Hey Everyone,
We are curently in the process of building a new racecar for grand-am. Here are some pictures you might like to see.
The first two are from the beginning of the build and the rest are after the interior had been painted. We used spray on bedliner in the floor pan. After we assemble the car we will have the outside painted. We will continue the build after the VIR race in two week and we will keep you updated as we move along.

 

Very nice pics.

YAY for unibody!!! Are you referring to the koni challenge seires @ VIR Oct 5-7

 

Very nice so far! So are you required to have the Nascar style bars on both sides or are you just doing that for your own reasons? I would think that would add some weight.

 

Sweet!

 

Sick!

 

Thats a roll cage and is required by most racing organizations. Especially Grand Am, which I beleive roar is running in.

 

looking good, keep us updated

 

While roll cages are, the Nascar style bars are not required by all organizations. They will, along with the stitch welding on the seams (as shown in the first picture), stiffen the chassis.

 

Excellent guys! Thanks, and keep us updated.

 

Was the car originally yellow? If it was... that was one of the few Lightning Yellows that were ever produced....

 

awesome build, thanks for posting the pictures up!

is a new car really required every season in Grand-Am? Could you not run the same car for multiple seasons?

Also Koni seems to be getting bigger and bigger every year, and in some cases you could see upwards of 100 cars on the field. In races that usually last a few hours, avoiding contact is tough, getting a clean lap is hard (yellows), and the poor TV coverage.

Is there any chance we could see Roar step up to Grand-Am GT with the 3-rotor Mazdaspeed RX-8? I am sure rotary is one of many reasons the team chose the race the RX-8. Speedsource kinda pulled out of Koni after their GT effort, they field maybe 2 cars I am guessing to rent out seats (some $) and give their drivers who don't drive in GT some practice (i.e Mr. Haskell).

The 3-rotor costs 200k from Mazdaspeed (maybe another 50k to get it race ready), I imagine a properly prep-ed and competitive RX-8 would cost somewhere around 100k. Maintainece could go down as you would only be maintaining 1 car compared to multiple cars Roar fields.

The GT RX-8 is a better competitor as the current rules allow, compared to Koni.

I have to admit I no longer watch Koni this year due to the less than ideal TV times, and the overly large field.

edit: actually Speedsource is doing quite well in Koni as well~
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no... i think its red...... the red hood and door looks OEM VR

plus, just look at the first few pictures...
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very cool, thanks for sharing. it is always a pleasure to hang out with you folks when we see you. good luck next weekend at VIR.

 

sure is clean---cant wait to see it get dirty! As in burnt rubber and track stuff
Where are you going to put the xm radio?
Olddragger

 

Good job guys!

See you at VIR!

 

STOP the build, STOP the build and buy mine. REALLY!

 

Thanks for noticing!

It's been a very good year in ST overall.

We've yet to win, but consistent top tens and some podium finishes thrown in for
good measure and we're third in Driver and Team points with one race to go in the championship.

The RX-8 remains highly competitive, even though we are a bit heavy and underpowered relative to some of the other ST cars.

I expect that Roar's #63 car with Charles Espenlaub at the controls will be very fast at VIR.

For the VIR race, I'll be sharing the Mondial/SpeedSource/Mazdaspeed RX-8 with 04 and 05 championship winners Haskell and Tremblay,
so we're going to do our best to try to win the race and move up in the championship.

 

Charles Espenlaub was fast in the hypersport #40!

good luck in your VIR race, i will see if i can catch it on SpeedTV
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Yes, it was a red car. I believe it had about 8K on it when it got flooded out. No real damage to it though aside from the motor not wanting to start.

 

Thanks a lot for the interest everyone. Sorry for the long delay in responding to questions, we have been a bit busy. To answer some questions:

OnRails: We are going with the Nascar style door bars mainly for safety; by having bars farther out it keeps any kind of walls or tires farther from the driver. We are also building them as far into the door as possible to make it easy for drivers to get in and out of the car. Weight is not really an issue as we are very close to minimum weight as it is, with more we can take out.

Renesis SE3P: As others have said the car was originally red.

Renesis_8: A new car is definitely not needed every season in the Koni Challenge. The current #62 and #63 cars have already been run for 2 full seasons and will be running next season as well. We are building this car to do it right, as we have come up with better ways to do things and the older cars look messy because of all of the modifications which have been done/undone/and done again.

As far as stepping up to the 3-rotor GT class cars, don't expect that anytime soon. The prices that we have been told are actually higher than the ones you quoted, but the cost for maintenance is astronomical compared to ST. Also the level of competition is so much higher that just plain day-to-day operating costs are much higher as well for all of the extra parts, tires, etc.



And for an actual update: we haven't gotten any further on the car yet because of the damage to our cars at VIR; both cars need new engines, and #62 needs a lot more as well.


We will keep you updated.

ROAR Team

 

Thanks for the pics and good luck in the upcoming season. We'll be watching.

 

Thanks for the reply! I'll be following this thread, always enjoyed reading on teams that share their racing adventures.

Good luck with the new car and hope the repairs of the two damaged cars go smoothly.
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Question: I've seen some low-level amateurs put bedliner inside their race cars, and always wondered why. Seems like it's just adding useless weight. Sure, it's low, and you will likely add ballast anyway, but this can't be positioned optimally in the car when it's on the scales, it just is where it is. And it makes working on the car a bee-otch if you need to mount something, drill holes, etc. After you do all that work to scrape off the tar paper, then you spray more of something similar back on?

I've always been a fan of grey interiors in race cars, to reflect light and make it easier to see when working on them. White risks glare against the windows, but black just makes it hard to see what you're doing, in my experience.

Obviously, you're out there doing it and I'm just on the other side of the fence with my camera; maybe I can learn something here.

 

How much do one of those weigh?

 

nice update...!