Portland Race - Welcome Visitors

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Greg Miller

Well-known member
James Clay is a sponsor for the PRO3 group, owner of BimmerWorld - a BMW aftermarket race parts source, and SCCA World Challenge Driver. It seems one or both of the Hill Bros offered him some of that "You should try Conference racing" candy they are famous for handing out with the result of him and 5 of his buddies coming from all over the country to race in a Pro3 race this weekend. If you look at the list on MSR you see 7 guys with 700 numbers. One is Andrew Caddell from Graham who started racing the Mustang Challenge series with TC Motorsports and now has a full ride with another camp. The rest are drivers that race Spec E30s, Spec Miatas, or newer BMWs in NASA, BMWCCA, and/or SCCA.

Of course as soon as some foreign talent started renting our PRO3 cars the local boys had to come and race door to door with them to defend their records. So in spite of 6 cars being rented there are 31 PRO3 entries and counting. Group 5 EIP is also large as a result. There should be some real close racing for all entries.

If you see a new face standing around a PRO3 car with a 700# stop and say "Hi". Let's show them how friendly the ICSCC community is.

We appreciate your tolerance of our "camp" this weekend. We don't want to loose a visitor to one of the moat monsters ;) so we gotta have em all close enough to keep an eye on them.
 
I'm more worried that if they don't keep an eye on the 31 cars all weekend a bunch more will be spawned before the end of Sunday! Like rabbits I tell ya. :p
 
We appreciate your tolerance of our "camp" this weekend. We don't want to loose a visitor to one of the moat monsters so we gotta have em all close enough to keep an eye on them.
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Well he will be visiting my pit also :p does that make me a moat monster?:rolleyes:

Like rabbits I tell ya.
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Proven fact. Park 2 Pro3 or SpecMiata's in a secluded area and in the morning more appear.
 
I'll post the following response from someone when I told him about the potential new record Pro3 car count for this week-end:

I'm not sure I'm looking forward to being out there with all of them. "Trouble with Tribbles" comes to mind. A few are cute but a whole lot becomes suffocating!
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:D
 
Steve Adams said:
I'll post the following response from someone when I told him about the potential new record Pro3 car count for this week-end:
:D
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In a way I'm with your friend there. In a grid of 50+ there is no time to rest. So I run group 5 this weekend and guess what? 50+ and it is even more intense in some ways because of the closer speed differentials between classes. More races within the race if you will.

In Grp 1 Mac and Randy (in the viper) used to go out for a Sunday drive. Not so now. They are going to feel like the little silver ball in a pin ball machine.
 
Steve Adams said:
I'm not sure I'm looking forward to being out there with all of them. "Trouble with Tribbles" comes to mind. A few are cute but a whole lot becomes suffocating!
:D
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Tribbles - one of the great Star Trek episodes of all time (whoops - is that my age+geekeness showing?)

dan
 
epsdan said:
Tribbles - one of the great Star Trek episodes of all time (whoops - is that my age+geekeness showing?)

dan
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im going to say no because i liked that episode. but i saw it in the 90s as a rerun not when it first showed like some people might have. :D. i really hope G5 will behave. there will be 2 EIP/ pro3 look alikes running , hope the rest of ITA does not mix us up and points us by........ or maybe i do. something i just realized the bmw e30's car can run in 4 different IT classes from ITB-ITR and to non e30 people they all look really similar
 
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Ken its been done before. I remember a race in the mid 90's at Seattle with about 310 entries. Man to have those kind of entries again.

I think it was group 1 that was so oversubscribed that it was split into two sub groups ie. 1A and 1B. If I remember right the schedule was reworked basically on the spot and all groups got their races shortened by 5 minutes, so 25 min instead of 30 min.

This was only for one group that was over subscribed. With the numbers so far for group 1 and 2 this weekend if both groups become oversubscribed then ekiM B. is going to have to do his circus act and start some serious juggling.

Cue the music.....
Send in the clowns....


sorry couldnt resist that last one.
 
