Pitchblack Motorsports Rally e30 318i (now with M50) - and some Porsche 924S stuff.

[irish44j]

Are the pics posted up on facebook? They look great!

Those are. Ed sent a link to his album on the yahoo group as well.

I'm expecting A.J., Eric, and Steven Philips to put up albums at some point...all of them were out there with nice cameras as well :)

Here are a few crappier photos from my phone of some of the others there

[Mark 42]

How did the ix compare with the other E30's?
(Did it have AWD working?)

[irish44j]

How did the ix compare with the other E30's?
(Did it have AWD working?)

He ran right before me all day in PA class. No idea how hard he was pushing it, but it was slower than any of the PR cars and about 60 seconds behind me. Then again, the top three PR cars beat ALL of the prepared AWD cars :D

AWD wasn't much help on the courses this weekend I wouldn't think. If we were in mud or something, it would have been different I imagine. These speed courses make the RWD cars very competitive with all but the fastest AWD cars.

[irish44j]

A few more pics of my car from Steven Phillips

WDC SCCA RallyCross Season Opener by R3d Baron, on Flickr

WDC RallyCross Season Opener by R3d Baron, on Flickr

[econti]

I do wish we had an event similar to this in Australia. Closest I can find is khanacross, basically a very short rally.
Trees make my bank account nervous.

[irish44j]

I had been thinking about going down to VIR for TarHeel Sportscar Club's rallycross next weekend, thinking it was a 2-day event, but as it turns out it's only a single day - and the word is that TSSC runs a fairly laid-back event time-wise that results in only like 6 or 7 runs on their (reportedly excellent) course. Can't really justify towing down there for so little racing time, and have other things to do. .... so looks like I have a few weeks to work on some small bugs in the car.

As noted before, figured out all my wiring/electrical bugs from the last event (mostly related to bad ground, a fuel sender plug coming loose, and a faulty headlight switch) so hopefully everything is good to go in that respect.

On the trip home from the last event I was noticing a loud rattle from under the car under load. Figured it was a heat shield or something, but after some investigation I found that the front exhaust mount (off the tranny) that I had ghetto-fabbed up 2 seasons ago and just tack-welded in place had finally ripped itself free from the y-pipe and the metal mount was rattling against the pipe under load. This setup was supposed to have been temporary when I first did it, but never got around to making it better.

So with the weather nice I got the car on ramps, got on my back and fabbed up a couple new exhaust hangers - one to replace that one and one at the front half of the catback (even though it's a full welded system now, I prefer to distribute the hanger load for obvious reasons).

On the front I bent an L-bracket out of some random piece of metal and then welded it to the pipe. To cut down on any NVH I set it up to use one of my spare WRX hangers as the "bridge" to the stock hanger on the tranny. Pretty pleased with how it came out, actually, and should hold up better than the old ghetto setup



Farther back, this one is a bit more ghettos with limited options for using a donut-style hanger there. I got one of the swivel-head heavy duty hangers from an auto parts store and hung it from the side. This hanger is more of a "security" piece in case the two exhaust sections come apart like they did last season....so now something will be holding the forward end. It's a lot stronger than it looks, actually. I was tired of welding on my back so I just bolted it through the rear floor. And please ignore the horrendous weldes on the multiple pipe sections - those were done when I was just learning (I'm a little better now, lol)



While the welder was out, I finally got around to putting on the two extra D-rings on the back of the trailer. This is pretty beefy stuff and wasn't sure if my little Hobart would "Handle" it (pun intended). Did a few rows of somewhat ugly welds, and also tripped the breaker on my garage plug by trying to do a full beat at full power, lol. Anyhow, after done I smacked them 2-3 times with a 5lb sledgehammer and they didn't come off or crack the welds or anything, so I guess they're strong enough :)

[tzdevill]

Thscc is a very young rallyx club. We do not have alot of folks that regular the events. They generally do 4 runs in the am, a 1 hourish lunch break, and then 4 runs in the afternoon. The first run of each is a recon run and the time is thrown out. I know it is a long haul for you but VIR is an awesome site.

[irish44j]

Thscc is a very young rallyx club. We do not have alot of folks that regular the events. They generally do 4 runs in the am, a 1 hourish lunch break, and then 4 runs in the afternoon. The first run of each is a recon run and the time is thrown out. I know it is a long haul for you but VIR is an awesome site.

Yeah, so I've heard. I wish I could have made that 2-day event last year but I was enduro racing that weekend IIRC. If TSCC has another 2-day at VIR, I will definitely be there. Just hard to just justify for a single-day event. 2.5 hours to our own venue for single day events is already a hike and I have kind of limited schedule and most of my racing money already spoken for this year - so no extra events unless they are really, really worth it in terms of driving time.

