'66 at Nashville Superspeedway protouring autocross

[Jonk67]

Got a release to go out to Nashville Super Speedway for a couple hours, I love living 15min. ride from there! Our mustang club was having an opentrack event on the speedway and a Pro-Touring group was having an autocross called 'Run to Music City'
http://www.pro-touring.com/forumdisplay ... e-Speedway

Mostly GM but still some Ford stuff there to look at, a Steve McQueen tribute car series (35?) shown:

I got attached to this '66 since it was close to the TransAm theme I'm going for and the owner and his sons were very nice to talk with. They came down from Long Island NY, he let me sit in it to get the full experience and we were close in height and he removed most of the foam from his race seat I would fit with helmet and headliner intact.

The car was made into a racer in the '90's according to the owner and they bowed the rear fenders and added a piece to the fronts and bowed them also withoug flaring. The fender lips are rolled FLAT, no bulge to them at all. You can see the slight flare to the fenders down the side, I didn't notice it at first. He's running 15X9's on all 4s and has 255 out back, forgot to look at what the fronts are but most cars there were running in the 315 range.

Here's some videos of the car running >347/T5 and side exhaust:
http://s194.photobucket.com/albums/z192/jkoed/Videos/?action=view&current=MVI_1634.mp4

http://s194.photobucket.com/albums/z192/jkoed/Videos/?action=view&current=MVI_1635.mp4

He was in the top ten but I think he got bumped on the last round, his best run he hit 1 cone = 2sec. penalty...

Alright, how do I embed a video so you see the pic of the video and just click on it? found the URL button but that just shows my link.
Jon

 

[abrahamfh]

I like how he integrated the Monte Carlo bar to the shock tower and brace

 

[tarafied1]

I forgot all about that. I went to Somerset this weekend. I wanted to go to that show! nice pix

 

[Norm Peterson]

I know this is a fairly old thread . . .

Jonk - I saw that 66 A/S Mustang earlier this year at the "Run To The Shore" event at New Jersey Motorsports Park, but didn't get a chance to meet the owner. IIRC, he ran respectable times at the autocross there as well, and was toward the top out on the big track.

These "Run To The ?????" events are being put on by Bill Howell/Muscle Rides with much of the promotion apparently being through the Pro-Touring.com and Lateral-g.net sites. Those fora are kind of GM-heavy, so I'm not surprised by your observation regarding the mix of entries.


Norm

 

[Jonk67]

Yes Norm, the 'Run thru the hills' in Pigeon Forge (Smokey Mtns.) is 9/23-9/25 and is a qualifying event for the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational. I think it's funny how more GM guys are into the huge wheel look of ProTour more than Ford guys seem to be just by entrants. The event looked like a lot of fun but also pressure as the announcer obviously had his favorites and pointed out any mistakes made on the course.

If you get a chance to meet the driver of that mustang he's a nice guy and his son's are friendly too. I was real impressed that he drives the car to/from all of these events from NY. Last year he drove to the Pigeon Forge event with his sons in the car and one of them is >6ft.(size 14?shoe) and was crammed in the backs seat after climbing in over the rollbar...

Jon

 

[Norm Peterson]

If I can get something a little older than my '08 ready for both the autocross and the big track for next year, I'd like to run the RTTS and maybe one or two others as an event entrant rather than running just the autocross as an SCCA course worker. I wouldn't expect to win the invite, but I doubt that I'd end up DFL either. . . . I think I read somewhere where rollover protection may be required at least for the big track (but don't quote me on that just yet), which ain't gonna happen in the '08. But I'd incorporate it into any serious P-T build I might settle on doing.


I don't have too much problem with wheel sizes up to 18", as that still allows 14" brakes (which should be plenty for most multi-purpose cars). Getting them to work with the older cars with enough tire that isn't too tall is another matter. My '08 wears 255/45's on 18x9.5 wheels. they're heavy as hell to change, but if you're seeking newer tire technology you aren't likely to find it in 16" and smaller that's got enough load capacity for 3200+ lbs or wide enough for that much car outside of R-compounds.

Beyond that, I'm gonna call it a case of "Pro-Touring wanna-be" and in the same category as lowering the car until it's well into having sacrificed suspension geometry. There's a word that generally describes anti-functional mods made to cars from the other side of the really big pond that almost fits . . .


"Pro-Touring" covers a wide enough spectrum such that you get the serious driver's cars on the one end (such as Ron Schwarz's "Muttstang") and the cars that are more lightly modified at least chassis-wise but with a much higher priority placed on appearance, features, and getting the "perfect stance".


Norm