Ken Killam said:
....Rich, do you still have your notes? I could scan through the FIA stuff again, but I think that we figured something like 50~51 cars maximum at PIR for a race less than an hour in length....
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Ken,

PAIN finding this. Had to go to FIA web site to find proper value of "L" for the length of Portland. FIA has moved all this info to Appendix "O" now. Saved it for future use :)

50 cars was for Road America at 6.51 Kilometers long. I talked to an 'official' representative of Portland years ago about the track length. At that time, they were fudging a little because of the minimum track length required by CART and ALMS. They were 'claiming' over 2.0 miles but I think they are back to an official 1.97 or so.

Calculation for Portland International

Portland International Raceway = 3.17 Kilometers

N = 0.36 x L x W x T x G

Where L = 11 ( for a 3.17 Kilometer Track) - - was 18 for Road America
Where W = 10 (assumes a legally FIA calculated width somewhere between 30' and 36' )
Where T = 1 ( for a less then 1 hour race)
Where G = 1.00 (for Touring type cars)

N = 0.36 x 11 x 10 x 1 x 1.00

Which means at Porland under FIA regulations:

40 Touring "type" allowed to start race. 48 practice.

N= 0.36 x 11 x 10 x 1 x 0.80
31 Sports cars and single seaters up to 2 liters start race.

N= 0.36 x 11 x 10 x 1 x 0.70
28 Sports cars over 2 liters start race

N= 0.36 x 11 x 10 x 1 x 0.60
24 Single seaters over 2 liters start race

Notice those last 2 numbers. Even with the delta "T" for the events, Portland was/is on the cusp for holding CART and ALMS races due to the short "L" value. It's also part of the reason they (CART, ALMS and other pro events) don't want to come around tracks that aren't a minimum length of 2.25 miles these days. This is the reason there's been talk in the past about 'stretching' Portland with some additional track.

I know Portland made some changes to corners that might have added to the official track width. If (IF) they can claim a width of 39 feet that would help the car count. Would change "W" to 11.5.

The FIA gets REAL picky for any sports car or GT race on circuits less then 3.5 kilometers. Touring cars are okay down to 3.0 kilometers and F3 at 2.0 kilometers (with a waiver).

And finally, throw ALL OF THE ABOVE out the window for the Chicane Challenge as this is not an FIA event :)
 
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With all the frothings on the Pro3 mailing list this week about potential chaos going into the chicane on lap 1, can you imagine if we held heat races in order for them to qualify? Hee.

I almost (almost) feel better about not being able to run Group 1 this week-end.
 
Nothing can be worse then what happened in T1 about 6 or 7 years ago with a SEMI-CHICANE race ! ! !

No chicane on the first lap to get cars started more 'cleanly'.

Next lap chicane is THERE! All cars in first 4 or 5 rows take the chicane. Guy mid pack DOESN'T!!!!! Blasts through turning cars with throttle to the FLOOR!! Through some miracle he only hooked the rear bumper of one car. A real tragidy in the making. Yes, Ethel, he was black flagged next time around.

The concept of 'semi-chicane' is not a good idea. Can lead to stuff like that which is WORSE then a few cars bumpin, shovin and spinin at more reasonable speeds.
 
If a run group is considered over subscribed, I thought they took out second entries in that group to bring the number down to an acceptable level.
 
Thanks to everyone that gave up their favorite spot at PIR!

The encampment was a bit over the top but it did help welcome our out of town guests and make it easy for them to get together between sessions. The Conference community showed them how much fun it is to race with us and Mr. Mike B's driver's meeting banter will be hard to top anywhere else.
7 drivers in PRO3 cars with 700#s and all came away with smiles. Someone has to tell Andrew Caddel (Mustang challenge driver from Graham WA)that he doesn't have a V-8 under the hood though. You Miata people trained him too well. 20 seconds ahead of 2nd place :eek: What's with that??
From the grandstands it looked like GT / Stockcar traffic was finding their way through the line of 30 PRO3 cars without much problem. Nice driving from both camps.
 
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