RK, PaPa's referred article is actually from Speedsource. More info from the builders/sellers...

Yeah, and delayed-broadcast the day after the race... again!:icon_no2:
C'mon SPEED Channel, can you get it together????? :icon_no2: :spank:

Speed Channel should be car Nascar and maybe some other races channel!!!

"Whoops"! Sorry I missed yours. I'll drop Jack a line.
Thank you.
Speedvision TV dissapoints me with their stepbrother treatment of the Rolex GrandAm and delayed broadcasts. Also their announcers lack of attention to the GT class during a race.

.....Or it could be called the Hillbilly-Redneck Channel......:lol:

Or the "ATV Channel" :rollingla :lol: :rollingla

Circle Jerk Racing Channel! Remember the impact of Graham Hill and Jimmy Clark when they hit the Indy 500 years ago.
I will never forget the day Clark died, April 7, 1969. The same day I broke my ankle skydiving.

How many of you guys going?
I missed out on my dive trip in Tobago this coming weekend (birthday present to myself, although it's this coming friday).
I'm contemplating flying up as a "consolation present"...

^^^ Im goin,,,, I'll be there Sat and Sun....

I'll let you know what I decide.
Weather forecast looks good up there.
Now with the FAA Tracking gone nuts, I'll think and sit... :rant:

I'll be there Friday - Sunday. Going to try to get there Friday morning. It's about a 5 1/2 hour drive so I'll try to leave around 2:30 - 3:00.

Bob

cool we should meet up,,, does anyone know yet if there will be a Mazda car parade before the race???

My guess is no. I sent Marlon a PM last week and haven't heard anything from him. Nothing posted by him or Ray about it either. I checked the Mazda 6 board and there is nothing on it over there.

I sent you a PM with my name and cell number. Give me a shout when you are at the track if you want.

Bob

That's my main reason for wanting to be there... Flying up is not what I wanted to do. :banghead: I'm torn.

getting ready for the race this weekend its gona be great, I hear nothing but great praise about the new track..........

Leaving in 5 hours!!!

leaving, lucky!!

watching the race right now. WTF Potiac 1,2,3,4!?

I just turned on the race at lap 70. WTF happened to the #70? 19th?

they have been in the back most of the race, they have had a few spins as well. (although everyone has)

hey guys just got settled in from getting back from the race,,,, it was my first Grand Am race and it was freakin awesome,,,
SpeedSource guys are awesome Bob, Tim and I pretty much hung out at the SpeedSource garage in btween practices and qualies, Ive got a ton of pics and videos to share will probably start a thread in the pics and gallery section tomorrow...
Thanks to Sylvain for the hat and Nick, Jeff, Emil, and Sylvain for all the Sigs on the hat,,,
the 70 had an oil leak about 40mins in ,,,, Nick and Sylvain were kind enough to give us a debrief in the garage after the race,,, it was something they had no long term repair for so they just looped the oil line and were running on one oil cooler, they said they were running oil temps at 285degrees for two hours straight....
I will talk about the rest tomorrow,,,,

oh wow that sucks, cant wait to see your thread.

The oil leak thing really blows, but hey, that shit happens. At least they stuck it out the best they could and finished. Still, 3rd place overall (season standings) is very respectable. Is cool you guys were able to hang out at the Speedsource garage and the drivers were kind enough to talk to you afterwards. They couldnt have been very ahppy about the race. POST THE PICS/VIDS

atm typing on my phone. 70 car was running second at th beginning of the race, till the firs yellow on lap 1. they pitted on the first lap, due to yellow. they where getting their mandatory pit out of the way. which is why u seen the gxpr 1234. and mid way thru race, 70 car had oil leak.

check it out heres my weekend ...............
https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-multimedia-photo-gallery-6/my-weekend-%40-supercar-life-250-rolex-grand-am-155427/

Great to meet you Greg and Tim. it was a great time. Hot as hell but still worth the trip. I got back this afternoon and will try to get some photos up tomorrow.

Bob

cool Bob it was nice to meet you too if you would like you can post your pics in my thread above and start a sub thread(just add a title)
had a great time there Im alil burnt but it was great........

A big ol' fat congrats to Pontiac for winning the championship. Yeah, I know it's not over JUST yet, but with the weight addition PLUS the rev limit restrictions that GA placed on the Mazdas, the season is all but over now. I guess the Pontiac teams just bitched loud enough and GA felt a need to hand the championship back to them. This DESPITE Banner Racing's attempt to sneak a ride-height adjustment by the officials a few races ago. Did anyone else hear during the race broadcast that Speedsource cracked an exhaust manifold due to excessive heat secondary to the rev limitations? Way to go GA...penalize teams that are successful to the point that they begin to have mechanical failures.

Funny, but it seems to me that if GA had simply given the Porsches ride height adjustments sooner in the series, things would have been pretty even all through the season. But nope...start screwing around with formulas LATE, and screw a contender out of a championship title. Nice going GA!!! :rant:

Oh well...third place in the championship is pretty damn respectable. Go Mazda, and nice going Speedsource.

/rant off

Yeah. Just ridiculous to do this to the car. Obviously the 8s were overpowering the pontiacs prior to the weight/HP reduction but they should have just added weight - not fundamentally change the way this car is meant to be driven.

