MISSION ROAD RACE JUNE 12

[bertvorgon]

Morning World!
Yesterday I was privileged again to help the Specialty team at the latest Mission Road Race.

I woke up to hard rain again, seems it is never going to end this season. I figured the worst would be we would all sit under the tent canopy and talk cars all day, NOT a bad thing!

I was early enough that it only took me 50 mins to get to Mission, the Sunday morning traffic not up yet.

It was wet and misty rain at the track with heavy clouds. Tracey and Harry decided to not run in the wet, for a ton of reasons. Concrete hurts! It did mean they started from the back of the pack.

Late mid morning it started to dry on the race line, so, the car was prepped for battle again. Fuel, water for the sprayers, tire pressure, clean the huge globs of race rubber from inside the wheels, enough can throw the balance off.

I was to be radio guy, getting high up on the bleachers to spot the track for any issues.

I guess basically it was a HP war for the races. Tracey placed 3rd in her races, working her way through the pack. The car ran awesomely the whole time.

Malcolm was there in his 510, looking very strong down the straight, the car sounded great. He placed 2nd and 3rd in his races. Paul was there in the ex-Specialty DRC 510, now running in Vintage.

The Mazvette pitted next to us suffered a driveshaft or other power train issue so his day was cut short.

Harry chose to not do the final race, so everything was packed up quite quickly by all the bodies there, no small process.

I ran into some old friends, always nice to revisit the past.

I did notice, when I was standing in pre-grid, that it looks like a small area in the drag strip parking lot is being used for Solo. It sure looked small. I think one day I might just actually cruise out there, check out the Solo crowd and if anyone I know may still be slaloming.

My trip home was thankfully uneventful on Hwy #1, considering it was late Sunday afternoon. The last slog home on 16TH had a new learner driver ahead….fast… slow…..parked it in the corners….ARG! Finally a guy with Alberta plates decided to blast past on a double solid…..only to be behind the next slowest person, too funny, what a waste of fuel. I peeled off at 200th and headed to 8th, away from all the slog.

Sorry some of the pictures are fuzzy, I need to remember to change my shutter speed when zooming in.

As I said to Andy while we poured some C-16 into the fuel cell…

“I love the smell of race gas in the afternoon!”

[bertvorgon]

More

[bertvorgon]

More

[bertvorgon]

More

[bertvorgon]

More

[bertvorgon]

That about does it for today, lets hope for some good weather and we can get our own "drive" in soon.

Depending on what weather report you listen to, seems we still have unsettled and cool weather for sometime yet.

[icehouse]

Looks like a blast!

[iceD]

Is the #38 Nissan Dave’s 240?

ice D

[bertvorgon]

No that is not Dave's car, it is still with the family.

It is a not bad build, meant to take some closer pictures.

[Byron510]

Thanks, Keith for the update.
I hope to be out there and involved at MIssion a bit more later this year.

Both of those 240Z's have been in my garage this past two months for little jobs.
And those guys have a 3rd one that is supposed to show up here tomorrow.
See what happens.

Byron

[gooned]

Great to see some race pics!

[bertvorgon]

I still love the sound of race engines at full song.

I really remember the excitement building back in 1972, when I first started going to Westwood Race track, about 1/2 mile away, heading up that last long hill to the track, you could hear the scream of engines as they came down into the hairpin at 130+ MPH! my heart rate was up just listening to that.

In walking around the pits, there are very few left from the Westwood days now, all they will have known now is Mission. Ian Wood, Al Ores, Andy & Tracey of course, and a few others.

I did notice that the Solo crowd is using a small piece of pavement over on the drag racing parking lot. Next Solo I might just drive out there in the 510, as a drive day, and pop in to watch, see what is there. Looking at the times online, it is really small. I talked to a new Solo driver a week ago, here in the White Rock area, told her about the "Golden Days" at Boundary Bay, where the course was over 2 minutes on average. She was dumbfounded to hear that. That we had a giant lineal slalom, hitting 70 - 80 MPH, she just could not fathom. I remember still the last Solo I ever did, at what was left of Boundary Bay, I could hardly get my car out of first gear and even with 2 laps, the time was around one minute. Holy Cripes, a whole day, standing around, all to drive for maybe 3 minutes..... I was DONE after 27 years. To blow my own horn, I did beat the top guns in their Honda Civic, had them worried I was coming back for the season.

I know I have posted these before but here is a refresher for those that missed my story. For you non locals, the "straight" had an incline to what was called "DEERS LEAP", where you actually got light in the seat if at full song for the faster cars. On the night I chased Dave Humphries in his HL510, I hit the fasted I had ever gone in my 510, 135 MPH and keeping it plugged to the braking area was a big ball event for a Solo guy. My brakes at the time only lasted 3 laps trying to stay with Dave and a few other road race cars. But...WAS THAT FUN!!!!

The World has moved on....

[icehouse]

Keith I remember the first time I read something you posted about hitting 130mph on the straight away. After racing and seeing the speeds on the GPS I have a hole different appreciation for it. At the same time it blows my mind how fast we hit corners. Turn 5/6 in Seattle I turn in at 81ish MPH with Hankook RS4!!! They have good grip but lowest grip level of any sporty tires I've ran to date. I want to hit it with Hoosiers!!!!


Love all the photos!!

[bertvorgon]

To actually hit that real speed takes a good motor and gearing to say the least, to pull that top speed....yeh for turbos.

I laugh when some people say they hit 125 to 130 mph in their whatever car. I have left a lot of those in the dust.

That is really, really fast in a 510...period. Most I ever hit now on a good blast is 120. Without my big cam in the car, it now kinda stops breathing well at 6,500 RPM.

The first time I wicked the G35 up to almost top speed, I hit 150 MPH and jeezus was that scary. The suspension and aero had checked out at 120 MPH for the most part. Never done that since...just had to see.

The Federalie's now too would shoot us on site, so we have toned down our drives now, for all the reasons.

[bertvorgon]

Seattle is a big track, Collin was hitting 145 - 150 MPH going into Turn 1, scary to watch actually.

I ran a bunch of giant slaloms at SIR in my brown 1972 510, a half a dozen of us would convoy down for the day.

In 1973, I went down to watch the Formula 5000 race, featuring top drivers, one of which was Mark Donohue. I was my usual early self, arriving at the track at 6;30 am. As I wandered along the fencing along came Mark, gathering his thoughts for the day. I thought I had died and gone to heaven, we chatted for a few minutes..nice day of weather, he thought is was nice I had driven down from Vancouver, I wished him safe luck in the race. Those cars were monsters too, so much power in a light chassis, approx 490 to 550 HP. If you get a chance, read his book: UNFAIR ADVANTAGE, brilliant.

Jeff, do you know if they still Solo at the Boeing Space center lot? I did a few there. That was my first experience of going to a BIG American event, where the so called entry level sport, was instantly dispelled, as anything street mod and mod cars came on trailers. These were top dollar cars. Bit of an eye opener there I can tell you! That was such a cool time period, the Yanks would come to our events at Boundary Bay and we went to theirs, plus, they put on the Bellingham Gran Prix, a race through the streets with TONS of spectators on the edge of downtown Bellingham.

The picture shows my car in it's very early stages, it has the BRE/INTERPART suspension, which you can see was crap.