Anyone going to the 25 hours at Thunderhill - Page 2

Dave · 3rd December 2011, 06:03 PM

They had problems and had to pull out of the race. Don't know any real details though.

Jeff Young · 3rd December 2011, 07:36 PM

Vid is here:

NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill 2011 on USTREAM: Video from fixed cameras around the track at the NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill Raceway..

Mesa · 3rd December 2011, 10:40 PM

Confirmed - No Semper Fi car to be found anywhere at the track.

Justin · 3rd December 2011, 10:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mesa

Confirmed - No Semper Fi car to be found anywhere at the track.

I wonder what happened...

Edit: Guess I'm glad that I didn't make it. Sucks to hear that the troubles came up again this year.

Jac Mac · 3rd December 2011, 10:59 PM

Doesnt even show on 'Mylaps' in qualifying, are you sure they even entered?

Greg · 3rd December 2011, 11:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jac mac

Doesnt even show on 'Mylaps' in qualifying, are you sure they even entered?

http://www.nasa25hour.com/Thunderhil...20Guide_r3.pdf

Page 8

Vaughn · 4th December 2011, 12:02 AM

9:00 pm Saturday evening. Just got back from Thunderhill no SLC in the race.It was entered but it looks like it didn't run. Too bad was looking forward to seeing it. The weather was cold and windy but lots of nice fast cars.

Howard Jones · 4th December 2011, 12:11 AM

I believe that they had a terminal problem in practice Friday. Did not attempt to qualify.

The porsche in the lead when we left looked to be 3-4 sec's a lap faster at will. If it runs to the end then it's going to be difficult to beat on speed.

They can run 1'50 easy and sub 45's as necessary. A couple of the Radicals seam to be within a sec or two at times on pace but neither could (or wanted too) run with the porsche when they were in contact. When we left only one radical was on the lead lap with the #75 porsche. (5:30PM Pacific time).

Howard Jones · 4th December 2011, 10:03 PM

Mercer Porsche #75 won for the third year in a row by 41 laps. This team has set a high hurdle for next year. I think that to win this race you must be able to run low 1.40 several laps in a row if needed and sub 50's for the majority of the race. AND very few if not any stops to fix the car.

This race is becoming very serious.

Ron Earp · 4th December 2011, 10:12 PM

My condolences to them as I feel their pain. I know the team worked hard to try and get the car to grid. Just entering these races is a serious time and monetary commitment for any team.

Ted - LS MAN · 5th December 2011, 01:43 PM

I was looking forward to seeing the #18 car & team. Real shame they didn't get a chance to race. Hopefully next year will be better.
Finally we had some luck on our side and had a good race. As is usual in endurance racing, we were so close to not finishing. We had the car shut completely off in the middle of the night for no reason. Chris figured out to cycle the ignition switch & she fired back up. Happened 6 or 8 times, but always restarted. I figured we would be stuck on track dead & out of the race, as we have no idea what the problem was - damn electronics anyway.
But the problem went away, & we finished 4th overall. Had many other close calls, but made it to the end in one piece.
Looking forward to seeing Fran on Thursday, & seeing what we can put together for next year.

Ricardo Montalvo · 5th December 2011, 01:58 PM

Too bad about the #18 team. I hope Fran campaigns the 01 car in the endurance series next year. The #18 should be a force if it ever becomes reliable. I don't think anyone questions it's raw speed.

Congrats to the PDG team first on just finishing, and on an impressive 4th place.

Here's to keeping things simple...and starting and finishing a race.

Mesa · 5th December 2011, 03:28 PM

Hey Ted,
We looked for 'your' pit stall but since we never saw your car in the pits, we never figured out where to come by and say hello at

Sorry.

Since there was no '18' car you could not find us either.

Oh Well.

Fran Hall RCR · 5th December 2011, 03:39 PM

We talked about the 25 hour race while sitting at the airport yesterday...

I will be putting a proposal together for next season to run both the 13hr and the 25hr.....

We will be looking for qualified drivers....and seats will be very aggressively priced for both races , with a car with the SL-C's potential.

Mesa · 5th December 2011, 03:49 PM

HHhhmmmmmm....
Maybe the SLOG (Superlite Owners Group) would fund a driver......
Now who would they choose....?

Greg · 5th December 2011, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gt40fran

We talked about the 25 hour race while sitting at the airport yesterday...

I will be putting a proposal together for next season to run both the 13hr and the 25hr.....

We will be looking for qualified drivers....and seats will be very aggressively priced for both races , with a car with the SL-C's potential.

Someone's gotta get out there and beat that Porsche!

Was it another Panoz issue?

Fran Hall RCR · 5th December 2011, 04:01 PM

I think it was an electronic interface deal...there are lots of things that have to talk to each other when you have a flat shift system with no manual override ...(bump lever)...so I am suspecting it was something along those lines.

I will know more when I get a chance to talk in depth with one of the team....too bad as I know the car was ready to rock last I talked with them.

Mark Hamstra · 5th December 2011, 06:42 PM

So how much of an advantage does a flat shift system really give you over, say, a manual sequential shifter? I can see how getting the last 0.1% allowed under a tight racing class rule could make such an expensive and complicated system worthwhile, but it would seem that a wide-open class rule like that for the 25 Hour could easily make a simpler, reliable shifter more attractive while the monetary savings are applied to other, larger opportunities to gain performance under the rules.

It would seem that for a lot of things, a simpler, cheaper, brute-force approach would make more sense in a car intended for the 25 Hour.

Fran Hall RCR · 5th December 2011, 06:50 PM

The Robertson team had a similar failure at the 24hrs of Le Mans this year, Luckily the team had left the manual bump lever in the car and they reverted back....this happened very early in the race and could have been catastrophic.

I certainly see the advantage of the flat shift system in any race application as time saved is time saved regardless of how its done...but I would certianly have implimented a bump lever installation, just in case.

The sequential flat shift may be saving upto 2 seconds a lap over a manual H shift car...which is quite conceivable...multiply that by 600 laps...thats 30 minutes over the whole race...quite a worthwhile saving

Mark Hamstra · 5th December 2011, 07:01 PM

But is there another, cheaper way to gain 2 seconds per lap? What's the low-hanging fruit? Does/will the 01 have a flat shift system installed?