Greetings from the Thunderhill 25 Hour

For the first time ever I'm here purely as a journalist. What do you guys want to see?

jg

Rotaries blowing flames whilst having glowing rotors? Those pics never get old. Heck, show us what you want to see. Likely, a good number of us will find it interesting as well.

Lucky man! How about some passes under braking? Love those.

The Demplings

mistanfo wrote: Heck, show us what you want to see. Likely, a good number of us will find it interesting as well.

To my knowledge, there are no strip clubs in Willows, and if there are, I wouldn't want to know about them.

jg

What do I want to see?

You finish the race! Get in a car!

Oh, and no, willows doesn't have a strip club. Please make a trip up to Chico, get a drink at Sierra Nevada, and then go out on the town. My sister is an institution there if you need some guidance on how to have fun in the coolest college town in the nation.

Here's a few shots. I'm enjoying my new Black Friday lens.

Gallery here will be added to periodically

jg

Good seeing you trackside, JG! This was apparently the biggest crowd ever, with something like 89 entries. The track was madness for the first 6 hours. Constant passing.

Only two rotaries in the race this year, both RX8s. One of them got towed back to the pits so many times it was getting ridiculous. With about 5 laps to go and after completing a whole 1.5 laps since getting towed back last time, they just pushed it out of the way. Then it got to complete the race by being towed through the pits after all the other teams were in and celebrating. Ouch.

Oh, and the two-Miata team of 949 Racing I was working for finished 1-3 in E2, also winning the under 2.0 class and finishing 8th overall. While JG was at the hotel eating cheese doodles, we ended up working on the two cars for 90 minutes non-stop - as soon as one would pull out of the paddock, the other would pull into the pits. An off-track excursion due to failed brakes, a wheel that fell off due to stud problems (the car came into the pits on the rotor!), small brake fires, alternator failure, hub failure - it was a very entertaining hour and a half.

I have a picture of the coolest E30 ever. I'll post it once I'm back home.

Oh, and for the last 30 minutes two cars were battling it out for 2nd in E2. The gap was 1.8 seconds by my watch when our Miata sputtered slightly on turn 14 due to fuel. Since we knew the car wouldn't sputter with 1/4 gallon in it based on our testing, I'd say it must have been pretty much empty. We had to pit on the penultimate lap just to make it to the end. Argh.

Dunno how their finished, but here's that E30. It was quick and I believe they've won their class in the past. And yes, that is a GRM sticker in front of the rear wheel.

I love how the cars look afterwards. Here's one of our valiant warriors, which was racing flat-out for the last 30 minutes after warming up for 24 and a half hours...

JG Pasterjak wrote:

Hilarious comparing the size of the drivers in this shot. Almost looks like adult/child!

Were the GTM-R and SL-C there?

Too many acronyms for my tired brain. The GTM-R is the Factory Five thing wrapped in the US flag? Yes. I don't know what the SL-C is but there was an SLR in the pits

Looks like all of the prototype class (ESR) cars broke again. :/

Keith,

My buddy Chris Klein was on the crew for the 949. I was reading his facebook feed all weekend, sounds like there was a bunch of "fun" going on :)

A couple of my other friends were also running down there. It was a bit concerning reading about the two rollovers during practice/qualifying. Luckily it seemed like the rest of the weekend was less potentially damaging to the squishy organic pilots :)

Well, there was a fire that red-flagged the track for nearly half an hour. I missed the excitement, but I heard talk about the fuel cell falling out of a Cobra. Otherwise, I don't think the ambulance got motivated once the race started.

Chris is a good guy, it was fun to meet him in person. I'd like to point out that only ES cars finished ahead of our little E2 as well

I think we all want to see pictures of the E3 class... Particularly the podium! (This is in no way related to my participation in the E3 class, or our position on the podium )

The RX-8 up on the hill at the end almost would have made a nice pic, other then the whole "the reason I am posed like this is cause I'm broken and can't keep lapping" thing.

Any pictures of the Cobra fire? I was pretending like I was going to get some sleep at the time, and never saw the extent of it...

The Cobra was another Factory 5 car, and from what I was told by the team owner and what we saw from the Blois Racing pits, the car was sparking some before it hit Turn 1, and the cell came loose and after exiting 1 and heading to 2, it burst into flames. The driver made it out OK, and it sounds like minus the cell and some of the rear suspension the car is repairable. I was really impressed with the #28 Type 65 that rolled in practice and after an all night wrench-a-thon they ran the full 25Hours!

For me, it was my first 25 hour Enduro, and it was something I will never forget. This year I crewed for our team, but I managed to stay awake the whole time surviving on purely Mountain Dew, Coffee, and sheer determination to not miss any of it!

I guess I know what the hot car to bring is:

Speed TV said: Four of the five classes that took the checker were won by a Mazda Miata or MX-5. Ten of the possible 18 podium positions were held by Mazda Miata or MX-5 competitors.

pfft, you have to bring a Porsche 911 if you want to win the whole shooting match though, I believe 911s have won all but once, when a 5 cyl turbo MX-5 won.

imirk wrote: pfft, you have to bring a Porsche 911 if you want to win the whole shooting match though, I believe 911s have won all but once, when a 5 cyl turbo MX-5 won.

A what now?

In reply to imirk: That car's so fast it grew an extra cylinder!

But seriously, you can always go faster with more money. The overall winning Porsche probably cost more than three of the class winning Miatas....

I think I take that back I think it won on a MX-5 Cup drive train(2008), the next your they got a 5 cyl. broke a drive shaft and had a fire...

The winning Porsche used 15 sets of slicks, if the numbers I saw on the sidewalls of the last two sets were to be believed. That's a pretty serious tire bill. But they also gave a bar to aim for - even if you're not funded like a pro team, they're excellent role models on how to do things right.

Keith wrote: The winning Porsche used 15 sets of slicks, if the numbers I saw on the sidewalls of the last two sets were to be believed. That's a pretty serious tire bill. But they also gave a bar to aim for - even if you're not funded like a pro team, they're excellent role models on how to do things right.

I stand corrected: The Porsche tire bill costs more than 3 Miatas!