AggieLuke

In regards to more aggressive driving, rumor is that the suspension failed causing the shunt, not Ben going crazy. He was on a UK radio station saying they pretty much had the car ready to go and that IMSA was going to give them a few grace laps to try and shake it down.

Kudos to the crew for getting a car ready in such short time, let's just hope that everything was properly tightened...

lesper4

iTrader: (3)

after the crash bring out thd furai!

lesper4

iTrader: (3)

damn i kind of wish i hadnt read this, that is too bad.

apc_monk

No Mazda, leak in the fuel cell kept them out of the race. Speed did mention that Hasselgrove is with Dyson racing though.

Nick R

They just gave an update on the BK team here during the race. They had the whole car back together and then realized the fuel cell had a crack in it, hence they never took the green flag. In all honesty with the new driver lineup, the Yokohamas under the car, and the new sponsorship I have a feeling we'll see some slightly better results.

Senna

Wouldn't checking the fuel cell following a major crash while the entire chasis is pretty much pulled apart be an automatic consideration?? Sounds like an amateur error to me!!
I hope the rest of the season isn't fraught with this kind of ineptitude. I wasn't expecting anything great today but it's still a let down.

Renesis_8

I didn't even bother to turn on the TV to check. Seems like I didn't miss much
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rotarygod

It's been this way for the past few years. Why change now?

Senna

True. Thank goodness for SpeedSource.

Renesis_8

Homestead race soon!
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Renesis_8

Devlin flip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx9kX...eature=related
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rotarygod

Wow I didn't realize he flipped it. I thought he just went into a tire barrier in a corner.

Supposedly, and this comes from a Mazda employee who was there, all of the other teams were applauding Mazda when they rolled out to the starting grid. It was only there they found the leak after they'd run a couple of laps. The Acura boys knew how devastated the Mazda team was for working so hard and not being able to race and actually took them all out on the town at Acura's expense. That's pretty cool. You'd never see the snobby Penske guys do that.

Renesis_8

http://www.kruse-schiller-motorsport.com/index.html

The LMS Lola-Mazda team. Entered for LeMans 24h as well.
They bought the Lola chassis from Acura fernadaz racing, who switched to the Acura ARX-01b for this year.
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Adara live

Nick R

Finished 7th overall at St. Pete only one lap down from the overall race winner. Pretty respectable finish for the 2nd race of this season.

apc_monk

Big update...... 24 hrs came and went. The Lola/Mazda of KSM has an interesting week for sure. Sounds like the engine was fine but the transmission was the most work. Here is a link to their story. http://www.planetlemans.com/2008/06/...ans-24-report/

Another great tidbit, Ben Devlin was invited to run with the Bruichladdich Radical team which completed the race in 24th place. Seems Devlin did alright for his first 24hr and I am sure the seat time will be good.

There are some rumors that BK may be running two cars...... one being the new Lola Coupe. Or possibly just one car and that one being the coupe. Interesting to see what comes of this.

Race Shooter

Hey guys, I havent been here in awhile, but I'll update you on a few things with the Mazda boys.

First off, Rotarygod's explanation of what happened with the team and Marcus is not real correct. I dont care what someone else on the team told him, thats not how it went down, he got one side of the story. There is some truth in there. He was the one that suggested the Lola package, he may have had input on the ditching of the rotary as well, but its not entirely him and all the reasons for ditching the rotary were entirely valid. It is simply NOT a good engine for the rules out there right now and to run in a prototype, too many "issues" to overcome.

He did try to get some people he knew from Audi in there, because they are good people, he didnt want to make Mazda into Audi, he wanted the people he thought would provide a winning program.

The old Courage was a bastard from the start in order to fit the rotary. It was way overweight and was not a good platform to "redesign" for the new engine. Either way they would have been starting with something fresh and the fact that the Lola worked so well with small turbo engines, it was a good way to go.

Secondly, in terms of the fuel cell at Sebring, there wasnt a crack discovered in the cell. It was a new cell put into the chassis upon rebuilding it. The problem was in the connection of the hoses entering the cell. There is a plate and gasket there that allow for the connections of the hoses. The problem was (and is a known problem) that if those two pieces do not mate up absolutely perfectly, the seal doesnt seal and you get leakage. Apparently there is a real trick to getting the back together properly in the Lola chassis, its something that Dyson dealt with when they were running the Lolas as well, however, the team wasnt really aware of it before they did it since the cell manufacturer didnt inform them of this problem, they found out about it later from Dyson. The way I also understood it (and I could be wrong here) is that once it goes together wrong once, it is basically impossible to get to seal on subsequent tries, that is why they could not get it fixed in time.

The did not discover the problem during the warm up that morning because it did not occur without a full tank. It was only discovered when the topped the tank off to start the race.

It was very disappointing and a freak problem.

