We ran Luigi last weekend at the Portland Histortics. Good weekend for learning, and lousy for racing.
We are still sorting the brake issue that plagued us at Sonoma. It looks like there is enough heat coming off the headers to boil the fluid in the brake line going to the right front. We tried shielding it with heat shield tape, but it was not enough to do the trick. We plan to re-route the line around the front of the car to keep it away from the headers.
I got in 2 sessions on Friday, and 2 on Saturday. Terry took out the car on the Sunday morning warm-up session.
The group the car ran in consisted of 3 ex-NASCAR stock cars, a GT 350 Mustang, a big blog notch back Mustang, an ex-Trans Am tube frame car from the 80's, a couple of Corvettes, a 2 liter SR, and me. Luigi had no trouble holding his own, and was able to run in the top 5 in every session.
Just before our race on Sunday a thunderstorm came through. With only slicks for the car we decided not to risk pranging it before Monterey.
The car is very strong down the straights, and when the brakes are working it has amazing stopping power. When you step on them, the whole car just squats down.
The handling is much better than the Jager car. Is it the lighter weight? The Motorsports suspension vs. street car derived suspension? I think a bit of both. Gobs of grip, no bad manners, and excellent feedback. The only drawback is very heavy steering effort due to the close ratio steering box and big slicks. Lots of work on a hot Sunday afternoon.
I'll post videos in a few days.
On a side note, all 4 2002's had issues, and none were able to compete on Sunday. Mark Rincon's 02 dropped a valve on Friday, John Murray blew a head gasket on Saturday, Henry Schmitt lost 4th gear on Saturday, and my Koepchen 02 lost oil pressure on Sunday morning during the warm-up session. Pretty unusual!
We are still sorting the brake issue that plagued us at Sonoma. It looks like there is enough heat coming off the headers to boil the fluid in the brake line going to the right front. We tried shielding it with heat shield tape, but it was not enough to do the trick. We plan to re-route the line around the front of the car to keep it away from the headers.
I got in 2 sessions on Friday, and 2 on Saturday. Terry took out the car on the Sunday morning warm-up session.
The group the car ran in consisted of 3 ex-NASCAR stock cars, a GT 350 Mustang, a big blog notch back Mustang, an ex-Trans Am tube frame car from the 80's, a couple of Corvettes, a 2 liter SR, and me. Luigi had no trouble holding his own, and was able to run in the top 5 in every session.
Just before our race on Sunday a thunderstorm came through. With only slicks for the car we decided not to risk pranging it before Monterey.
The car is very strong down the straights, and when the brakes are working it has amazing stopping power. When you step on them, the whole car just squats down.
The handling is much better than the Jager car. Is it the lighter weight? The Motorsports suspension vs. street car derived suspension? I think a bit of both. Gobs of grip, no bad manners, and excellent feedback. The only drawback is very heavy steering effort due to the close ratio steering box and big slicks. Lots of work on a hot Sunday afternoon.
I'll post videos in a few days.
On a side note, all 4 2002's had issues, and none were able to compete on Sunday. Mark Rincon's 02 dropped a valve on Friday, John Murray blew a head gasket on Saturday, Henry Schmitt lost 4th gear on Saturday, and my Koepchen 02 lost oil pressure on Sunday morning during the warm-up session. Pretty unusual!
