| Author | Message | ||
     Etennuly |
I got a chance to tour lap Bristol Motor Speedway in my Vette Saturday.  The lead pace car ran about a steady 65 MPH so I was able to back off a bit to get 75 through the corners at the top of the high banks at the wall. Track touring on the bikes has always been great fun, but.....concrete high bank corners three feet from the wall, second gear WFO at 75 MPH, with my Chevy V8 screaming out my loud side pipes?  For an old life time motor head like myself it was one from the list! Although the car was not near it's ability to go through the corners, it was orgasmic! I wanted nothing more than to grab third gear, pass the pace car(local sheriff in his cruiser) and see what would happen next! | ||
| 86129squids |
I'm REALLY surprised you didn't! SO kewl man! More pics pleeeze! Been thinking about your shenanigans this weekend! | ||
| Etennuly |
I got video from in the car but cannot load it here. That is the only picture I have from the car actually on the track. The picture was taken by a random fellow hotrod owner there for the track tour and the car show. He was nice enough to email it to me. There should be some more coming from the track photographer in a week or so. I took some in the parking lot.  It is stickered up for Autocross coming up soon. | ||
| Etennuly |
I've been wondering how fast a bike like the EBR RX could go on Bristol's half mile. I thought about that the whole time I was there. How would you put it into and through the corner, knee down, full suspension squat? With the banking it seems like you would be nearly beyond horizontal, almost going to upside down. Could it be done more up right, slide like a dirt bike? For that matter put it right on the wall WFO? This has been bugging me since I have been there. It seems that if a rider had a bad day it could only happen once. Even with several layers of hay bales, and that cable catch fence.....never mind that. Do you suppose an RX could be as fast as a race car? | ||
| Froggy |
Hey Vern, if you want to borrow my SX and find out, you know how to contact me! | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
Vette is looking good Vern! I know at Mid Ohio, a "Go Kart" held the track record for a long time. After some time the open wheel indy cars broke that. Motorcycles aren't in the neighborhood. Track record is 1 minute .04.581 seconds Superbikes are in the low 1.20's | ||
| Etennuly |
I've watched Superbikes on Daytona's corners several times. It seems they ride nearly straight up. But that is a half mile of corner vs Bristol's much shorter corners.  Yeah Froggy, that is all I need is to do a "stupid" test on your SX. might be a shit ton of fun though!!! | ||
| Hughlysses |
Pretty cool, Vern! | ||
| Figorvonbuellingham |
I'd much rather watch motorcycles go around in circles then cars. Too bad they don't race on those tracks. | ||
| Badlionsfan |
I don't think you could get a knee down with 36 degrees of banking, and if you could it'd be more stunt show than speed. Tuck and rip would likely be the fastest way. | ||
| Glitch |
Awesome Vern! | ||
| Etennuly |
This is really bugging me. Any one ever ride a bike on a track like this? It would seem that the banking would have you upright like Daytona, but the shorter corners would have you sideways like on a big dirt oval!??! | ||
| Mtnmason |
Vern - Here is a vid of the BMS time trials from 2011. Scott Russell took to the 31* banking on an R1 with Kenny Roberts livery. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6FW3CRemQk | ||
| Ourdee |
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| Etennuly |
Ward, that video was interesting. Scott pretty much avoided the banking staying low, leaning and knee dragging. I would like to have seen a lap going mid bank up. It seems like it would be a compromise of several types of cornering. My question still stands, and it seems avoiding the wall was ever present in the rider's mind(not a bad thing!). In the car the only time I thought bad things about the wall was the transition coming out of the corner onto the straights. It seems that the wall sticks out right there, although it doesn't. | ||
| Pwnzor |
I did two laps at California Speedway. 155mph on the big banked turn was a very strange experience. I was leaning very little, the bike was pretty much perpendicular to the ground. | ||
| Slaughter |
The superbikes at Daytona were already exceeding traction limits on BOTH ends. Imagine lap after lap, SLIDING the front and back UPHILL for about 7 seconds every 1 minute 50 seconds for nearly 2 hours. | ||
| Etennuly |
Yeah, i was there the year Danny Eslick was flying bar to bar with two others like they were f$&@&$@ nuts, until that first pit stop. They were sliding into each other as I recall. That had to be quite a rush Matthew! It seems to me that Bristol would be faster run higher. I bet it would happen under race conditions or if there were lots of practice laps available. | ||
| 86129squids |
velocity v. compression v. time/distance... I get a chub... Got to be a rabbit the other day, saw a black Carrera merge behind me... @120 Fun times. | ||
| 86129squids |
Oh, edit, I was on the Sprint ST. Saw something black and fast, first thought was POPO... but it was smaller, in the mirror. FAST. Waved him bye. Followed around a crappy concrete S curve and THEN waved bye. (Message edited by 86129squids on May 28, 2016) (Message edited by 86129squids on May 28, 2016) | ||
