xcarguy

On the return to Arkansas, after massive amounts of Thanksgiving overeating, the family and I stopped off at Barber Motorsports Park. Admittedly, my main interest was to check out the track, but because a couple of hot laps in the Toyota Sienna was a ‘no go’, we opted for the museum which is incredible to say the least. If you haven’t been there and ever get the chance, go. As most on this forum know, the Barber museum has a very nice Lotus section for your drooling pleasure. I found it very interesting to see, up close and personal, just how much some of the Lotus cars/race cars have changed throughout the years and thought I’d attempt to share here, in some sort of chronological order, a few good/bad photos. The cars presented here are: 1948 Mark I 1950 Mark II Replica 1952 Mark IV 1954 Mark VI 1954 Mark VIII 1955 Mark IX 1956 Eleven (two examples) 1958 Type 16 F2 1959 Type 17 (my wife’s favorite . . . wants me to build one) 1960 Type 18 F1 1960 Type 18 Jr. 1962 Type 23 1963 Seven S2 (Tom, you'll love the big slicks, though not as big as yellow 7's. I'm partial to the front wing). 1963 Type 29 Indy 1965 Type 30 1969 Type 63 F1 1969 Type 64 Indy 1971 Type 69 F2 1980 Type 81 F1 1984 Type 95T F1 1989 Type 101 F1 1991 Type 102B F1 1992 Type 102D F1 2010 T125 EXOS And for a dash of ‘then and now’ contrast, a photo of the 1948 Mark I with some F1 eye candy in the background. Enjoy . . . . :cheers:

Harbor Freight engine stand. Doesn't get any cheaper and I've used these for years with no issues: http://m.harborfreight.com/750-lb-engine-stand-69887.html I have a HF engine hoist that I've been using for fourteen years. Still works great: http://m.harborfreight.com/1-ton-capacity-foldable-shop-crane-69512.html

Perhaps there will be a future Exo-vette le mons series.

Everyone's in a glutinous lull from massive amounts of overeating. I fear it's the quiet before the storm.

. . . . And lots of great food. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!

No affiliation, but M-spec Storker for sale: http://fortmyers.craigslist.org/lee/cto/4778426036.html

jevs, I really like seeing guys improvise and do there on thing on their builds. What you're doing with the pedal assemblies raises the bar . . . . Wish I had a lathe.

A sound you will soon be experiencing. :Chevy_anim:

Tom, Me thinks the roll bar fairings worked.

Mike, With the LS3 under the bonnet, I don't think your Storker cares what the temps are outside; sideways is an expected standard when you tickle the go pedal. :Chevy_anim:

Brit, Your build is really coming together nicely. Do you think you'll have it ready to track by spring of 15?

Nice harness!

Bob, If you get all wheel drive installed in your car, I wanna ride.

https://www.hoonigan.com/hoonicorn

LOL! Never thought about 'city' rental.

Mike, You truly summed it all up with 'formula 1'. :iagree:

Thanks. Will do.

Just finished looking thruogh the old thread. Jim Gunther still lives in CT (New Haven area) and still owns his Stalker. In fact, I paid him a visit this past Thrusday. Red Duck, I'll pm you Jim's contact info; he may of some help. Shane

. . . . . . :lurk:

There's silly, and then there's . . . . :iamwithstupid:

That was one of those get-it-right-the-first-time stunts. :iamwithstupid:

Steve, How are you and the orange beast? I still want my ride.

