25hr of Thunderhill this weekend Dec 6-7

[C-speed]

Just a heads up for everyone, I, along with a few hand picked crew members along with Matrix Motorsports from Portland will be running at this years annual 25hrs of Thunderhill.

We will running a freshly built Porsche 944 that we tested last weekend at the newly paved Oregon Raceway Park.

Provided everything goes smoothly, we should have a top 5 car

The car, drivers and few of the crew flew/drove down yesterday already for todays practice.

I, along with the remaining crew will be heading down in the next couple hours and should arrive at the track later this evening.

Practice is all day Friday (tomorrow), and the race starts at 11am Saturday morning and runs until noon Sunday.

If you're in the area and would like to join us or meet up and chat/hang out, give me a shout!

Here's some pics of last years 24hr of Daytona GT3 cup cars run by a few of the members running this weekend:

Wish us luck! See you there! :biggrin:

 

[92 white 0650]

Re: It's looking real good

Best of luck. Weather should be perfect; well 38 for a low is a bit nippy for the crew, but sunny mid 60's and no precip at all is pretty dang good for race condtions.

I'm surprised to see the car count up from last year. Gonna be busy with over 70 cars, but not that many Miatas, so that's good.........err, or not? Nice new smooth rack. You can probably lower your ride height from your previous T-Hill setup.

Got all the crew you need? I know it's pretty late to sign up additional crew, but let me know if you need some parts or supplies not readily available in Willows. 916-764-1088.

Give us a full report.

 

[C-speed]

Ya it should be a great weekend. Come out I'd you're not busy. I'll add you to the crew list or just tell the gate you're with Matrix.

We are actually on the road right now, still in Washington. Should be in Oregon in an hour and a half.

I'll you posted

 

[stuntman]

Come say hi.

I'll be driving the Blue and Yellow #44 Achilles Motorsports (Nitto/Rotora/KW/Piloti) E36 M3.

-Billy J

 

[C-speed]

Come say hi.

I'll be driving the Blue and Yellow #44 Achilles Motorsports (Nitto/Rotora/KW/Piloti) E36 M3.

-Billy J

Sweet! We can finally meet in person

 

[john@johnhudakracing]

Just a heads up for everyone, I, along with a few hand picked crew members along with Matrix Motorsports from Portland will be running at this years annual 25hrs of Thunderhill.

This is great news! You had talked about T-Hill for awhile- glad to hear you caught a ride with Matrix. Is it the red 944 they ran at cascade? Are you driving or crewing? Best of luck to everyone at Matrix on what's sure to be one very long day!

We will running a freshly built Porsche 944 that we tested last weekend at the newly paved Oregon Raceway Park.

Really? What were your first impressions of ORP? The video looks like good stuff- lots of elevation changes. I can't wait to hit the new track at the start of 2009!

TTYS,

John

 

[Edo]

I'll be there as well crewing for the Honda team.
I didnt quite make the "driver" roster...but maybe next year.
On a side note, I'll have all my gear there so if anyone is in need of a last minute driver, come find me at the Honda pit!

 

[C-speed]

Hey guys. We are in a bind. We broke the driver side spindle and need a replacement asap. If you have any source for one please reply. We could use a passenger side one as well. It is for an 86 944 turbo. Thanks.

 

[92 white 0650]

Re: We're on it

Hey Crescent, I've put out the call to the P-car race nuts I know. If anyone out there has any local Porsche club contacts, I'd be glad to follow up.

 

[john@johnhudakracing]

I tried Eddie, but he is already 150 miles south of Portland. I would think that the best bet after the paddock may be to check some of the junk yards in Sacremento in the morning.

 

[92 white 0650]

So far, I've got

Silver Star Recycling
11315 Dismantle Court
Rancho Cordova, California 95742
Local phone: (916) 631-7300
Toll free: (800)783-4911
Fax: (916)852-5544
E-mail: [email protected]
Hours: We are open Monday through Friday from 8:00 to 5:00 PST
and Saturday from 9:00 to 3:00 PST
Website shows left side spindle not available.
They show one 84 right side spindle


Parts Heaven
23694 Bernhardt Street
(between Cabot Blvd & Mccone Ave)
Hayward, CA 94545
(510) 782-0354
www.partsheaven.com
They list a couple of fresh 944 turbo "wrecks" but they show pictures of driveable cars????
http://www.partsheaven.com/pages/wrecks.html

 

[NSXAMG996TT]

I sent an email to Ron Kain @ IBP Autosport in Sacramento. He owns an independant PCar shop, races PCars, and might have parts laying around.

Ph #916-453-1465

 

[C-speed]

Hey guys!
Thanks for all the leads! We've finally arrived (DANG ITS FREAKING COLD!!!), we sourced out 2 sets driver and pass side. We picked up one from Sacremento an hour ago and we another set coming from Seattle in the AM.

We are good to go, but need to a find a machine shop that is open in the morning that can machine a couple of bolts for us (modify) or we're screwed (no pun intended) - long story... ARGH

 

[norcal2]

Good luck guys! Hope you get set up, I have a friend Jeff Smith racing his mazda for the Evil Genius Team, I wish I could get out there.....

