2003 SCCA Valvoline Runoffs Race Pictures (LOTS)

[Subdriver]

As a reminder, the 2003 SCCA Valvoline Runoffs T1 race will be on SPEED at 2pm EST on November 30th.

On the plus side, an Army Major and I were interviewed as part of the pre-race coverage. On the minus side, the producer had us reshoot the clip about four times to get it under a minute. As a result, my witty, eloquent responses were turned into not much more than well thought out Yes No answers... okay they were not much more than just Yes No answers.

Several forum members participated.
- Yours truly (Red #66).
- David Pintaric (David Pintaric) loaned out his car (Red #40) to Reed Kryder, an IMSA GTU hot shoe, who qualified beside me.
- Joe Aquilante (vettedriver32) (Black and Yellow #32) who owns Phoenix Performance Inc, the company that prepared a large percentage of the field, including my and John Heinricy's cars (Black #35 - the one in front ).
- Natha Waldbaum (Track Queen) (Yellow #05)

My race report is here:
SCCA Valvoline Runoffs Race Report (Long)

Mid-Ohio:








Race Day Morning Warmup:









Pre-Grid:



First Turn Carnage:

























Passing Joe for 10th:

[SoonerZ06]

Sweet ! Thanks for posting them.

[Mark Olson]

Thanks for the photos. Happy Thanks Giving Sub.

[ROSSO Z]

White car go bye-bye.

Great pics. Thanks. T1 is so cool.

Hey Sub, just curious, what is the net weight change in the car after all the stripping and then adding all the safety stuff?

I'll be watching on Sunday.

[Subdriver]

Hey Sub, just curious, what is the net weight change in the car after all the stripping and then adding all the safety stuff?

For 2003, the SCCA rules required the Z06 to weigh 3100 lbs at the end of the race without driver. With about one gallon of fuel, my car weighs just over 3100 lbs (somewhat dependent on the track scale). This is heavier than a stock Z06 by about 50 lbs I believe. We have to add about 160 lbs of rollcage, fire-extinguisher, six point belts, safety net, can add oil and tranny cooler, accusump, but can remove the entire AC system, radio, speakers, airbags, mufflers, side windows, and some other misc stuff.

For 2004, the rules change to 3280 lbs at the end of the race with driver. I may actually have to add a few lbs.

White car go bye-bye.

And he wasn't too happy about it either.
FYI, he has a great run fighting back to 7th!
I started 12th and you can see I had a great start and moved up to about 9th or 10th going into the first corner, but had a front row seat for the silver and white cars coming together. As I backed off trying to figure out which way the white one was going to go, about five cars got by me on the inside... three of which spin in the next corner... all right in front of me!

The start was exciting, to say the least.

[Zippy]

Thanks for posting the reminder...I'll be watching.

Zippy

[Subdriver]

Thanks for posting the reminder...I'll be watching.

Zippy, hopefully you'll catch it on your short notice road trip. Hope all works out for the family.
If you missed it, there will be a replay on Dec 25th. Nothing going on that day.

[mdickie]

Those were very cool, thanks for posting...

Mark

[rpallas]

Awesome! I really enjoyed that. Must be a lot of fun to participate in something like that. I really liked your little interview with your crossed arms, tough guy pose down against the Army Major.

One little let down was that the sound was all screwed up for this telecast. I watched a few of the Runoff's over the past two weekends and the sound was ok with the other events. I wonder what happened to the tape? I wonder if the sound will be fixed for the re-airing of the race.

That accident during the first lap is entirely different from Brad's point of view. It looked like nothing during the telecast, but from Brad's onboard video that he was super kind enough to send me, it was pretty scary.

The irony about the T1 class is that the announcers couldn't say enough about how much the cars weighed, yet the cars don't weigh enough. Did you happen to notice that it was all Corvette's and 1 BMW. They are most likely raising the min weight requirements to get more makes of cars in the class and still remain somewhat competitive. As it sits now, the Z06 is in a class of its own for its power to weight ratio.

Congrats again for the 6th place finish in your first outing.

Bob