My greatest regret when winter rolls in is no more SCCA Solo. To the uninitiated that translates into autocross. My summers are spent running my MX-5 in various events throughout the northeast. I even won 1st place in GS class in a rented Mustang. Obviously no date or location is given to incriminate myself on that event.
All of this hyperbole though is a warm up to introduce my “Autocross Run of the Week.”
Apparently, the driver gave the specs of his car and wheels to an auto parts store employee, but they gave him lugs that were SAE and should have been Metric. This resulted in lugs that felt as if they were torqued down, but loosened when a substantial amount of force was applied against them. The good news is there was very little structural damage to the car, mostly cosmetic. All the workers responded quickly to the incident and maintained the safety of everyone out there.
Day two of the International Motor Press Association’s Test Days takes us to Pocono Raceway, where the real fun begins. Not that off roading isn’t fun, but it’s a whole different type of session once the adrenalin kicks in.
As I’ve mentioned before, it’s been 15 years since I’ve driven on a track. Also, I’ve never done any competitive driving in a rear wheel drive car, unless you count a single autocross in my 1975 Fiat 124 coupe way back in high school. In other words, I was more than a little nervous and had put together a plan to prevent me from embarrassing myself. Also, it would be pretty bad for one of the new guys to bend some tin the first time out! My plan was to begin with a low horsepower, front wheel drive of some sort, possibly a platform that I’m used to so I could comfortably get back into the swing of things. As the day progressed, I would move to the faster machinery and then the rear drivers in the afternoon. Ultimately my plan worked, but that wasn’t without a bit of excitement on the first lap. Continue reading →
Nelson, welcome to The Garage and I just wanted to say I am looking forward to your future articles with great interest. I have been involved with racing in one form or another since I was a little boy but my path took a very different road (no pun intended) than most. On the other hand is there such a thing as a “normal” means of a passion for the love of racing? I think not and I am sure each persons chain of events that led to their passion or involvement of racing is as much of an interesting story as any other.
In my case I grew up in a small town in southwestern Oregon back before the muscle car era when anything that had a set of mag wheels or a hole in the muffler was classified as a hot rod. My racing bug started with my buddies and me racing our bikes down hills in something similar to what today is called Mountain Biking. Later on it was go-carts and that eventually led to me lying about my age so I could drive an old beat up “Hobby Stock Class” car in the dirt stock car races. I can remember one of my father’s friends had an old Corvette stored in my dad’s garage. For hours at a time I would set behind the steering wheel making tire screeching sounds as I yanked the shifter around pretending to bark off the gears. I am sure that even with a dead battery I probably wore out the tires on that car without ever leaving the garage. Continue reading →
So the HEMI powered BBQ is cool as hell, but something like this is more likely to show up here in The Garage. Tired of SCCA H Production? Just pull the blown 1275 and drop in a grill!
Earlier this week I was watching the net hard trying to find results from the Pontiac Solstice’s first race, but yesterday I got busy & one of the big guys beat me to it!
Race prepped by Phoenix Performance and driven by Andrew Aquilante, the Solstice headed out to it’s first ever race in the SCCA’s SSB class at New Hampshire International Speedway on May 6th. What a debut it was. Qualifying 2nd, the 18 year old driver was only 9 one thousandths of a second off the pole sitter’s time. Press releases haven’t given any actual race details, but when it was all said & done the car finished in 3rd place, only 1.5 seconds behind the leader.
This is actually the first Club Sport Package Solstice off the production line, so a podium finish is a big boost to the program. It’s likely that the other 2 podium cars are fully sorted racers with a couple (at least) of seasons under their belts.
The teams running Mazdas had better have some tricks up their sleeves, or else they are going to get steamrolled once the Solstice package is fully sorted.
A while back, The Garage showed you a shot of the Solstice Club racer concept that Pontiac showed at SEMA last fall. Now, it seems like the boys & girls at Pontiac have gotten serious about going racing.
A member at the Solstice forum was at a Pontiac event at Indy last weekend and snapped some shots of this SCCA SSB prepped Solstice. He noted that the car had a full cage, Sparco racing seat and was devoid of street stuff like air bags. Interestingly, ten minutes later, the car was gone and everyone in the area had developed amnesia.
Race car? What race car?
Great find, I can’t wait to see the Solstice vs. Miata wars that are sure to erupt all over North America.
Hey Mr. Gentilozzi….. I’ve got an idea that may just revitalize Trans Am! Why not go back to the grassroots history? Just think, the North American series with the most history needs something new & a bit of history may be just the thing.