Lastly, keep watching the team and dont give up on them yet. They have some plans for the future. Look for a new chassis coming (I'm not going to go into too much detail since I'm not sure how much they want out there yet) and there is a good chance you'll see them in France next year. Several people from Mazda and the team were present at the race this year to get a little info on how its all done. If they are planning that, you know they are taking the program seriously, so look for good things to come in the future. Dont give up on them yet, if nothing else, they'll probably have the best looking car on the grid in the near future. :D

rotarygod

That doesn't seem like a very different story about Marcus to me. Yes I heard one side of it. You are telling another. There's always another side with other details. Big deal. The basic premise remains as far as Im concerned appears to be basically the same.

As far as not giving up on the team yet, yet implies haven't already. Too late.

AggieLuke

While not getting bogged down in the history of the death of the rotary etc, this line tells me we might get to see a lola coupe running on these shores! Obviously I'd prefer it to have a rotary, or for them to be at the front of the pack, but if you're going to back-marker, might as well be stylin!

Race Shooter

However, you made it sound like Marcus was some evil person that came in and completely ruined the team and if he had not shown up then they would be some kind of magical winning powerhouse. He wasnt trying to "make them Audi" as you said.

Thats too bad...just a fair weather fan eh?

BTW, right now the biggest problem is not their reliability or the turbo engine or the Lola chassis. Right now its the Yokohama tires. Several teams that have switched from them immediately picked up 2+ seconds a lap without changing a single other thing. And that was going to Dunlops, not even the magical Michelins that everyone else in P2 is running. Though 2 seconds would have put them right into the mix of things at LRP.

They have been behind the gun right from the start of the program, first with Kumho and now with Yokos. They really need to get off those and onto something else and they should be much closer to the rest of the field. Unfortunately, till they get on Michelins, I'm not sure how much of a chance they'll have.

Renesis_8

Bring the rotary back in a Lola coupe... then I will watch them again.

Right now I don't even visit the ALMS website anymore.
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AggieLuke

To be fair to RG and most others, this is a rotary-based forum. Frankly, I echo them in the stance that I'd cheer BK more if they were last with a rotary instead of last with a generic turbo 4 banger. With that being said, I'll always cheer them, just not expect anything.

I think my epiphany came at PLM last year watching them work late at night. While Audi, Porka, even Creation, were efficiently running through their procedures (Audi was swapping trannies for fun) the BK team was still teaching each other how to change the brake rotors, and having to file/shave/modify just about every replacement part to get them to fit properly. I realize it was their first year with the new car, but this was the second-to-last race of the year and they still couldn't perform a relatively basic task without having to stop and ask for directions/modify the parts on hand to get them to work.

Regardless of the tire brand, you can't expect to compete with the top tier (i.e. get a podium) without having these details automatic! Another interesting observation:

The average age of the Penske/Audi teams appeared to be early to mid 30s, with some of the computer-toting Germans leaning towards 40. I saw exactly two people not named Mr. Bach that looked over 25. Not trying to start an age war, but there is a general level of experience that most competitors have at this top tier of sportscar racing...

With that being said, I still wear my BK shirt every race weekend, I still enjoy the heck out of my little mazda3, and I'd go nuts of they win a race.

But if you're only going to pony up enough money to barely run in front of GT1, might as well be unique and barely run in front of GT1 with a rotary!

AggieLuke

Just to keep this thread vaguely up to date, BK will be running on Dunlops for Mid-Ohio this weekend. While certainly not Michelins, they seem to be the second best option!

But I hope this is not the change hinted at before. I want my Lola coupe!

Race Shooter

Well, they had another miserable weekend in terms of reliability. They had failures in the early practice sessions and then missed qualifying as well. During the race they had more issues and went down many laps before getting back out on course.

However, the bright side of the weekend was that during the race, their fastest race lap was less than two seconds off the fastest lap by any P2 car and most of the time they were running within a second of the top cars on the track. Had they not had all the problems during the weekend and started from a respectable position, things may have been much different.

Road America in a couple weeks will be interesting due to its mix of long straights and high speed corners. If the Dunlops were enough to bring them back within a second of most race laps at Mid O, they should hold up well to Road America and the MZR engine has shown to have plenty of power to stand up to the Porsches and Acuras. It could be a good event for them if they can keep the details in check and not have any major failures.

BTW, the Fields also lost two AER engines that weekend as well, so there may be more issues with AER and the failures right now than stuff the team is doing wrong, we'll see.

alnielsen

iTrader: (4)

The NBC coverage of the race was horrible. I couldn't even keep track of what was happening beyond the lead 3 cars in a class.

AggieLuke

Just saw a note that BK should be running the new Lola Coupe at Petit Le Mans this year! If we're gonna be middle of the pack, at least we'll look good doing it!