Thanks for the nice words Malcolm. To be fair, Jeff Young worked with me on #43 and it was the quickest car we've built with respect to build time, but it has the best cage and the nicest setup of the three SMs we now have collectively as RTP Racing. It is down on power to #39, but that has been fixed with timing increases (I purposely left it low for the enduro), and AFM adjustment (purposely left it too rich), that brings it within about 5 ponies of #39. Not bad. And, the original motor is still kicking!!!
The SM's are built relatively inexpensively with about 150 hours of labor including cage (yes, it can be done for far less but you want to make it right) and about $12,000 not including car purchase. This won't get you a top running motor (with all the assorted tricks and "cheats") but it will get you on track with a mid-pack car if you can drive mid-pack. Which, as the new racer will learn no matter how much experience s/he has, take a little bit of time!
A top flight SM will set you back about $25k-$30k, which would include a blueprinted motor (illegal but it is done), aluminum clutch pressure plate assembly, coated transmission, trick rear diff, blue printed hubs, and head work.
The head work is interesting - if you watch the top running cars they short shift probably 800 RPM at least below most everyone else. The reason is not the torque curve of the motor or hp output alone, it is valve springs. Top running cars use the lightest valve springs possible to minimize parasitic losses from 4k to 6.5K, but, they can't rev as high so the cars must be shifted early or munch a valve. I've tried it short shifting to mimic them, but I lose too much ground to their cars and must run mine to 7.2k to have a chance of keeping up, when theirs run to around 6.2k-6.5k.
As far as SM's being boring, well, they are and they aren't. I had one fellow indicate he didn't think he'd like to drive one because it wasn't powerful enough and it wasn't a mid-engine car. Well, in a race car seat time is seat time and as Malcolm says, when you are on track competeting it is a box you drive, a tool. And, with any good tool it can be setup how you like - if you want oversteer all the time we can set the car up to do it - rear bar, pressures, and height will turn it into an oversteering monster.
Power is low, around 125 rwhp for the top runners, but believe it or not you can get your ass in trouble with only that much power and 2300lbs. It is a momentum car and does not suffer mistakes, so it'll teach you proper line, control, and precision - if you screw up you'll be losing a lot of places and won't gain them back in a 1.5 hour race much less a 30 minute sprint. Enduro, maybe, but not short races. There is no extra power to make up for mistakes.
Brake are phenomenal and nothing closed wheel in SCCA/NASA can brake with one, and this is using stock calipers with race pads. They don't ever fade and don't ever go away - always consistent. Really, you are limited by your tires and your kahunas.
But, in the end the SM's are race cars and one huge advantage they have is that for the average Joe, not a fellow competiting at the national level, they don't require a lot of maintenance. They don't break often, thus running costs are low, and they are very reliable - find that with your Production Spridget at 15:1 compression, or Formula XYZ, etc. I don't love them, but they get me seat time whilst I'm trying to get some of my other projects going.
#43 will be with Malcolm, Jools, and one or two others for the 2006 Charge of the Headlight Brigade, and #39 will be with another UK crew who races Max5 over there (Max5 is the same as Spec Miata and the fellow that started it there, Ayln, has raced with us over here two years ago). I'll probably be racing with my US regulars for 2006, so #43 and #39 will be all UK teams, the US/UK duel is on!!!
Ron