The optimum shift point was apparantly around 9100 so they ended up cutting off over 500 RPMs of max power production not to mention the RX8s would go near 10k when a late shift wasn't helpful. And like you said this is actually causing the car to overheat damaging the exhaust manifold.

Ridiculous that a team as well constructed and funded as Speedsource can't compete on a track which should have been a dream for the 8. And while the 70 car had a few problems with cold tires getting them into the dirt today and an oil leak the 69 had none that I noted and still wasn't competitive.

What a waste of what had been a pretty competitive season. When the highlight of the race is Patrick Dempsey leading for a lap or two because he's off-pit you probably need to rethink your strategy.

Oh well. At least the Speed announcers seemed to give at least as much, if not more, TV time to the GT series today over the DPs. I guess they realized that there wasn't a whole lot of drama in the DP series. Course now there's no drama in either for the final run but oh well. That's what Rolex wanted.

RK,

I agree with you in all aspects EXCEPT with regards to the #69 car. It finished 11th which is pretty much on par with their average finish and better than they had been doing. I mean shit, their last 3 races prior to this one they were 17th, 17th and 12th:dunno: . They have only done better than 5th on ONE occasion, so to me the only thing really off was the #70 car and for obvious reasons.

The 69 has been incident prone the last few races. They hit the wall coming out of pit row in the previous race. The one before they had to put for ~10 minutes for reasons that no one posted here. Before that they had the epic roll on the final lap in Daytona where they had been in 2nd right behind the 70.

When the 69 runs without incident it runs as well as the 70. This weekend the 70 had more incidents that I saw while the 69 ran clean - and was completely smoked. Maybe I missed something with all the cars getting off track and creating dust storms.

EDIT: Just looked at the results and the 69's best lap was almost a full second behind the leader. 70 was closer but was still almost half-a-second. Both came very early in the race (lap 27 and 29). All of the 8s had their best times around the 25th lap which I believe was right after the caution with the driver switch (sans McDreamy).

actually it wasnt the ponti's that was bitching, it was the porche teams that where doing that.

^^ yeah they said make it cloeser for us to win or we are out of here, basically

Yup although the Pontiacs did seem a little upset on one race (not sure which) where the 8's were clearly pulling away on the straights every time. It was right after the pontiacs had the weight penalty added.

I just wish they wouldn't do adjustments in the middle of the season. All the teams are striving for that "unfair advantage", so it really penalizes the teams that try and look for the loophole, which they are all doing anyway. Give us unrestricted revs!

My words will not be kind to Dave Spitzer V.P. Competition, Grand Am and indeed a good bunch more should come from SpeedSource fans in the same vein.

This is true about the midseason changes.

I'm really not over this yet either...
Is this an official call to arms??? :icon_no2:

Revin to 9 grand and popping the clutch! Go for it, the damage is done. Of course Sylvain would be his typical gentleman self and keep the faith in Rolex Grand Am decision making. In reality, you know it's beakin his heart as hard as these guys worked. Not fair Amigos and Amigas what they did.

NOOOOOOOOO!
Oh Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!

http://www.grand-am.com/rolex/news/index.cfm?cid=19123

:rant: :icon_no2: :icon_no2: :rant: :mad: :shocking: :( :bash:

NASCAR/Grand-Am? :puke:

Well, the only postive thing that I can see coming from this is the increased budget for marketing. I know I would kill for a Speedsource or Rolex GT podcast!

well, it did say in the news release that they would still operate independently. we can hope.

P.S. This takes SpeedTV one step closer to being NASCAR TV

WOW! There goes the neighborhood!

I dont know, whatever happens if the 8's cant find a way to counter the rpm limit in a way that puts them near where they were, im not very enthusiastic about future Grand Am events. I mean, the heart and soul of the rotary lies within the high revs at the LIMITS, not at the ALMOST limits (wtf). They have taken that away and its just disheartening. Its just a freakin Rape.

Mazda kicks Porsche's ass, Porsche bitches, the rotary is restricted...hmm, this seems familiar somehow...

:lol2:

I really would like to see that!


Hmmmmm.... Are 2.6L 4-Rotors legal? Restrict that!!!

Unfortunately the only chance is for the Pontiac teams to have problems or a DNF. In a 7 hour race I guess it's possible. Grandam basically decided the championship when they limited the 8's revs.

Maybe there's a chance, the rotaries excel in endurance events. How many wins did the 69 car have before Watkins Glen?

It'll be tough. Sylvain reportedly said Miller will be even harder for them with the revs cap. Lets hope the war of attrition works in SS's favor.

Endurance might be the only shot that the RX-8s have at Miller, but there were comments during that last race that the higher elevation at that track will make for higher exhaust temps than they saw last week when they had a cracked manifold.

Yeah, part of what I heard too was that heat becomes a bigger issue as they have to shift more compared to when they have higher revs available. The Pontiacs will just sit back and let the race come to them.
Still what more can you hope for than to have a shot at it in the last race of the season. Either way it's been a fun year.

:rant: Updated Tech Talk page now making it known in print about GT rev limits to "even the playing field":
http://www.grand-am.com/rolex/news/index.cfm?cid=19132

I guess our outpouring cries were enough to put it in print. :icon_no2:

Interesting info as well on both classes...