Curious, why so few runs if you have a fairly low turnout? At our opener I think we ended up with almost 50 drivers running and managed 6 or 7 in the morning and 6 or 7 after lunch (with some delays, and not including recon runs that we also get). Is it due to a single-car timing system, or a course that overlaps upon itself or what? I do hear you guys have pretty long runs - what would you say is the average time of a typical run?

I do know a few other WDCR people are going down to that event though.

[bluej]

+1 for coming from dc area for a multi-day event. maybe even a single day if schedule permitted in the fall.

[tzdevill]

I think the biggest thing is getting everyone in place and the cars actually moving. WE have a select group of guys that set up and run the timing and scoring and then everything just seems to drag along. We have ruffly 30 entrants and sometimes that makes it hard to get everything covered with some drivers have to do two different things during the event plus drive.If we had more folks that would step up and help it would be a whole lot better(myself included). I havnt made a rallyx event this year and will miss this as i am signed up to autox with nasa this weekend at NCCAR, need to test my miata.

Yeah, so I've heard. I wish I could have made that 2-day event last year but I was enduro racing that weekend IIRC. If TSCC has another 2-day at VIR, I will definitely be there. Just hard to just justify for a single-day event. 2.5 hours to our own venue for single day events is already a hike and I have kind of limited schedule and most of my racing money already spoken for this year - so no extra events unless they are really, really worth it in terms of driving time.

Curious, why so few runs if you have a fairly low turnout? At our opener I think we ended up with almost 50 drivers running and managed 6 or 7 in the morning and 6 or 7 after lunch (with some delays, and not including recon runs that we also get). Is it due to a single-car timing system, or a course that overlaps upon itself or what? I do hear you guys have pretty long runs - what would you say is the average time of a typical run?

I do know a few other WDCR people are going down to that event though.

[irish44j]

I'm not one to usually post any deep thoughts in here, but for those who follow the news you may have heard about the shooting and police chase in DC yesterday. This happened at the outer perimeter of the federal complex I work on, and the guard who was shot and killed was somebody I drove past every single day for the last few years. No matter the weather, he always had a smile, a wave, and often a sharp salute (even though I'm not a military officer) for me as I drove by on the way home, which was a nice coda on a long day at work. I never knew his name, but when I drove out today I noticed he wasn't there, before I knew he was the one shot.

http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/28774286/slain-security-guard-lawrence-buckner-remembered-as-hero-family-man

So, as you go through your days, make sure you appreciate the people who you may not know, and make sure to give them a smile and a wave back. Because you may not realize how much they actually matter to you and the world until they're gone.

No car work tonight.

[Mark 42]

It's funny (funny meaning strange)...
My vanpool used to know the guards that checked our badges each day.
One of them was a young lady who always smiled and joked with us.
She's one of my FaceBook friends now, and we both ride Urals (Did a scavenger hunt style rally together)
Another one is also a FB friend, who I exchange humorous posts with every now and then.

Your description made me think of them, and made me glad that I do know them even now that
we don't work at the same location anymore.

I think it's cool that you're thinking of him, and of course, extremely tragic that he's gone.

[irish44j]

Been a couple weeks and not much going on other than planning. We have a local event on May 3rd, and another 3 weeks after that. Then in early June a bunch of us are going up to Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally (SPTR) to help crew at the rally and then run at the NEDiv national challenge rallycross there the next day, which basically uses the course from the STPR Super Special Stage. So far 7 cars signed up, and all but one (Dan Downey bringing his e30 from Massachusette) are WDCR regulars, which is kind of funny seeing as it's 5 hours north of us.

In the meantime, been helping out working on Nick's car (cutting his rear springs and doing a few other things to make it faster), and again I ask myself why I'm helping my top competitors make their cars faster lol.



I hear Josh is pretty close to finishing up the M52 swap. Yay again, lol.

In a discussion on some forum today lugnuts were being discussed, and it reminded me of a little thing that I've been meaning to do since we started running at Frostburg, where gray-black lugnuts disappear into the gravel during tire changes, never to be seen again (ok, so they're always found after searching the ground for 5 minutes lol). Paint the damn things a bright color so they're easier to see.







So yeah....while my competitors are busy swapping in big engines, and doing major suspension changes, here I am painting lugnuts :/ And saving my pennies for a cage later this year :)

[irish44j]

Gettin dat ass up in the air. 6 days until the next event :)

[silence]

Remember to let me know when your ready to get dat ass up on jackstands ;)