Speak for yourself! I proposed to her last year while at SEMA. I tried to convince her that Vegas would be a good honeymoon, but she didn't fall for it, haha.

I'll probably attend PRI in Dec instead.

I took my wife to SEMA a few years ago, but she just wasn't feelin it. I think she saw enough cars and car parts to last her the rest of her life. lol

...but that was before she became a member of Lateral-G. :unibrow: Now she's hooked :yes: :D

Great place to turn up the heat in terms of smack-talking. You guys could set it up like a press conference before a heavyweight fight. It is Vegas after all right?


......just don't say you are going to eat anyones kids. That's just creepy. :eek:

Since this will be at my back door basically, lets make sure my car is done first! :P

Mike

I was contacted by Tom Fuehrer, a Lateral-g member who's connected with BIR (Brainerd International Raceway) about having an event there. He spoke with Rod Wolter, the BIR General Manager, and he's all for having a pro-touring/g-machine event.

Currently BIR is in talks with the people from Fun Ford weekends regarding a FF event during Memorial Day weekend, 2006. They will be using the Paddock and drag strip that weekend. This leaves the back area of the road course open. Insurance issues could be dealth with the event being an SCCA Time Trials sanction and not a "competition" event. However, for that to work, we would have to work through a local SCCA group/club. There's a good chance that we could get the track on the Monday of the Holiday weekend and be able to setup the lights and use the dragstrip.

Some of the costs could be offset by including local or regional Vette, Viper, F-Body Clubs, etc.

I'm interested in what anyone thinks of this idea. It sounds like our window of opportunity to jump on this may be small. I'm also interested in hearing from the magazine guys (members and lurkers alike) in whether this is something they would be interested in covering.

Let's hear it. :thumbsup:

Brainerd, as in Minnesota, right? It almost feels like this wants to become a regional type deal. Down here in So. Cal, there are at least five incredible tracks within an easy drive (Laguna Seca, Buttonwillow, Willow Springs, Pahrump, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Cal Speedway). A whole bunch more a bit to the north too.

Does anyone have details on next year's One Lap, or other events like that? It might be easiest just to tag along with them? This year's Open Track Challenge got cancelled due to lack of participation, showing me that getting this sort of a deal together is not an easy feat. I think it is on for next year though, still unsure.

M

:willy: Brainerd :yes:

Sounds like a great idea to me. :thumbsup:

Only thing I'm confused about:

Are you thinking of using the road course at the same time the drag strip is running? Not sure how that would work.

I believe the "dragstrip" he's talking about is the long straightaway portion of the road course.

It looks like the long straightaway doubles as the return road for the drag strip... or are the pits separating them???
http://brainerdracewayandresort.com/.../trackmap.html

Look up Keith's videos of him passing vettes on the road course at B.I.R. :hail: He posted them a few weeks ago. :willy:

Exactly. That's why I was wondering how we'd run the road course while the dragstrip was being used.

I'm only passing along what Tom told me. I've never been there, I don't know how it all works out.

Thanks for the title Mark; I'll add it to my Christmas list as a library addition.
W.

My Thoughts on the G-Machine Challenge
 

Hey guys, I thought I'd speak directly about one possibility for the G-Machine Challenge.

First, a quick background about who I am. I'm a closet Pro-Touring fan (Yes, I too own a '69 Camaro Pro-Touring project) and I also race a '95 Mustang in SCCA and Midwestern Council race events. I'm the Regional Executive of Land O' Lakes Region SCCA. I have also been the main organizer of 3 race events over the last 2 years, one SCCA Driver's School / Regional race and also 2 un-sanctioned race/lapping events.

I wrote to Scott a couple months ago suggesting an event to showcase the abilities of the current crop of G-Machines. I'm sure I'm not alone in the thought that an event to prove the capabilities of these cars is way overdue. Show cars have car shows. Pro Street cars have drag racing. What do Pro-Touring cars have?

Many of you have brought your cars to lapping events and that is a great way to see first hand what your car (and you) can do. I'd bet many of you have autocrossed, another example of using many of the capabilities of you and your car.

While lapping gets you onto a racetrack, running timed laps is usually frowned on in an officially capacity, usually because insurance companies who cover the organizers of the even like to think of this type of event as learning experience. Start adding "competition" and it changes the potential for people to hurt themselves and decreases the willingness for typical insurers to cover your event.

Autocross is a timed event, but a typical Solo event isn't a good match for these high horsepower, relatively heavy vehicles. Wheel to wheel racing isn't going to work without everybody having cages and other safety equipment and also a competition license though some sanctioning body. Not to mention the risk of contact between cars damaging your car.

What I think is a great type of event to see how these cars compare against each other is timed event on a portion of a track, using the SCCA Time Trials program (or something like it). Many of you may be familiar with the SCCA Solo 1 program, basically an autocross on a race track. SCCA will sanction and insure this type of event. TT events are open to non-SCCA members and the level of preparation is similar to Solo 2. You can run street cars and modified cars. We could use the TT classes and rules or create our own.

What I suggested to Scott is to use the back side of BIR as a 7 turn “course”, think of it as a flat hill-climb. If you are familiar with BIR, picture a standing start somewhere between turn 1 and 2, run through turns 2,3,4,5,6,7 and somewhere in the turn 8/9 complex have a finishing line. Leave the track at the convenience store area, and follow the service roads back to the starting line to make your next run. This segment of track is probably over 1 ½ miles (BIR is 3 miles total).

This course has a couple fairly long straight sections, simple corners and has a pretty fair amount of run-off area. You can do you best Stig impersonation on the same asphalt that Mark Donahue, Swede Savage and George Folmer battled on in the original Trans Am series.

This type of event could be held at many tracks across the country. BIR is my choice since I’m close and I’m directly involved organizing other events there in 2006. If BIR lands the Fun Ford Weekend deal over Memorial Weekend holding our event in conjunction with it has a lot of merit. It would allow spectators a huge variety of cars to look at and there would be magazine people there to cover the event. It would also give some of our vendors an opportunity to take part in whatever manufacturer’s midway the FF people set up. There is an assumption the FF people would allow non Fords onto the grounds of the track. The G-Machine Challenge wouldn’t be directly organized by them but close coordination would be essential.

There are a ton of details to work out for something like this, but an early start and a bunch of enthusiasm will work in our favor.

If this doesn’t work for Brainerd I’d be happy to help others organize this type of event in other parts of the country although it would be tough for me to be directly involved.

I think it’s important that “somebody” stage an event like this!

Tom Fuehrer

Tom just IMMEDIATELY got my vote as event concept organizer. The appeal of such an event without significant time on a road type course, really loses its luster for us, this idea is a terrific one that would be the best compromise I have heard yet. If you've been to a track day, you will undoubtedly complain about the lap that "could have been" if there wasn't traffic, or the car wasn't overheating, this that or the other. As well, you don't really know what the other folks are going to do, don't get me wrong, it is a blast, but there are distractions.

I like the concept, it is a really good one and would satisfy our desires for characterization of the cars. Without something like this, we'd be a whole lot less interested.

M

are you calling me out Stuart?? lol