Tribute to LeMans Today (5/15/04)

[surflvr911sc]

Is anybody heading out for the tribute at California Speedway today? They grid at 1:30 PM and run 'til 4:45PM. There are also races running all moring.

I haven't decided if I'm going or not but if a few guys are going to head out there I might join you. Maybe go to diner after?

More info here- http://www.porscheownersclub.org/

[nostatic]

Calvin and I are planning on going out Sunday by 11am to do the "lead and follow" and watch a few races.

[GrindingGears]

Todd, make sure Calvin takes plenty of pictures...

[TerryH]

Originally posted by nostatic
Calvin and I are planning on going out Sunday by 11am to do the "lead and follow" and watch a few races.

Are the parade laps (lead and follow) open to any licensed driver or do I have to a member of POC? What time does this event start and where/who to see to get started?

I have a buddy doing AutoX at Fontana on Sunday, but to hell with helping him if I can run my car on the speedway.

Thanks for any info!

[Carrera3.5L]

I went out today (Saturday) for the 3 hour enduro since my buddy owns Vision Motorsports and they had multiple cars entered. Too bad, their 993TT probably would have won (qualified second) but they lost their front brakes with about 90 minutes left. Essentially used the gearbox to slow down! Some pretty hairy comments over the radio, let me tell you!

Post race inspection revealed metal on metal (new pads and rotors to start) in the front and wore away 2mm of the front rotors. Also some kind of fluid leak problem in the right front that left a pool after the last pit stop for fuel.

Kudos to them and everyone else for putting on a good show. I think a black Cup car won overall, don't know who they were though.

Would have thought I would have seen more Porsche people though, it was mostly the racers, crew and their families and friends. Where was everyone else? The tribute to LeMans is the crown jewel for the POC.

Ralph

[techweenie]

"Would have thought I would have seen more Porsche people though, it was mostly the racers, crew and their families and friends. Where was everyone else? The tribute to LeMans is the crown jewel for the POC."

It was the same last year. I was in the grandstands and there were probably around two dozen others. Club racing just doesn't attract much of a spectator crowd.

Other groups run events with lots of vendor areas and spectator-oriented attractions that bring in larger crowds. But that's not POC's orientation.

[Jack Olsen]

I was there. I saw Pelicanites Tyson Schmidt, KevinP73, Jeremy Cottrell, Joseph Herreros, (I'm sure I'm butchering some of these spellings), Mike Marshall, Chuck Moreland, Rob with the Bahama Yellow Car and a few other guys. I only got to see the first 90 minutes of the race. My stopwatch was showing some pretty amazing times (1:40.xx's) from the black car (104?) and the white car with yellow rockers (271). I don't know who was doing the driving, but they were about 15 seconds faster than I've ever managed on that track.

Looks like the driver turnout was better, this year. Pelicanite TRE Cup (Dave Bouzaglou) was the steward of the event.

Here are a few randomly snapped pictures:

Tyson Schmidt and Mike Marshall:



Blurry shot of Lowyder993's car, out racing:



Was this the winning car?



Or this?



Is this a Vision car?



This one was the fastest one I clocked:



Very quick:



And the token Ferrari:



And the fans:

[Zeke]

Originally posted by nostatic
Calvin and I are planning on going out Sunday by 11am to do the "lead and follow" and watch a few races.

After a solid month of body work, the Zekespeed is ready to go! Black primer like Scruffy. See you there, Todd, and you won't have to cover Calvin's eyes now.

[Carrera3.5L]

Jack,

Yes, I believe the #104 car was the winner. #271 was the pole sitter and they were blazingly fast (.5 seconds faster than #108 in qualifying) but ran into some problems. They were about 3 pits down from us at Vision and from what I can see it looked like they had some sort of fuel leak in the front nose as they kept wiggling hoses and pouring water into the trunk compartment with every stop.

Vision had 4 cars, 2 of which were overall contenders. #108 was the 993TT (white with orange nose) that started second and led the first few laps and kept within distance of #271 for the early part of the race. #0 was the Cup car that they ran the 24 at Daytona with and qualified 5th/6th and they cut a tire in the first 30-45 minutes which than led to an extended pit stop. Could never get out of the hole after that.

The other two cars were "customer" cars, one of which was the #276 in the picture you took.

Get any pics of #108???

Ralph

P.S. - I expected more out of the Ferrari (sounded decent at least), and the BMtroubleu's looked slower than the Cayenne pace car (suv).

[TerryH]

Hello? I'm still trying to determine if I can run parade laps without belonging to a Porsche club. I left a message on POC's phone and asked here, but nobody has responded. Time is running out so I am asking again.

