Going to race a Legends car on Sunday at TMS

[GlennCMC70]

James - let them know your faster than Scott Smith.

Most of the veterans will understand this one.

[AllZWay]

I have been bumped to the Morgan Dawdy numbered car.

[Waco Racer]

They are twitchy little boogers to drive. Make sure you get good temp in the tires before you toss it around too much.

[Al Fernandez]

That sounds like a lot of fun James. Give 'em hell!

[nasa-rm]

Legends cars are a hoot and a b&*th to drive fast. I chased our Oklahoma boys around for a few races in one. Those Federal tires don't stick worth anything, but at least you are all equal.

Keep the car in the power band. High/high/high reving. If you shift at 5xxx rpm like you are used to, you will go backwards.

[AllZWay]

The weather outlook is not looking good to get to actually do this race this weekend.

[AllZWay]

Weather turned out awesome...except the rain made for a very slick track. Especially, after folks go off track and drag mud and water back onto the track.

I had a blast. These cars a lot of fun to drive and are a handful to drive. Unfortunately, it was a really poor turnout for the race. I am not sure that there were a total of 15 legends cars and only 2 bandalero cars.

I got bumped to a brand new car that had only been on track once on Saturday. It is the owners personal car, but he rented out 4 cars for the weekend.

We got two 5-10 minute practices. I may have gotten 10 laps of practice before the heat race. Since there was such a small turnout, all four legends class were racing at the same time and the heat race starting position was based on a random draw. I drew 5th starting place for the heat race.

With such little practice time, I was still not comfortable with the car. Shifting, steering, braking and cornering are all feel very unusual not to mention, I still didn't know the course yet, but it is race time. The heat race is a 15 lap race.

I head into turn one and give plenty of room for all those in front of me to not wipe out and any way faster than me that are behind me to have an opportunity to pass me , before I really start to race, but none pass. This course is not really that challenging, but there are only one or maybe two spots to pass. I am running comfortable in 5th with no one really challenging me from behind so race close with the 3rd and 4th place cars, but never really make an attempt to pass them. I can't risk wadding up the car or making contact. I finish 5th with a decent lead on the rest of the field and right behind 3rd and 4th with 1st and 2nd in site, but some distance ahead of us.

With the 5th place heat finish I start 5th again for the 30 lap feature race. I feel much more comfortable with the car, although steering is still really uncomfortable. These cars are so small I couldn't drive elbows up like I like to drive, because I kept hitting the drivers door with my elbow. I had to move that hand up to the center of the steering wheel to be able to turn the car.

I still race very conservative, but do stay right on the rear of the two cars in front of me and we run the entire race nose to tail. I do poke my nose in a couple of times, but don't risk making the pass. The two cars in front swap their positions a couple of times and I get close to a pass a time or two, but never get by them. However, on the last corner of the last lap, the 4th place car takes out the 3rd place car out and I pass both with less than 100 yards to the checker for a podium 3rd place finish. woohoo.

I would need much more time in the car to ever run with the 1st and 2nd place cars though. They never got out of site, but still probably 100 yards ahead of me and on this little track was a huge margin.

Overall... I didn't embarrass myself and was moderately competitive pretty quickly, so I was happy with the race...even if I had finished 5th. I may have actually won my class, but I never found out what class the 1st and 2nd place cars were in, but I think winner was in the Pro division ( massive hauler, equipment, and crew) and the other in semi-pro or pro division (young teenage kid). I ran in the over 40 year old class called Masters... probably only 3 or 4 of us old guys racing.

The cars....
1. Dave was correct about the RPMS and shifting. I struggled for a while with the shifting points. No tach in these cars, but dayum the engine sounds like it is going to blow up and I only hit the rev limiter a couple of times. The owner said I obviously wasn't pushing it hard enough then. It should hit the rev limiter before every shift. I kept trying to find more gears than the car had. They turn something like 14k rpms.
2. No mirrors... try to run a road race with no mirrors. Very uncomfortable in a rented car.
3. Tons of power for the tire compound and weight of the car. With the short wheel base, these cars are very twitchy and take a lot of up on the wheel driving...but a blast to drift around some of the corners.
4. Racing/Renting these cars is very risky. As a driver you are responsible for damage up to and including full replacment value of the car if it were to be totalled. Only one of his rental cars had any damage, a slightly bent rear bumper which he didn't charge the driver for the damage. With that in mind... I certainly couldn't afford to be too aggressive. There were opportunities, but I backed out.
5. The owner reminded me a little of Ray Bob and was a great guy. He had the car dialed in pretty good. I didn't have enough track time to even suggest any changes., but most any changes needed to come from the driver.
6. I am not sure it was totally worth the money for the amount of track time, but I might do it again in the future.

[Alien]

Very cool James! One more thing to tack onto that racing resume!

[ShadowBolt]

Not what I was expecting James. I told the wife that you would run away from those NDMF'ers.

Well as long as you had fun. Now you know how most of the rest of us mid-pack slackers feel.


JJ

[Al Fernandez]

Very cool write up James, thanks for that. Sounds like fun, though hitting the cage with your elbows sucks. Thats the way that 944 was when I got it and it made me crazy.