| Etennuly |
The track pro pictures finally came up. He only got one of each car as we came in because it rained and cut short the last thing of the day.....photo shooting at victory circle.   First weekend of July I will be at Bowling Green KY at the Corvette National Motorsports Park track for three days of Autocross, two on the skid pad area and one day on the nearly new road course race track.  This ought to be really fun too! | ||
| Ourdee |
Tell us about the lake pipes on your car. | ||
| Etennuly |
Tell us about the lake pipes on your car. Only old people, or those from Californey would call side pipes "lake pipes"! Being a motorhead from the '70's we called them "side pipes". Dodge even had factory side pipes on their Challenger RT back when. Most of my cars ran headers, glass packs and side pipes. Hooker Header company made probably the most impressive side pipes ever back when. My '71 Camaro had side pipes, most of my race cars had side pipes, one had "grass burners". I told my then 25 year old son when I acquired this Vette a few years ago, that if nothing else got done on it, it would have side pipes. The Vette people and the exhaust system people told me it could not be done on a C4. After much testing I found that it seems that the plastic rocker panels melt like pizza cheese into long stringy goo. I spent a couple months researching and testing how I was going to do it. My exhaust pipe bender guy told me it cannot be done, so I told him how to bend the pipes I needed and took it back to my shop to fit it up. I had to come up with an insulator panel that would stop the heat and deflect the sound while leaving room to make mounts with rubber vibration insulating hangers. I have them off right now, but I have a set of really short, legal cats for it. It took a couple of weeks of test fitting and re-fitting, once I decided how I was going to do it. I have been very happy with it, and inspite of lowering the car after installing the pipes I have not had any problems with them. I do avoid anything that looks like a speed bump though, and I don't park in dry grassy areas. And the sound.....well at Bristol with the windows down a few feet off the wall at 5000 RPMs it sounded great. The guys in the infield said it was the loudest of the thirty or so cars on the track in my group. All of the other loud cars pipes went out the back or had open headers under the cars. The look is inspired from the 1966 Penske Sunoco 427 Vette that kicked the World's best racer's collective ass the year it was introduced.  As a kid I loved the look of the Penske Sunoco cars of that era. I always kept the idea of having one look like that one day, in the back of my mind. This 1986 Vette popped into my life needing a complete paint make over so why not? My next hotrod, what ever it is, will be made by setting up a header side pipe system and building a car around it. | ||
| Ourdee |
Only old people, or those from Californey would call side pipes "lake pipes"! Well, I ain't from Caliphorney, thank you very much. I got to drive a vette with a 427 when I was 13 or 14. A fellow was interested in my sister and had his drunk friend take me for a ride. He was "drunk" and let me drive the car to the next town over and back. I don't know how fast it was cause after 2nd gear I quit looking at the speedo. I know that I held the pedal on the floor in 4th for over 5 minutes. I was very busy looking as far down the highway as I could. I had only drove an old pick up on a farm prior to that. Drunk people and horney guys sure are dumb! My sister asked me how the ride was and told me the vette owner didn't get one.  | ||
| Etennuly |
I would have been ruined for life if I had had that experience! If I lived through it of course!  | ||
| Tootal |
So I was cleaning out my locker at work and found some old photos. My brewing/racing partner was the chief instructor at our BMW club drivers schools at Gateway International Raceway. It's an 8 turn 1.6 mile course inside an egg shaped oval. He used to always set me up with the cars nobody wanted to instruct because of the speed capabilities. So here's the fastest one I instructed. Ferrari F355 Berlinetta. I harped on this guy all weekend about not being smooth. On the last day I drove the car and went sideways three times!! It had a sticky throttle and he never told me! He was afraid I'd disqualify him and he was right. After that we made it a rule that the instructors must drive the cars before they will instruct them. It was scary but what a ride and the sound down the straight... well can you say SCHWIIIIIING!   | ||
| Etennuly |
Sweet! That had to be a great time. I always wanted to ride a wild horse like that one. | ||
| Tootal |
I came into turn 2 on the brakes and down shifting from 135 mph and as I was "easing" on the gas to catch the rear end, about to pass us, the throttle would stick. When I had enough pressure to open it the torque was instant and the rear end really lost traction. Sliding a very expensive car sideways 3 laps in a row was all I could handle. But the sound of 12 cylinders right behind your head is intoxicating!! | ||
| Etennuly |
Keep you on your toes for sure! On that note, your feet had to be pushing the grille out from the inside! | ||
| Mtnmason |
Fairly certain that the F355 is a V8 but supposedly one of the baddest sounding Ferraris at full throat. |