LOL! Now I’m really confused. Don’t know if I was getting slower or better. Mike, In short, I have to agree; the track just doesn’t flow. However, for the sake of discussion, let’s divide the track into two distinct sections and do a bit of dissecting. I’ll refer to any combination of turns within a section as a segment. Think of section one as the momentum section, with it beginning at the corner-exit phase of turn one and ending at the corner-entry phase of turn eleven. While some might want to argue my choice and say that the momentum section truly begins somewhere around turn two and terminates at turn nine, I’ll leave it as is for the sake of simplicity. Although not without its technical challenges, section one is, in my humble opinion, the most fluid portion of the track and the friendliest to drivers of small, lightweight cars. In this section—with the exception of the downhill run from turn one to turn two and the doglegged straight defined by turns nine, ten and eleven—momentum pretty much rules. On this section of the track, turns three through nine ended up being my most favorite segment, especially the esses (turns three, four and five along with the beginning of six). The most technical segment of this section is found in turns six through nine. Along the apex-to-exit of turn nine, there is a slight dip (drops off to the left) and then a slight hump (off camber to the right). Negotiate this area wrong and you upset the car (revisit 17:15 to 17:23 on my video). Get turn eight wrong and you will more than likely will get turn nine wrong. Get turn seven wrong and you’ll probably botch eight. Get turn six wrong and you will most assuredly screw up seven. Negotiating turn six properly, therefore, ends up being very crucial to the transition from the exit of turn eight to entry of turn nine. And turn six can be somewhat tricky; you’re just coming out of the esses and have a good grove going on and all of the sudden you come off the first apex of six and the track drops away to the right. I think of six as having a double apex with the second requiring the driver to tighten up the turn in order to set up properly for the entry into seven. Turn eight can be a bit intimidating, especially when the track is wet. It’s a right-hand uphill 90 degree off-camber turn. The best turn eight-to-turn nine transition is to stay close to the rumble strip until the very top of turn eight (end of the rumble strip). Because of turn eight being off-camber (and the track, wet), I had a tendency to transition too early (again, see video clip) which resulted in upsetting the car in, and on the exit of, nine. I’ll define section two (again, for the sake of discussion) as beginning at the mid-corner phase of turn eleven and ending at the mid-corner phase of turn one. This is definitely the point and squirt section of the track where torque and horse power are much more likely to dominate. On this section of track, I found turns twelve, thirteen and twenty to be the most deceiving. While the rain and lack of traction perpetuated the problem, I seemed to try and carry too much speed (for the wet conditions) through these corners. It was never intentional; these three corners simply seemed to tighten up quicker than expected, no matter what entry and/or exit I used. As for turn fifteen, I think it was designed on a Friday evening at five-o’clock by a disgruntled engineer who had one too many beers the night before. Turns sixteen, seventeen and eighteen remind me of the bowl at NJMP Lightning; although not banked, you can carry a lot of speed through this trio of turns. On this section of track, turn nineteen ended up being my favorite single turn; slightly downhill of-camber left-hander. I’d heard/read about drivers having trouble finding grip in nineteen, but my car seemed to set up fairly well which left me feeling relatively comfortable all the way through the turn. Coming off the straight and running uphill twelve stories to turn one allows for really late braking (obviously). However, at the top of turn one is a crest which was the cause of many a spin on the exit. During my last session, I exited out of turn one to find a Radical sitting off to my right with his nose pointed back at me. If a car hasn’t finished taking a set prior negotiating the turn one hump, the result will pretty much be a spin, especially if the track is wet. Where the segments of track between turns one and two and the dogleg (nine through eleven) in the momentum section are torque and HP friendly, the segment of track defining turns fifteen (exit) through twenty (entry) in the point and squirt section are somewhat momentum friendly. When it’s all said and done, I’d like to revisit COTA and run the track under better (dry) conditions. I suppose a track map might help :banghead:

For those of you who have been following along on this thread, I've posted a COTA video link in the video section of the forum: http://www.usa7s.net/vb/showthread.php?p=91147#post91147 . . . . . :lurk:

Cold, wet weekend with Chin Motorsports at COTA on the 15th and 16th. The track remained damp and slick the entire weekend (rained every session) with temps on Saturday never rising above 45ᵒF. Sunday wasn't much better with temps topping out at around 50. Fog, mist, rain, cool temps and overcast kept the track moist and cold; getting heat in the tires was pretty much an impossibility. During session three of my run group on Sunday, we had a couple of descent laps when the wind picked up a bit and the track began to dry. This lasted till around mid-session as the rain returned and track conditions deteriorated rapidly. :cuss: I ran the entire weekend on Avon A11 compound slicks; cold tires and a wet track made for some interesting laps for all. Lots of spins during the weekend; surprisingly, I wasn’t one of them. :ack: I also had some data logging and sync issues with my Traqmate setup; as the video progresses, the blue dot on the track map steadily outpaces my car a bit more with each lap. Despite the rain and Traqmate issues, COTA was a blast. The track and facilities were superb, to say the least, and the folks from Chin were excellent hosts. Being that it was two weeks after F1, lots of temporary structure was still being disassembled (you can see some of this throughout the video in the way of viewing stands, portable buildings, etc.). I have a new-found appreciation for what it takes to 'ready' a track for F1. In the end, lots of bench racing was done, many lies were swapped and multiple pots of coffee were consumed all while new friendships were forged and memories were made. :cheers: