Buttonwillow double Nat & Super Tour April 30/May 1, 2011

Brian Linn

Brian Linn

Well-known member
About 1.5 weeks away from So Pac's BFG Super Tour event. Entries are a little light except HP looks like a solid group of cars. Get to see if Jason and Gary can match their close races from Willow Springs in Feb. I was hoping to see Keith Gillespie's name on the entry list for EP in his Prelude....Keith you out there?

E Production 3 entries
05 Downey, Aaron 1973 Mazda RX-3
19 Carroll, Josh 1986 Mazda RX7
50 Gist, Gary 1989 Mazda RX7

F Production 2 entries
11 Linn, Brian 1990 Mazda Miata
36 Powers, Sean 1993 Mazda Miata

H Production 6 entries
28 Bryant, Craig 1959 Austin Healey Sprite
33 Wittman, Gary 1961 Austin Healey Sprite
79 Shaver, Leroy 1962 MG Midget
80 Verity, Neil 1966 MG MGB
82 Cummings, Mike 1964 Austin Hea Sprite
99 Isley, Jason 2007 Toyota Yaris

GT-Lite 3 entries
1 Fazzi, Michael 1964 Austin Mini
44 Bower, John 1994 Nissan Sentra
64 gilcrease, bill 1967 Mini Cooper
 
Thanks for thinking of me Brian.
I am in the middle of a major suspension upgrade and I'm not sure if it will be back together in time for the race. Nothing's ever easy.
Be safe, good luck and have fun guys!
 
BLinn":3jh6qa8w said:
About 1.5 weeks away from So Pac's BFG Super Tour event. Entries are a little light except HP looks like a solid group of cars. Get to see if Jason and Gary can match their close races from Willow Springs in Feb. I was hoping to see Keith Gillespie's name on the entry list for EP in his Prelude....Keith you out there?

E Production 3 entries
05 Downey, Aaron 1973 Mazda RX-3
19 Carroll, Josh 1986 Mazda RX7
50 Gist, Gary 1989 Mazda RX7

F Production 2 entries
11 Linn, Brian 1990 Mazda Miata
36 Powers, Sean 1993 Mazda Miata

H Production 6 entries
28 Bryant, Craig 1959 Austin Healey Sprite
33 Wittman, Gary 1961 Austin Healey Sprite
79 Shaver, Leroy 1962 MG Midget
80 Verity, Neil 1966 MG MGB
82 Cummings, Mike 1964 Austin Hea Sprite
99 Isley, Jason 2007 Toyota Yaris

GT-Lite 3 entries
1 Fazzi, Michael 1964 Austin Mini
44 Bower, John 1994 Nissan Sentra
64 gilcrease, bill 1967 Mini Cooper
Click to expand...

Looking forward to it. I hope I can keep up with Gary in all the tight stuff. Perhaps if Neil gets a decent trans in his car we will see him up in the mix as well. Now if Cory and the Fit sign up we will have a good size field. Forget SM, give HP its own race. :mrgreen:
 
Jason,

I'll be peddling.... see if my latest planned clutch fix will do the job... may be lots of wrenching over the race weekend.

Also, congrats on the nice article/pic's in Sportscar. I see Gary got his nose in there... more incentive to be up front. Maybe you need a "part 3" to your article?

Neil
 
Neil Verity":37u15vyb said:
Jason,

I'll be peddling.... see if my latest planned clutch fix will do the job... may be lots of wrenching over the race weekend.

Also, congrats on the nice article/pic's in Sportscar. I see Gary got his nose in there... more incentive to be up front. Maybe you need a "part 3" to your article?

Neil
Click to expand...

Just stop using the clutch. :lol:

No part 3 :stop: , I hope the work part of this project is done and now we can just have fun with it.

Although we are scrambling on another Yaris related project... With the B-Spec rules coming out in the next Fastrack, we are trying to get the money together to run the other two cars this year as well. With no official Toyota support (for any of the cars) this year Its a long shot, but we are trying.
 
At one point I didn't know if we were going to get my car ready for Buttonwillow. It seemed that every time we took something apart for repair we found something else to fix and I lost a couple weekends due to a business trip in Paris. I actually told Bernie that I give up and would just drop out for the rest of the season. The next day I realized we could still get it ready if things fell to together like it should. We put the effort into it and the car is together now awaiting the final suspension tuning.

I am looking forward to getting on the track again. Depending on how things go, we could have at least 4 HP cars pushing to be up front. I know we had three HP cars passing each other back and forth at one race there and with Jason in the mix, this could be a blast.
 
Gary Wittman":qnirckbi said:
At one point I didn't know if we were going to get my car ready for Buttonwillow. It seemed that every time we took something apart for repair we found something else to fix and I lost a couple weekends due to a business trip in Paris. I actually told Bernie that I give up and would just drop out for the rest of the season. The next day I realized we could still get it ready if things fell to together like it should. We put the effort into it and the car is together now awaiting the final suspension tuning.

I am looking forward to getting on the track again. Depending on how things go, we could have at least 4 HP cars pushing to be up front. I know we had three HP cars passing each other back and forth at one race there and with Jason in the mix, this could be a blast.
Click to expand...

Stop running into heavy HP cars and you will have less to repair. :twisted:
 
Jason@SportsCar":3opq6avg said:
Stop running into heavy HP cars and you will have less to repair. :twisted:
Click to expand...
That was just a band-aid repair. I guess I do need to pick on somebody my own size though.

It is amazing that we have 7 cars in HP. Although, 4 of those cars are ex-GP cars. The demise of GP sure did improve the health of HP.
 
Sorry guys.

Urgent family matters have intervened so I'll miss the HP show at BW. First time since I can remember.... Have a great close race....and enjoy the champagne...

Neil
 
Neil Verity":qc8b249y said:
Sorry guys.

Urgent family matters have intervened so I'll miss the HP show at BW. First time since I can remember.... Have a great close race....and enjoy the champagne...

Neil
Click to expand...

That's to bad.

On the upside, you wont have to fix your clutch this weekend. :lol:
 
Great weekend... A little hot, a little windy (many EZ-UPs are in a better place now, although I am not sure where that is because they have not landed), but great racing. The Super Tour element really added something to the event, I wish all Natls were like that.

Sat:
EP
Downey
Sather
Gist

FP
Linn
Powers

HP
Isley
Wittman
Cummings
Bryant lost 4th gear in his trans and nursed it around for a finish, but was not able to join us on Sun. Shaver was taken out by a stray T1 car - I was busy most of the weekend trying to keep my front bumper attached (the car is low, stop going off dummy) - so I never got to see the damage, he did not make the race on Sun.

Sun:
EP
Downey
Carroll
Gist

FP
LInn
Powers

HP
Isley
Wittman
Cummings
 
I hope that the BFG Super Tour events catch on and can create more interest for National racing. Out west, most people are not interested in making the trek back east for the Runoffs. So the National program is not as well represented in many classes as it is in the rest of the country - no news here. If the Super Tour events can create an atmosphere that goes with a special event, then maybe it will turn into a 'must attend' event for west coast racers. I like the effort of trying something new- much like the Rational weekend we had.

Kudos to Eric Prill for making the post race interviews interesting. He had solid questions for all of the class winners - showing his knowledge and he actually was paying attention to the races.

My weekend was mixed despite getting two wins. During Sat Qual my RF tire went flat, not sure what caused it, but driving it on low pressure put some large 'cracks' in the inner sidewall. Couldn't see any other signs of distress. While changing the tire I checked the cam-bolts that adjust camber and one was loose - and then noticed the alignment was off. The cam bolt movement changes the camber, which also changes the toe. Put the cam bolts back to the original setting (which should have put the toe close to where it should've been) and started adjusting the toe. The toe didn't adjust like it normally does - it wasn't repeatable nor linear. I knew something was wrong and that I would find it in a week or so. Next AM for qual 2, 3/4 through my first timed lap, turning left and the car goes straight - but lots of runoff area and a slow speed turn. Then it seems like it is steering OK - I'm thinking maybe I have another flat. I get back to impound and when turning the steering wheel the RF does not move...the inner ball-joint on the steering tie rod came off the end of the rack. That explained the erroneous toe adjustments - as I tried to adjust the outer tie rod, it was unthreading the inner ball joint where it attaches to the rack.

The Sunday schedule had the race at 10:50 AM which was not a lot of time after our 8 AM qual session. We got it back together, got the alignment close and went to grid. Car felt pretty good during the race and moved up a few spots on the first lap. Later my right foot started getting hot, then my shoe got caught on the gas pedal while going from the brake to the gas. Turns out my right shoe sole started separating the side, creating a 5" opening. Time for some new shoes...

Thanks to Noel Hayward for coming down and helping out, especially with the alignment a few times - in the end getting it good enough to take away his lap record.
 
Jason - I'd like to vote for a different camera position. I've haven't been to Buttonwillow since '99 and so my memory of the track has faded, I just couldn't get enough refernce to figure out what course or direction you guys were running.
 
I actually had a fancy new camera with me to try out... Unfortunately it was way to fancy for me to figure out, and it had no instructions with it. :( I had a Go Pro with me, but not all of the mounts, so best I could do was replicate the lousy camera angle I had at Willow.
 
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