Here is some video from Chumpcar at the RIDGE

We ran around most of the ten hour Race in 10th spot but had a Cylinder go bad with a few hours left , but still managed to finish 17 out of 50 cars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGd4la48HJo&feature=c4-overview&list=UUgSCUR9MQsNzJbXLY3idevA

Great Job Chris , that was some good driving , tires just barking at you ...Nice job to avoid the mustang !

Next year we get to go to a treadwear of only 180 ! Maybe we wont have to listen to them howl for 10 hours ! Good job to the Patron Team of 4 Amigos, Lorenzo Costantino, Antony Halcrow, Chris Doodson and Paul Bunbury. We'll get em next year Gringos !

A big awakening for us newbies though.

"Rules? We dunt need no steenking rools"

I guess the tech guys do the best they can but clearly some of these cars at the front are worth far more than the standard $500 , they sound like full blown race engines with full race suspensions and more.....
Me thinks its time to start adding go fast goodies like a header and intake 8-)

I would love to see you find 10 examples of a good body running 1996 Civic coupe for $400 and then add race shocks and race coilovers ,  CoMoMoNN!!!!  not to mention that car had some serious pull and an exhaust,  Thats just what I could see :(

We went to have FUN but it would have been nice to have had a chance at the top 3

Laguna Raceway 2011:
Bob Williams "So what do you think of Chumpcar"?
Keith Robinson "Fantastic grass roots racing, I love it. I give it three years and if they don't enforce the rules cheaters will ruin it"!!

At The 36 in Spokane teams received penalty laps for modifications, why not at The Ridge?

it was very unclear of who had penalties and who didnt and we were told that after about an hour of racing they would correct the running order,  would have been great to see a list of who had penalties and why.

I've run with two different Chump teams at two different tracks; never heard a tire noise. Ran Dunlops at Laguna, not sure what was on the Spokane car.
And before some wit says I wasn't driving fast enough, nobody on either team mentioned tire noise ::).

I ran with the shift autosport jetta, and there is definetly no fancy race parts on that car, including headers, brakes, or tires. They run dunlops, stock  calipers/rotors,  engine/trans/fueling. Several cars, especially hondas, have better power.
The mustang that won, well, its just a well built/ driven car, unfortunately for everybody else. Anyway, was a great weekend, and I actually did run on track with the patron guys on saturday, and the car looked decent, just a slightly different line.

Which one was the SHIFT JETTA? was that red and black?

In retrospect I don't think we had the pressures perfect on the Nitto Neo Gen tires we got from Kal Tire on the Patron Special Honda. They have a treadwear rating of 280 and we can go as low as 190 (next year 180) so we did maybe give up a bit in grip but truthfully we certainly didn't have a bunch of practice laps to set things up for optimum grip. Next time !

Solid red 2 door.

Yeah, 280 is a little too durable, lol. From what I ve seen most choose either the dunlop or the falkens. Saw some teams running the new bfg at spokane, but there was some concern about premature wear that was showing up.
I know the #99 black crx runs falkens and they were a hard car to get  away from.

John

It has always seemed to me that ChumpCar was a more serious version of LeMons.. I guess LeMons makes things so ridiculous and over that top that it keeps away the "racing is serious bizness" folks :)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2655/4134822781_e9fa9637cb_b.jpg

We also ran Dunlop Star Specs, but I hear the new tire that replaced it isn't quite as good. The Star Specs were fantastic, I still have them on my wagon! :D

I agree, the Dunlops were great (200 wear rate I believe?) at Laguna. Now someone mentioned Falkens I remember that's what we ran at Spokane, another really good tire.
Why are they lowering the wear rate again; Chumpcar is starting down the slippery slope of giving in to all the whiners; next it will be coil overs, then brakes and so on..........................$10,000 Chumpcars here we come ::) :'( >:(.
The red Jetta (#71?) is the car I almost hit Saturday night of the Spokane race when it was stopped on the back straight :o.

Chumpcar so far, for 80% of the competitors, has not been 'a serious business'; maybe I'll try LeMons next year! :).

Not sure what happened in that spokane scenario, Keith, I was driving with the #99 crx and did not see them at all during my stints. I know they did have mechanical issues as they were wrenching steady at times, as were many teams.
I guess chump is evolving, and evolving away from lemons influence, which I always hoped for. My biggest fislike is the almost complete lack of driver education/training, which was very evident at spokane, but of which none I saw at the ridge.

Keith.....you're such an optimist ;D ;) Guess that's why we get along so well ::)

Overall I would recomend the CHUMPCAR racing as it was a GOOD time.  You could tell that some drivers had very little experience but it was Fun.  For us it was about having a great time and seeing if we could get to the end,  clearly we need to work on that part , LOL ;D

Doodson wrote on Aug 29^th, 2013 at 12:48pm:

Overall I would recomend the CHUMPCAR racing as it was a GOOD time.  You could tell that some drivers had very little experience but it was Fun.  For us it was about having a great time and seeing if we could get to the end,  clearly we need to work on that part , LOL ;D

Totally agree.

+1  :)

Chumpcar, LeMons and the various clones are an awesome introduction to racing. I did the LeMons thing for fun as a "once in a lifetime" thing, but got hooked! I suspect I'm not the only one :)

We had a "classroom" session at Thunderhill the night before our race, and more than half of the drivers (out of the 160 cars..!) had no experience. Things worked out fairly well on track, though!

A little late, but FWIW, here's a link to my sunday final stint in the jetta to 3rd place.


http://youtu.be/N0KZWhvHVeo