.

It all boils down to fun at the end of the day, unless you are there to win.

[racrguy]

Anyone need a shoe/wrench combo? lol

[aggie97]

That's one of the reasons a lot of people are leaving chump, to. Besides the bible sized rule book that keeps changing, the same 3 cars top three nearly every race. It's less a $500 car race and more a deepest pockets wins event anymore.

And BTW, I havent gotten a penalty in lemons in 3 years. They quit doing people's curse, and give a free drive through for your first penalty. If anything, lemons has gotten more relaxed, and chump has gotten more BS.

pretty much my assessment as well. year 1 of chump had a 6 page rule book, I think it's over 40 pages now....stupid, especially considering most of those pages are about car valuation which doesn't seem to happen but they bitch about my 22 gallon fuel cell in a neon. I put a 14 gallon cell in it out of our camaro and wish someone would buy it! LOL!! It's a hell of a car now that I put a ton of hours into prepping it. If it doesn't sell soon I am going to pull the driveline and set it aside for a mid engined Locost build or copy a mid engined neon I found on line. I might weld up the diff to help with traction but it would be easier to put a Quafe diff in it...those are only a grand right?! LOL!

[Justa4Banger]

Man i wish i could have been there...... Maybe in Sept.....I need to get some racing in.... i miss it...

[Slowhand]

Anyone need a shoe/wrench combo? lol

I have money and I'm almost competent with a wrench. DFWmustangs could use a third (fourth?) LeMons/Chump team, couldn't we?

[Baron Von Crowder]

Anyone need a shoe/wrench combo? lol

I have money and I'm almost competent with a wrench. DFWmustangs could use a third (fourth?) LeMons/Chump team, couldn't we?

You can get your feet wet for a pretty low cost, if you are so inclind. Arrive and drives can be found for under a grand, just show up with your gear and race.

Or if you are somewhat looney:

http://forums.24hoursoflemons.com/viewforum.php?id=22

http://forums.24hoursoflemons.com/viewtopic.php?id=20792

[Slowhand]

You can get your feet wet for a pretty low cost, if you are so inclind. Arrive and drives can be found for under a grand, just show up with your gear and race.

Or if you are somewhat looney:

http://forums.24hoursoflemons.com/viewforum.php?id=22

http://forums.24hoursoflemons.com/vi...c.php?id=20792

I lack at least a little in the sanity department. Saw the "K" it forward deal a while back. Looks like it's open for ECR in May. Sean, let's grab Yale and do this shit.