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S550 daytona update

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501
550
Exp. Type
W2W Racing
Exp. Level
20+ Years
Snowy North
Collegial response...fair point to you.

It's a non-optimum state, though, when a bronze driver can consistently turn times comparable to platinum pros...in the same car. That kinda diminishes the value able to be added by the pro, from a purist's perspective.

Must be a better way (other than one-marque spec racing) to put on a show/draw fans/attract new talent...a debate for the ages :rolleyes:.
 
6,361
8,183
Collegial response...fair point to you.

It's a non-optimum state, though, when a bronze driver can consistently turn times comparable to platinum pros...in the same car. That kinda diminishes the value able to be added by the pro, from a purist's perspective.

Must be a better way (other than one-marque spec racing) to put on a show/draw fans/attract new talent...a debate for the ages :rolleyes:.
It's more like, "who's going to pay for it", generally speaking the am guys have talent but more importantly, the cash flow to provide the competition. A lot of times the "pros" are hired guns who work for the am driver, who probably owns the team. Just the way it is, like I said, we'll go through well over $180K in tires between the ROAR and the 24. Back in the Subi days (2011 - 2013) I heard the team owner saying it costs $80K to run the car each weekend. That precludes anything other than factory participation, so it was changed up to let the am drivers race instead of just observing.
I was having a discussion when I worked briefly for a BMW team, and I told them the local track operator, a 1/4 miles asphalt oval, that outside of their late model class they required stock brakes, rotors, calipers, they used stock front clips, standard differentials with a locked or limited slip unit, and very restrictive engine rules, sometimes even a "claimer clause" where you could buy the winner's engine for a specified amount if you finished in the top 5. All this was to keep costs down. They mocked the whole operation.
The thing is, the local track operator is a business, he needs to put cars on the track in order to put asses in the seats to meet his bottom line. Short tracks routinely get 20 - 30 cars in a feature event, sure the payout is only $500 to $1K maybe even for the entire class, but how many have gotten a payout racing sports cars?
In sportscar racing Michelin owns the class and advert rights and pretty much anything else, so they call the shots. In the ROAR several cars got penalized for letting the cars on track with not enough pressure, even though, in that teams' performance strategy it required the tires to be that low... no matter.. Michelin called the shots, because they don't want their tires coming off the bead and looking bad. (when we had a rapid, catastrophic deflation, we had to bag the tire in a plastic bag and return it to Michelin, even though it was caused by a puncture). This is part of the courtesy that is extended to the sponsor who owns the series. So the teams do the same for the am drivers, they get a say in how everything is done... because, SOMEBODY has to pay for all this stuff.
Sportscar people tend to like innovation, high tech, that sort of thing, the organization needs cars that can be molded to a certain performance envelope, and easy to tech.. hence they adopted GT4 and GT3 specs for those cars, and they can claim they are an international series..
BTW, for those scoring at home, the Corvette GT cars are not obligated to be GT3 spec, but are IMSA spec... hmmm)
 

Dave_W

Cones - not just for ice cream
984
1,277
Exp. Type
Autocross
Exp. Level
20+ Years
Connecticut
Too bad about the #75 - the in-car from a few cars back was nothing but sun glare coming out of 6 onto NASCAR 1. Lucky more cars didn't get caught up in that.

Halfway through the race, and Ben Keating is a driver in both the leading DPi and LMP2 cars! Woot! Been a favorite gentleman racer of mine since the Viper days. Still think he came up with the best racing suit design ever at Le Mans 2017.
1643526277428.png
 

Bill Pemberton

0ld Ford Automotive Racing Terror
8,424
8,349
Exp. Type
Time Attack
Exp. Level
20+ Years
Blair, Nebraska
Rough situation BS1, but it has been fun having you keep us all in the loop offering info, pics, updates, and more! Imagine you will need a bit of rest come Monday?
 

Dave_W

Cones - not just for ice cream
984
1,277
Exp. Type
Autocross
Exp. Level
20+ Years
Connecticut
So, question for @blacksheep-1 on tires and the temps at Daytona this year. I heard IMSA put out a bulletin warning teams to not try heating the tires in the hauler, etc. And in the overnight, one of the pit lane reporters showed an IR surface temp of 34.5 deg. F on a tire that was about to go on a car. Now, all the "extreme summer" tires have warnings on Tire Rack about them "not intended to be serviced, stored nor driven in near- and below-freezing temperatures" - never mind the Hoosiers and other R-Comps.

Did Michelin say/do anything special about the temperatures? Were the compounds used this year "special" for the cold weather? Or was it just, "they'll take longer to heat up on the out laps, but after that it's full send"?

Just curious. And if you can't say for some reason, totally understandable.
 
6,361
8,183
So, question for @blacksheep-1 on tires and the temps at Daytona this year. I heard IMSA put out a bulletin warning teams to not try heating the tires in the hauler, etc. And in the overnight, one of the pit lane reporters showed an IR surface temp of 34.5 deg. F on a tire that was about to go on a car. Now, all the "extreme summer" tires have warnings on Tire Rack about them "not intended to be serviced, stored nor driven in near- and below-freezing temperatures" - never mind the Hoosiers and other R-Comps.

Did Michelin say/do anything special about the temperatures? Were the compounds used this year "special" for the cold weather? Or was it just, "they'll take longer to heat up on the out laps, but after that it's full send"?

Just curious. And if you can't say for some reason, totally understandable.

No, same tires, all $130K worth of them, SM6 compound as I recall. Yes Michelin put out a bulletin on that, IMSA says you can't warm the tire (really this means any kind of warming, but in reality, setting the next set "on the wall" under the tent would be OK, and that is where I stored my ready tires, we had them, in the trailer as well, just for storage, they were special sets that needed to be mounted yet) The bigger issue, for me was that Michelin has a sliding scale of camber vs temp vs starting PSI. They also had a upper pressure minimum. I had to school the new Mich rep that was with us when we had 1 tire come in low in GS. He came down from the high speed banking to a damp apron, probably hitting a puddle along the way (it was a pretty good story, for sure) Also yellow flag/pit closed laps, I told him you can't count those. You have to have green flag pit stop laps to really measure tire pressure, and I let him. We were really right at the minimums. I'm glad GS doesn't have telemetry like GT3, IMSA can look right at it, in real time. Funny thing is, Mich has temperature/pressure deltas, and I've asked for them, but they won't release them to us, so I developed my own. I showed him what I had, and he started to pull out his phone to take a pic, I told him "You can put that phone right back in your pocket, I'm not doing the homework for everyone in pit lane".
I had to use the numbers from the tire test back in December and one, short session to develop my numbers for this race, good notes, attention to details and consistency in how you take pressures prevailed, but I was worried until we got that one session in.
With regards to tire labeling , these are race tires, they stamp whatever they want on them, in the misty, not quite rain but definitely not slick practices, cars were tearing up rain tires pretty consistently in the GT classes. That team had tires cut apart to examine them and all kinds of engineer type crap going on, but he skinny was.. everyone was having tire problems. I would be willing to say Mich stayed up all night praying those conditions wouldn't be in the race.
 

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