Oct.13th Gainesville test track event , a jolly good show!

[Joe Smith]

The DSCC's first track event was huge hit, and we plan to set up another one
in the near future. Thanks to Jerry and Trudy Rolley, as well as Ruble Moore
for all of their hard work. We had perfect weather, a great crowd of Cobras
and Corvettes, and fun was had by all. Thanks again to Finish Line for the
nice door prizes. And thanks to all of you who attended, drove safely, & helped
out as safety staff. The Gainesville raceway was very pleased with the safety
and stucture of our event, and says that the DSCC is welcome back anytime.

[Brownyard]

Joe, I couldn't agree more, except that you deserve as much credit as Jerry, Trudy and Rubel. You all worked very hard to provide tha club with a memorable occassion, and I really appreciate your efforts.

For those that missed the event, we had great weather, a thoughtfully designed track--just enough speed and a good balance of various types of turns. Challenging enough for all but not too intimidating. Lots of great folks and the occassional opportunity to mow a little grass if not paying attention. Lots of beautiful cars, fun pit talk and an all around great time. With a few Uniques, FFR's, a 4000 series cobra, Midstates, Superformance,ERA, Hunter and a couple I did not recognize, we had a real good cross section of our hobby.

Hats off to all of you who made this possible. Well worth the 900 mile round trip!!

Rick

[jerry rowley]

Rick is right, this was Joe's idea and he found the track after checking out four others. I want to thank everyone that participated, you all made it work and be lots of fun. I saw a lot of smiles on faces after trying the track, it was the first time for several folks, and I think they are hooked!

I also thank all for extending a good old cobra welcome to my Corvette frinds, they really enjoyed the track and the company. I would like to see us do this at various tracks about three times per year, what do you think?

[teamfour]

Glad y'all had a great time. I am thrashing on my car trying to get it finished for the next event.

I have heard nothing but great things about No Problem Raceway just outside of New Orleans. Maybe this could be a good location for a DSCC event. The owner had quoted me a track rental price of $1250 per day.

[aumoore]

For all of you who did not attend you really mised a great event. We had 18 drivers in 15 cars. I will try to post the times for braging rights. Here is a list of drivers:
Joe Smith, Teal Green/white Midstates with 460-cool color

Jim Pomroy, Yellow 94 vette-not a Cobra but a very nice ride..hope your brakes cooled off before you headed home

Ruble Moore, Crayola red Hunter(I had the smallest motor at the event a 302 but I thought my 17" Cragers looked cool)

Jerry Rowley, Blue/Silver Midstates-as always ran great with those hoosiers and that stroked 427 was nice

Robert Lightsey, Red/white Hunter with a 502 chevy-car ran great but you need to paint those doors to match the car. His son who is just barley able to drive ran a 12.83 at 113mph at the dragstrip after the main event. If he had not missed that shift or doubleclutched on the start he would have beat the supercharged Mark VIII that ran a 12.48 at 110MPH talk about a sleaper)

Ken Collett Blue/white Suerformance with a stroked 427 like Jerry's. This was a beautiful car and really needed some good tires as the BFG TA's were a little slippery

Michael Iodice, Black EM with a 350 Chevy and Vette suspension. Nice ride that handled great

Engineer ED Kamptner, Blue/White FFR with a new 347. He ran strong untill he cooked his brakes. Looks like you need to ask Santa for some rear disks.

Richard Brownyard Viking Blue Unique 289Fia. I think he took honors for the most dirt kicked up in his looooong spin.

Tim Matthews, Shelby CSX4000 Blue/white with a 427. I have to say I was drooling as these cars are very detailed. I give him credit for running this museum quality piece hard enough to do a double spin going into the big turn.

Tom and Debra Burgess, Georgious ERA with a 427 sideoiler. This car had the best sound that just echoed as it got up to speed. Tom came prepared with Fire suit & shoes and a cool camera mount on the rollbar. They both ran hard

Jason Kempf, Yellow/white FFR with a supercharged 347. Rumhor has it he has 600 ponies that were hard to corrall. Someone forgot to tell him this was a road course because he showed up with drag radials on the rear and still managed to turn in one of the best times. He made the front straight look like a drag strip as he was the fastest acceleration at the event.

Robert Roach, Red 1996 Vette with sidepipes and a Grand Sport motor. Great guy and he pushed the car around the bid turns on two wheels. He managed to almost duplicate Brownyards dirt spin

John Deguilio blue/white Unique with a 427. He ran great and he let his friend Sonny run the car.

Jeff & Roberta Wetzel, Black 2001 Z06 Vette. If you want to see a car that looks like a hoover vacume sucked down to the road this is the one. It was dubbed Stealth for the way it just whoshed around the course.

I am ready to go again so lets start saving our pennies. For about $105 per driver we all got in about six 5 lap runs so that is only $3.50 per lap. The most fun you can have and keep your pants on

[Johan]

hey, it sounds like you guys had a great time ! is anybody ready to give Roebling Road a try yet ? I'm ready to rent it again.

[Brownyard]

John--

I'm ready to go to Savannah, Gainesville was a lot of fun, but its just too far to tow for a weekend. I live in Mount Pleasant, SC, so its only about a 3 hour tow.

Let me know, Rick

[aumoore]

I am hooked. There was a lot of big smiles out there so I bet we can make something happen.

Can I crash at your pad

[Mike I]

Thank you Joe, Jerry, Trudy, Ruble & everyone else who pitched in to organize and run a well executed event.

Thanks to Finish Line (Enzo & Paula) for the nice door prizes they donated, even though I didn't win anything...

I personally had a great time and I look forward to doing it again.

As a novice, I greatly appreciated the attention to safety and the no-pressure atmosphere conveyed by everyone. I managed to learn quite a bit about my own driving abilities and my car's characteristics, all in a setting that was unquestionably a great deal of FUN!!!!

Thank you Rick for teaching me that I don't necessarily need more HP, just better tires.... Talk about mowing grass!!!

Tim, you really earned my respect for pushing that beautiful CSX so hard (same goes for Tom and his sweet ERA), good job taking a double spin on the grass and then getting right back on the course and pushing it just as hard again!!

Jerry, very creative idea using your door as a speedbreak!!!

Ruble, I'm not sure I feel sympathy for you breaking your car since you cost me one last chance to get out on the track . BTW, what did you break??

Thanks also to the Corvette guys and gals for supplementing our numbers and helping to keep the costs down, wish more DSCC members would have signed up though...

That Z-06 is one impressive machine!! After witnessing what it's capable of, I personally will never challenge one on the road

All in all, I had a blast and I will definitely want to do this again. John, I think I see Roebling road in my future....

Mike

[jerry rowley]

I wrote a short article and posted our pics on my web site at

http://www.jerryrowley.com

Click on DSCC GAINESVILLE TRACK DAY 2001

on the home page to view the page.

Jerry

[Brownyard]

Gents--

I would remiss if I didn't respond to the various references to my "off roading" experience at Gainesville:

1. I wouldn't have felt that I was trying hard enough if I hadn't gotten a little "loose" at least once during the day.

2. I don't wash my car too often and I needed to get itjust a little dirtier to justify another sudsing.

3. With an extra 120 horses, I needed to explore my limits of adhesion,

With that said, I was able to string 5 laps together in each succeding session for a fairly respectable total time-- Proving once again that you don't need 600 horsepower to go fast.

Small Blocks Forever!

Rick

[aumoore]

Mike
Sorry about causing you to miss your free laps. I did not actually break anything but due to the lack of quality control at my builders facility my battery was not properly lashed down. This major oversite allowed the battery to slide about 3" which detached the lead from the battery to the fuel pump relay. I know this caused many valuable free laps to be lost but look at the bright side: you did not break anything.

I will subject myself...err.... builder to the full rath of the DSCC then throw dog poop on his shoe.

Brownyard
If small blocks rule why did I not post the best times as I had the only true small block(stock 302) well almost stock.
You guys cheeted with those stroked 347 CI "SMALLBLOCKS"

[Brownyard]

Aumoore--

I was wondering the same thing myself. You should probably try to get with the program.

You may be right about those of us with strokers, perhaps we should call them "smallish blocks"!!


Rick

[jerry rowley]

BTW, when Rick wasn't spinning out he was PRETTY FAST! I will admit that Rick. I don't have 600hp, only Jason could claim that.
You got to admit, though, for a heavy big block, my car was pretty fast?

Jerry

[Mike I]

Jerry, it's like I keep tellin' ya, it was that darn speedbrake you kept deploying every time you went thru a turn..... you may as well have thrown out an anchor or opened a chute....

Ruble, not to worry buddy, I'll get those extra laps in next time (Feb. 2nd)!!!! Glad you didn't actually break anything, but you'd better fire your mechanic pronto

Rick, I plan to give you a run for your money next time, I've already got a number of changes planned for February, sticky tires not withstanding.......

Mike

[Brownyard]

Jerry--

I don't think that anyone could deny that you were very fast--particularly driving with "full flaps"! Really ,for a bunch of senior citizens, I think we all did pretty well.

I don't have a lot of plans for modifications prior to our next outing, other than removing the 6200 rpm chip and putting in the 7000 chip. Hopefully, I'll be able to pull full power by then.

Lord help us all if that screeming yellow ffr can be taught to turn!

Rick

[jerry rowley]

Yeah, your right Rick, Jason's FFR is awesome and if he figures out how to get it to turn, we are in trouble! I already put in the 7000rpm chip (don't tell Bill!). I only ran 6300 during the event at the end of the straight away in second gear. Next time, we will run the track in reverse direction using all the straights (4). Should be interesting.
Jerry

[Brownyard]

Jerry--

What will be most interresting is the 180 degree turn down by where you had the tent---that run-out is a little scary!

Rick

[jerry rowley]

What runout? Whoooooooooooooaaaaaaa!!!

[jason]

Yes, I did have trouble turning....

Yes, I did have trouble stopping...

The drum brakes along with factory brake fluid were not working in my favor.

My combination of street tires up front and squishy drag radials out back were not in my favor.

Im glad I dropped the boost down on the supercharger for the event. It was not making close to full power.

With all that... I was VERY HAPPY with my 49.3 second lap time. I think that was my fastest, but I did not calculate any of my other laps.

So I can say that my first experience of road racing was fantastic.

Met lots of great people, and got my feet wet.

Im not sure if I will have tires or brakes by the next event, but at least some better fluid that won't boil over.

THANK YOU FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO TRY MY HAND AT THE ROAD COURSE.

Ill be back for more...

Thanks again
Jason