R1 Seven

The way the car is geared, when it hits the rev limiter in 6th it is going roughly 135mph. At the end of the back straight it is right on the verge of hitting the rev limiter. I would estimate about 5mph slower on the front straight. Clear laps were hard to come by over the weekend. But, I did have a few in the 2:12 - 2:13 range (there is a 2:13 buried in that vid somewhere...). My personal goal on Full Course, once the car is all the way sorted and on slicks is 2:10 or better. That fancy gearbox is built right into the motorycycle engine. Have fun at the PCA event! And yes the South Course is perfect for small light cars. I love it too!

That is good to hear. Some clubs/regions are better than otheres from what I have seen. Ususally the regions near large metropolitan areas are a little more "exclusive" since they have plenty of marque specific cars to fill their events.

Oh, the Locost would go and run in the Instructor group (as long as it did not get car snobbed)...that is just a long way to tow for a track weekend at RR. I get my fill most of the time only having to drive 2hrs (VIR) or 3-4 hours (Summit Point, Rockingham, CMP).

I would take you up on that if Roebling were not so far away. It will end up being at least 7 hours drive each way for me. :nonod:

One did and the other did not (have a windshield). They were both kind of warm and I did not notice a huge difference between them.

Bob - It was a pumped up E36 M3. I am not sure what the specs were specifically, but it was not stock. The stock ones are much easier to deal with. :reddevil: It is obvious in the video where the advantages lie with each car.

Thanks guys. Steve - Your ears do not deceive you. The car spends less time at the rev limiter now. Instead of bouncing off of it going down every straight, it is jut aproaching it at the end of the long straights. Gearing is the reason. DBs Seven - This may be the last weekend at VIR this year, unless I can get in on one of the November events. Mazda - You got it! Get that thing track ready.

Thanks for the kind words. You should have stopped by and said "hey". Did you have the Westie with you?

Been a while since I put up some video. Here is some VIR full course action from last Friday. This was the instructor lapping day before the Tarheel BMW CCA weekend. The car is getting better. Taking most of the toe-out from the rear end housing seems to have helped... Slowly but surely the car is becoming faster and well behaved. Going foot-to-the-floor in 6th gear through the uphill esses was the higlight of the weekend. http://www.project-seven.goof.com/videos/LCVIRFull907.wmv

When I hear the term "blat"...all I can think of is flatulence for some reason. :rofl:

Thanks, Randy. I'll agree that it makes sweet music, even if it is mine. It was a shame that you could not get at least one timed session in with the Atom. I know that I would have been dissapointed after the effort and expense getting there. I have had a couple of breakages this year, so I can sympathize. It was a fun event for sure. The car turnout was pretty serious...but I guess that was to be expected. I am sure you guys will get plenty more opportunities to show the media what the Atoms can do in the future. I came away from the event with a positive expereince overall, but was fairly dissapointed because my car was handling very poorly. It was terribly loose. The car does not have tons of HP and has little to no torque ( I am acutally heading down to VIR tomorrow for a day on the full course with the BMW CCA folks. As long as the track stays dry (that blasted hurricane is coming through) I should be able to work on a car that is a little bit straighter than the last time I was there.

Nice "passing" video...

I plan on going to Summit Point with NASA in October. Get a roll bar in that thing and come play!

Dermot, The Fury looks great! I hope that I get a chance to see it in person sometime. :cheers:

I see not option for radio control pilots...I could choose that one. :jester:

The angle of the legs is dictated by the distance of the ankle from the datum used near the middle in both the x and y dimensions. Those dimensions can be edited in the sketch. When you draw lines and add relations to points plus add dimensions it becomes restrained. This is where design intent comes into play. Solidworks is easy to pick up on to draw with, but what goes on behind the scenes are important fundamentals to learn to keep things working right when the model gets complex and "important".

Mazda, The Solidworks 2004 driver from the DP1 site can be manipulated. Just edit the sketch that it is built from and it will change positions. I like this one better than the assemblies that I have worked with.

I did not realize that...most magazines that I have subscribed to in the past turn up about the same time...sometimes the newsstands get them first. :cuss: That was a good article. Glad your car had a good showing, Keith.

That issue has been out for at least a couple of weeks now.

Mark does have a cage on that car...the rearview mirror is mounted on the front top bar. You can also see a side bar in the rearview mirror about shoulder height. Hitting a tire wall sideways like that without the side bars could have resulted in some of the tires intruding into the cockpit and possibly making contact with the driver. Both the gravel trap and the tire wall really helped keep Mark safe in this crash. I was worried when I saw it fly throught he air that it was going to dig in and flip when it hit the gravel trap, but I guess the angle was still ok. Tire walls do a great job of dissapating energy, but really tear up stuff on the car.

Bummer, Mark. I am glad to hear that you are ok. Hopefully the car will be easily fixed. You built the frame pretty solid, and I will bet that it held up well. Sorry you had to be the example, but this is a good demonstration on how important is is to make the cars safe. Knowing that something like this could happen to anyone, I always feel safe when I take my car out because of the extra effort put into the safety gear/cage. Good luck on getting her back together.

Maybe it is the fact that my engine puts out just under 80 ft-lbs of torque. :nopity:

Welcome to a new BEC buddy! :seeya:

The Atom that was in the UTCC had a wheel bearing failure at the end of the morning warmup but was running well up until then. I guess they could not get the car fixed for the timed sessions. We were running close to each other on the track during that session. I could pull away a little in the twisty bits, but his HP made up that distance and more on the front straight. Apparenty, horsepower IS important...

Do you guys feel that the root of this issue is more than just speeding and accidents? All the tourism is on the NC side of the dragon, but the dragon itself is acutally in TN. Therefore, NC gets to enjoy the tourism dollars, but TN has to clean up the mess so to speak. I could see easily why TN does not want that "in their backyard".