MSR Houston this weekend

[MadMerv]

Has anyone driven MSRH? Any video? We're heading down there this afternoon for SCCA races (Testing Friday, Regionals Saturday, and Nationals on Sunday). Any input would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Merv

PS If anyone wants to come down, we have for crew slots open......

[Sharpie]

I'm pretty sure Bob Bensen has been down there.

[ken o]

http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...rch_type=&aq=f

[MadMerv]

I watched a LOT of SM in-car videos, but it didnt prepare me very well. Sure, it taught me which way the next turn(s) would be and even helped with entry points, but in reality, wasn't nearly as helpful as two minutes talking to John Phillips! AND.....for all you members of the "Real" MSR, don't waste your time going south. The track is pitiful. Very rough, bad bumps and dips, half of it has already required repaving, and it is forever changing, so I'm told. It was built on a swamp, marsh, goey stuff! The normal direction(CCW), comes out on to the pit straight (start/finish) with a concrete barrier on the right, that does not MOVE! I'm told that every SM race weekend the wall claims at least two cars, and this weekend was no exception.

Friday was a test day, which Bob, aka Dirt Surfer, and I really needed. I actually had more off track excursions(two) than Bob, but all I did was mowed the grass for awhile! I started out slow....very slow, which I expected having never seen the track, never been in the car, and no SM seat time in over two years. Unfortunately, the '99 was having cooling problems so there were many times we came in early or just backed off trying to keep the temps below 230! Lap times tended to drop off later in each session, which we attributed to the overheating, but that led us to another problem. The front brakes were dragging and the rotors/pads were very hot. We pulled the brakes apart, and the sliders were all gummed up and sticking. Bob had used some marine grease which couldn't stand up to the heat. We found some good grease and fixed that problem.

My two races were on Saturday afternoon (HOT!), and I couldn't keep the temps in check. Of course, mowing the grass didn't help when some of the grass blocked the grill during the IT race. I had qualifed fourth and staying close until the "off", from which time I was cruising in fifth as everyone else passed me except an RX7 that I had lapped earlier. The second race (SM) was a real bummer as I started 21 of 26! I know how much more aggressive these guys are than back in the early days, so I was a bit cautious until the cars spread out after the first lap. We only ran four laps until the wall claimed it's victims, then we had four more laps behind the pace car. When the green flag finally came out, there must have been a quarter mile from the lead car to the last one, and we only got three laps till the checker, so there was not much chance to race. I finished 18th

Sunday morning we replaced the stock radiator with a Koyo and it solved the cooling problem, so Bob had a better car for both qualifying and the race He had a great battle for 15th/16th, but ended up 18th, where he started, when the '99 began starving in the corners. Lucky for him he had slowed down and let the lead cars pass him so he didn't have to run the final lap, or we'd have been pushing. It died as he rolled under the ten in the paddock!

All in all, it was a good weekend. Our goal was to finish three races and not bang up the car. We succeded, albeit not finishing as well as we would have liked. We did make progress, however, as our lap times finally got close to the leaders who qualifed at 1:51's and raced in the 1:52's. I qualifed witha 1:55.248 and raced with a 126.249 and Bob qualifed with a 1:26.093 and raced with a 1:55.943. Not bad for a couple of old farts........

The motorhome was great, after two weeks of prep, and got a whopping 6.7mpg, at $4.07. Luckily, the generator sipped fuel at less than a quart an hour, and never missed a beat. Total trip was 726 miles, and I'm plum tuckered out!

[cArAzzIE]

Sorry - stupid here <-- what is MSR?

[Nails]

Motor Sports Ranch