 

[92 white 0650]

Re: Cool

Crescent, go to garage #15, the dyno guy who also does welding and machining (I think). He should be able to do it or know a shop in town.

 

[92 white 0650]

Re: Late update

Fog shuts em down early. http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/06/2008-25-hours-of-thunderhill-fog-sucks-race-postponed/

Restart this morning. http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/07/2008-25-hours-of-thunderhill-game-on/

Fog lingers. http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/07/2008-25-hours-of-thunderhill-yellow-to-green-and-a-fog-revalua/

Still racing. http://www.nasa25hour.com/timing As of 12.40 PM Stuntman in 4th and Matrix Motorsports is in 50th.

 

[92 white 0650]

Re: A real test of endurance

It's past 8 PM and less than 500 laps in the books. I'm guessing they still have about 5-6 hours to go. Hope the fog isn't settling back in.

The good news is Stuntman's team is 2nd overall and on the lead lap.

Should be an interesting race report.

 

[stuntman]

The team and car was put together in an amazing 8 weeks. Literally 8 weeks from the point of conception to the race day, 8 weeks to buy a car, replace EVERYthing on it from the motor, tranny, bushings, diff, seat brackets, power steering system, brakes, wheels, tires, flared fenders, splitter, wing, fuel cell, and more. The whole team did an unbelievable job building this car. We did 1 test day at Buttonwillow a week prior to the race and had a great setup out of the box.

This is unheard of. I ran my own team and Spec Miata in the E2 class and it took me a year to build and test the car, granted I didn't have a shop to work at, nor 5 people working until 1-2am every day until the race itself building the car. I am still in disbelief that they stripped this car down to the shell and rebuilt it from the ground-up.

We had support from really great people and companies like Achilles Motorsports - the shop who built the car to the Nitto NT01 tires, KW Suspension, Piloti Shoes, Rotora Brakes, and I just can't say enough about the entire team and Achilles Motorsports.


The race itself was pretty crazy. It started at 11am and was scheduled to finish at Noon the following day. At about 6pm, fog rolled in and reduced the visibility to 30-40 feet and the race was red-flagged. At the top of every hour, the NASA officials announced over the PA and team radios an update on the weather and i'm pretty sure they skipped the 1am announcement.

It was hard for any team to sleep under these conditions, We packed 9 people into that little RV, sleeping 3 on a couch, a few on the ground, and some on beds, it was pretty crazy. 5 people were in the other trailer, 1 person went back to the hotel (we had 2 RVs and 2 hotel rooms) while at least 3 others slept in their cars.

The race went green at 5am and was extended to 3pm making for a total of 28 hours and 18 hours of race time.

We ended up:

1st in Class (E0)
1st overall above 2.0L (we got a trophy for this)
2nd overall out of everyone

...in the Blue/Yellow #44 Achilles Motorsports BMW E36 M3 only 10 seconds ahead of 2nd in class and 3rd overall car: Team Dreams Motorsports Honda Civic Si (E0).

I can't say enough about the team. They built an amazing car, worked extremely hard, and were really great guys to drive for. It really was a team effort from tire managment, to setup, to pit stops, refueling, you can't make mistakes in any aspect and every position is equally as important as the other. The 25 Hour (or any endurance race) truly represents that a team is only as strong as their weakest link. This dosn't mean drivers, but everyone on the team. We were lucky to have such great, driven, hard working people who did their best and was rewarded with a good result.

Results:
http://www.nasaproracing.com/results/norcal.html?mylaps=type,run,runid,1022863

Team Achille's M3 (1st in Class - E0, 2nd Overall)

Team Dreams Motorsports Honda Civic SI (2nd in Class - E0, 3rd Overall)

Team Independent BMW/E-Ticket Motorsports (3rd in Class - E0, 6th Overall)

Bullet/Nitto Tire E46 330i (last year's E0 Champion)

Robbie's Team Castrol E36 M3 E0 Car:

 

[C-speed]

Talk about a super long and COLD race. Instead of double posting, I already typed up a post race summary over here including a video of the Scion crash/roll over:

http://www.c-speedracing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45

We had some major problems, finished 13th in class (ES) and 48th overall.

Teasers:

 

[Prospeed]

Thanks for that Scion video! That sucks about the lugnut breakage on that one car at over 24hr! Why did they do 25hr instead of 24hr? 24hr isn't good enough? hehe j/p Thanks for the update! :smile:

 

[C-speed]

Thanks for that Scion video!

No problem! I'm not the OP though hehe

That sucks about the lugnut breakage on that one car at over 24hr!

Ya, totally sucks. They were pitted right next to us too... They came in around the 24h 20m mark and did a RF tire change and I notice them looking around that area for some reason. Then 20min later, BAM. Had to get flat towed in. Uber gay.

Why did they do 25hr instead of 24hr? 24hr isn't good enough? hehe j/p Thanks for the update! :smile:

Because 25hr makes it the worlds' longest endurance race

 

[stuntman]

Our team's press release is up (Achilles Motorsport):

http://www.nasa25hour.com/