Back from the Grassroots VIR challenge

[Hal Copple]

Back from the UTCC at VIR!

First, as is propper down here in NASCAR country, i want to thank GRM, NASA, Cardomain, and all the others and the sponsors who worked to put this event on.

I had hoped to get my Superformance Cobra Replica invited ever since I heard about the event at the Jan Rolex. So, when i got my come hither notice, I began to prep my car, scrubbed down the engine, fresh wax, then a week ago took it up to the race shop where my car was born, where the mechanics and my driver for my car looked it over from top to bottom, finding only a leaking clutch line.

So tried to get to sleep early, but was too nervous and excited, and when the alarm flashed at 0300 this morning, i was awake. Threw my “spares” and such into my elderly 325i BMW, nosed out under the dark Carolina Sky, and easing into the throttle, swung its proud little nose northward. An hour later, after waiting in line for about 15 minutes to get my customary pre-race sausage bisquit, only to be told at the window when it was my turn that “we are thawing out more, if you want to wait.”

Left immediatly, and running on the dark and lonely road northward to the race shop, having a hunch that the Highway Patrol would not be out this early, and the fall deer rut not yet begun,decided to make up some time, so put it down, and tached the little inline 6 up to full chat, and ran hard, so hard that coming down the hill to the shop, went into nearly full lock, and still slid past the entrance, arriving with a waft of hot Hawk pad. My driver had his GT40 and my car loaded, so in a minute, we headed north, me following.

Arrived at the track, emptied out the trunk, pulled into tech and got my little yellow sticker, then gathered with other hopefuls for the UTCC driver’s meeting.

Managed to figure where to put the transponder pointing down, on a rear quick-jack, knocked on a set of fresh Hoosier race tires, then my good friend and very talented driver belted up and staged. I track my car a lot, but didn’t want to be mixing it up with such fast cars with “no rules passing”, something i am not yet (ever?) comfortable with.

After he came in he told me that my rear shocks and springs were allowing the inside wheel to lift coming out of the corners, greatly hindering the application of exit power. Since i don’t drive that fast, i had never been much bothered by this, as i always thought it was kinda nifty to lift an inner tire, and smoke it when it eventually came down onto the track. But apparantly this really hurts exit speed onto any straight.

So our team driver pulled off one shock, and we took it over to Synergy racing, the big Porsche team, who have a race shop at VIR, and they happily pumped the depleated shock full of Nitrogen. Then we reinstalled it, but after the first timed session, it wasn’t much better, so then we pulled both shock/springs off the rear, and he yanked a much stiffer set off his GT40, and put them on my Cobra, not easy to do kneeling on hot asphalt under a Virginia sun, lacking the proper tools for this sort of modification. Now with 600# rear springs, he told me to bounce the car to settle it to adjust the ride height, so i hopped onto the rear quickjacks, and found that my weight didn’t budge 1200#’s of rear spring at all. Plus, with the longer shocks, we couldn’t lower the rear well, and leaving only about a half inch of shock travel, our car now looked like a Hot Rod from a ’50’s B Flick, with the rear end all hi-jacked. But it was time for the second session, so out he went, running faster, but after the first afternoon session, he decided that without more rear traction at track out, further attempts were futile.

But by then, being 3 PM, i had to leave to get back to SC by 5 or so for my evening call responsibilities, so bidding my driver and several friends sincere thanks, i spun the top off a Gatoraide, and headed South and home. They would bring my car back to the shop later, and replace the rear antislip diff, and sort out the spring and shock issue.

We had hoped for quicker times, but without track exposure to optimize our suspension, it was all we could accomplish.

I am proud to say that our little stroked Windsor ran flawlessly, the brakes never faltered, and the various temps remained normal. Some of the other cars exhibited death rattles, ominous smoke, and other maladies, and some came back to the pits on yellow straps. The fastest car was Tommy Archer in his long wheelbase Competition Viper.

So we were not a DNF, and put forth our best effort in my daily driven street sports car, now with over 120,000 miles on it.

It was a great event, and again, thanks to all who had input to making it so.

All the best from Upstate South Carolina,

Hal Copple,owner
Dennis Olthoff, driver