Hi there,
I feel it is important to add our perspective to what happened at The Mitty. To start with I would like to thank the HSR for allowing us to race. We were given permission to run our cars as "Exhibition Cars" about 2 weeks before the event. This meant we were not eligible for points or trophies.The first thing we had to do was to get the cars as close to their regulations as possible. The 00 car had been set up to run in Nassa events. It had allot of aero with spoilers, a lemans hard top, 18 inch wheels , big brakes etc. We removed everything changed the wheels and brakes to get the car looking a little more period correct.
The second car #6 was built the week prior to the event. It is a prototype of the new "Cup" car we are going to be producing. This car was built using the new Ford 427 crate engine as a power plant with a TKO 600 trans. The 00 car has a Roush built 427RX with a TKO 600 tranny.For anybody who is interested both cars are for sale for $55 000 each. The main difference between the race cars and our road cars are the weight and safety features. Both cars use our standard chassis layout with a full cage added. The chassis come off our standard jigs and the body comes out our standard molds.
Our original plan was to be at the track on Thursday morning for the start of official practice. Tony missed his plane from South Africa and we did not have the cars ready. We finally left our shop after 7:00pm on Thursday and got to the track at 6:00am Friday. By this time Tony had arrived but his bags were missing. By 9:15 we were in the cars for our first practice. Needless to say things were not going smoothly. The second practice in the afternoon was better but we knew we had our work cut out for us. Dennis had set the fastest time in practice and we were far away.
Qualifying on Saturday morning was better but Tony was about 4 seconds slower than Dennis in the GT 40 and I was 6 seconds slower than Tony. The first feature race saw Dennis getting an easy win and we got an 8th place. Unfortunately the tranny in the #6 car lost 4th gear and we had to retire the car on lap 5.We were trying new carbon syncros in the tranny and something let go , we are not sure what went wrong yet but this is why we race the cars to learn how we can make our street cars better. A SPF roadster got 3rd. This car was built to do the one lap of america and is know as the PPG car. How stock is the car............I don't know. I guess it can be registered but it didn't look like any of the SPF cars we have seen at most of the car shows we go to.
Sunday started with a 1hr enduro. After 30 minutes of racing the BDR TD car was running 3rd overall. Unfortinatley our pit stop strategy was not good and we got a 30sec penatly which put us too far back. The 00 car finished 5th overall with a class win. Dennis had elected not to drive his GT40 and was in the SPF Roadster. I am not sure how many laps he did but he had mechanical problems in the first 20 mins and did not finish the race. The gulf colored SPF GT40 went of the track on turn one didn't finish.
Race 2 of the day was the international challenge. This was open to everybody but several of the cars elected not to run. We won this race overall with the gulf colored SPF GT40 in second place. We were entered in a seperate class from the GT40 so we were actually not racing each other.
Race 3 of the day was the 2nd feature race. Because of our poor finish from the day before we started further back than what we would have liked. Dennis was on pole . Dennis won the race with the BDR 00 finishing a close second. Tony did manage to post the quickest lap time of the race.
It was a great weekends racing and I believe both SPF and BDR customers will appreciate seeing the cars running on the track. Our commitment to racing helps us build a better product for the street and it is an extremly good place for us to learn about the products we use. We hope to continue our relationship with HSR so that we can do this again.
Regards Reg Dodd
www.Backdraftracing.com
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