Hello from Phoenix International Raceway!

Post by **Brian** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 7:11 pm

Hello everyone from PIR. We are vintage racing this weekend. For those who don't know what I look like, I am wearing the funny looking overalls (Hey....I was under the car). The other fellow is my next door neighbor and good buddy, Mark Vaden. The car is a 65 Triumph TR4. Today was practice and it went well. New shocks, new steering rack......but it needs a LIMITED SLIP BAD!! The car feels a lot like an older Miata but the lack of a limited slip must be costing us 4 seconds a lap as we spin the inside tire out of every corner. But this is great racing....tons of FUN with great people. Mostly sunny today but clouds moving in....hope it doesn't rain tomorrow!

StKnoWhere · Post by **StKnoWhere** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 9:18 pm

Sweet TR4 Brian, should be a blast with all the historic vehicles, hope you have a great weekend.

The Alfa club here shares the track (VIR) a weekend with VSCCA in May. Seeing all the vintage cars in the paddock and out on track is awesome, one of my favorite events

http://www.vscca.org/

Post by **Brian** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:27 am

StKnoWhere wrote:Sweet TR4 Brian, should be a blast with all the historic vehicles, hope you have a great weekend.

The Alfa club here shares the track (VIR) a weekend with VSCCA in May. Seeing all the vintage cars in the paddock and out on track is awesome, one of my favorite events

http://www.vscca.org/

Great point...half the fun at these vintage events is just walking about and down the paddock to see all the history on display.

Well, we had a fabulous weekend. Three days of racing this vintage TR4 went flawlessly. Anytime you can race a thirty year old car for three days, using two drivers double entered, and break just ONE bolt...that's an incredible weekend for any car, and astounding for a thirty year old British race car. One bolt holding the alternator sheared and we went up and down the paddock to find just the right replacement...which we did. In fact, we ended up with two replacement bolts. Incredibly friendly group of enthusiast drivers and everybody is willing to share parts and laughs. Big thanks to HSR West for the great weekend.

With my buddy racing the TR4 in the first run group I got bumped up two classes to the third group which was the Porsche group where I was outgunned on horsepower by a factor of 3 and 4 to one. The picture below tells the story... Nonetheless, I was pretty happy to catch and pass a few of the Porsches in the infield sections so that I qualified ahead of a few of these much faster machines. The most fun event of the weekend for me was the qualifier/race late Saturday because when it started to rain a little some of these rear engine Porsche guys really gave it up in slick sections of the infield, allowing me to beat some much faster machines. It rained all night Saturday and things were still damp when we raced Sunday and that allowed me to finish 7th in the Porsche group out of 12 starters...I was overjoyed with that result given how underpowered, under-tired, and under-sprung we were against our competition. Mark found the rain to a be a similar benefit in his group as he left behind some of the B class sedans (Alfa GTVs and Datsun 510s) which had out qualified him in the dry. For next event the limited slip is going in!

Steve Coe · Post by **Steve Coe** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:44 am

The last time we saw anyone looking that good in overalls their names were "Ice" and "Maverick"

In a couple of years our STS(2) Miata's will be vintage eligable. Or I just got to get my Datsun 1200 going!

Steve Coe

slartibartfast · Post by **slartibartfast** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 2:48 pm

Brian, you're racing a FORTY-year old British race car. Defies logic that you raced with only the one bolt problem. You must have replaced the wiring to excise The Prince of Darkness.

Post by **Brian** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:30 pm

slartibartfast wrote:Brian, you're racing a FORTY-year old British race car. Defies logic that you raced with only the one bolt problem. You must have replaced the wiring to excise The Prince of Darkness.

That's right, 44 year old car.... it's older than me!

I also regularly forget how old I am...

Monkeywrench · Post by **Monkeywrench** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:25 pm

Brian,

Great looking TR!

I crew on one back on the east coast, here's a photo..

Any idea what size tires/wheels you guys are running? Looks like the R888 on a 7" rim.

Post by **Brian** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:44 pm

Great looking Triumph!

You are right on the wheels and tires....15x7 with R888 in 205/50

Monkeywrench · Post by **Monkeywrench** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 8:41 pm

Brian,

Saw this linked to one of of the Triumph lists..
http://www.britishheritagemotorsports.c ... ideos.html

Post by **Brian** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:40 pm

Monkeywrench wrote:Brian,

Saw this linked to one of of the Triumph lists..
http://www.britishheritagemotorsports.c ... ideos.html

You can hear the wheel spin from every hard corner of the infield....just killed us off the corners. I think a limited slip would have helped us by another 4 or 5 seconds easily. My buddy is installing that limited slip soon...can't wait to drive it again once that is installed.