[Carrera3.5L]

Terry,

Sorry. Yes, I believe you can as I saw almost as many non P-cars doing the parade laps so I doubt they were POC members.

Almost thought about taking my 4 year old son around in my rental Dodge Intrepid but thought better of it. Next year in the 911!

I think they limit it to 50 cars (didn't count to see how many there actually were) and it's $20 for 20 minutes.

I would just get there no later than 11 tomorrow to ensure that you can participate. Have fun!

Ralph

[Jack Olsen]

Vision's 993TT #108 (I think):

[speeder]

Yes, that would be Vision's car. They are all "Wonder Bread" livery, which is a little confusing w/ Jim (lowrider)'s car painted the same but not a Vision car.

One of Vision's cars won the CFOS cup race when we were there in March, my cousin came in 2nd. I think that he won with a 1:42xx that time, is the course identical? Wish I would have gone out there, but was working so that maybe I can do Willow this week.

[Porschekid962]

i saw the chop top turbo and the black gt3 cup car go at it for a little bit then took off after a while. the ferrari sounded great but was quite a bit off the front pace the whole time. dave ran the event very well from what i saw and i had a great time of the parade laps after letting everyone get a ways in front of me and pushing it around the track a bit. did blake rosser and codriver win overall in the black gt3??

[Carrera3.5L]

Jack,

Thanks for the pic, #108 is the Vision 993tt. Yeah, their cars are all spotted as at night the spots illuminate and it is real easy to pick them out. There were a couple of other cars out there with similar livery that weren't part of the Vision stable.

I know the black Cup car won (#104), and I only know because he was the first car to be shown the white flag and than the checkered. The radios at Vision were working intermittently so we never knew exactly where we were at. We knew #108 was near the front but had the brake problems and couldn't sustain the pace. We thought that we were still ahead of #271 because of their problems but I don't know what the final pecking order was.

They are extremely disappointed, as they really wanted this one bad after finishing 2nd at the Tribute last year. They knew at Daytona they would be a longshot and just went for the experience but this race they had 2 cars that were favorites. #271 and #104 were the others. We were quicker than #104 but didn't have the speed for #271.

Dwain Dement had a great drive in the first stint with the 993tt and than switched cars with Kevin Roush and got into the Cup car for the second stint (mandatory driver change). They simply came in at the same time and just switched! Kevin drove the 993tt brilliantly, he overshot the ess turn at the end of the backstraight a few times but never completely lost it. Unbelievable with nothing to stop you from those speeds. Big difference going from an 800 hp tt that is a handful to a 400 hp normally aspirated car with a much better suspension layout.

All the teams gave it their best, it's too bad a few had to drop out with "expensive" repairs. I feel for the guy with the 993tt that had blue smoke billowing out the back. Ouch.

Ralph

[TerryH]

Thanks very much for the info, Ralph. Hopefully I can get there in time to get onto the track. I took a ride around the track once in a tram right after the track opened. The banking is much more evident when you're on it, than it appears from afar.

Terry

[Carrera3.5L]

Terry,

I've never been on the track at CS, but have been on the track at both Indy and Daytona.

I was back at Daytona in '91 when working at Andial at the end of the GTP era, and remember the Toyota guys trying to go around the banking in a golf cart. We were told that a car must go at least 80 mph to stay on the banking (don't know if true or not) but obviously the golf cart with 5 guys in it was nowhere close to that.

Needless to say, the golf cart and 5 guys tumbled down the banking. Pretty funny. There egos were more bruised though than their bodies when those highly stressed 2.1L GTP engines blew apart a few hours (this was before they figured out their reliability issues) into the race.

Ralph

[TerryH]

Golf carts are dangerous enough on the beer course... er golf course.

I'm thinking Daytona has about twice the banking as CA and something like 5 or 6 stories tall? I bet 80 mph is probably mandatory or great ground effects which the golf cart is no doubt lacking.

[Carrera3.5L]

Originally posted by TerryH
Golf carts are dangerous enough on the beer course... er golf course.

I'm thinking Daytona has about twice the banking as CA and something like 5 or 6 stories tall? I bet 80 mph is probably mandatory or great ground effects which the golf cart is no doubt lacking.

I know Daytona's banking is 31 degrees, and it is impressive when you are at the bottom looking up at it. Have no idea what CS's is, was my first time inside, although I have used the drag strip and skid pad outside for testing.

Say, shouldn't you stop typing and head on over there?

Ralph

[ted]

CS is 15 degrees. Tirbute sounds like a blast. Thanks for picks Jack.