Hello,

It has been a while since I have posted.

My car is a 93 with a 2003 vvt engine and harness, running a MSPnp, stock 5 speed and open differential. ISC coilovers, 3 year old Star Specs. This was the first outing with the car after a slow 3 year build in my garage.

I wanted to encourage you all to give WRL a shot, great racing, fun atmosphere. We ran GP2, and although the field was small, we were paired with Lucky Dog racing so it bumped the field to 30+ cars. Our first 8 hour race was plagued with a bad alternator, pierced radiator, and a bad clutch. After swapping all the things our Sunday race was much more productive. We were able to stay top 10 all day and move up to 5th overall and 1st in WRL.

Looking at the new Yoko AD08R, a Torsen, and some basic aero moving into our next race. We also ran a tablet for most gauges, but it was a bit wonky, so we will have to make some adjustments there (shadow dash, galaxy s3). The overall package was solid, reliable (after sorting out the weak links) and fun to drive. The Ridge (Shelton, WA) is super fun.

 

Here is the website for anyone interested also can click on my Sig.

RaceWRL.com

 

WRL has a gapping loop hole. Its concerning that they weight cars but don't dyno them and operate as a class based series. (or have some other method of measuring the power of the engine in a car)

What's to stop someone from running a SM "stock" engine which is obviously not stock? and definitely doesn't make factory power.

I have plans to run in a WRL race or two, but I doubt I would consider it seriously until a more realistic measure of which cars are in which class exists.

 

Our team has been racing with ChumpCar for years and we race with WRL almost exclusively now. I love the class setup and competition. Joey does a great job with all of this and we look forward to the series growing even more. It is the best organization out there right now in my opinion.

Our car is a 94 with spec miata suspension, stock motor, OEM ecu, and we race it in GP3. I would love to have a VVT car out there with a MS3. So many more torques.

Even if Yokohama didn't give away a set of tires to a team at the race, we would still be running them. The communicate well in the dry or wet and last a long time. They are probably just a touch faster than the Z2 star spec. I know Joey talked with the Yokohama guy at TWS about trying to make the AD08R in a 225/45/15 and he said that is the size he is hearing more than any other, so fingers crossed on that.

David: Did you race at the TWS event a couple weeks ago? If so, what team where you on?

 

They are running that series at Nelson Ledges so I might consider it in the future. ChumpCar was fun so WRL should be similar.

 

Joey has actually mentioned specifically doing dyno tests in the future, but for the first period, he said it will effectively be an honor system for things like internals. The logistics of making sure there is a dyno at the track just aren't merited right now with the infancy of the series.

He will be publishing a NASA points style power to weight modify list in the near future so that you can know exactly what adding a header or after market ECU or whatever is non stock will do to your allowed minimum power to weight ratio to stay in class.

 

WRL also reserves the right to move cars up a class if they are "too fast" for your claimed hp. So the "gaping hole" may allow you to score a class win one time. Unless you sand bag like crazy...

I've only done one race with WRL, but the classing system seemed to work very well minus one car that was overly fast for it's class. I had heard that car was going to get an adjustment for the next race...ie problem fixed. Honestly, I thought it was much better than racing V8 swapped cars weighing less than the Prelude like we do in ChumpCar.

I had a lot of fun at the WRL race I attended, and will likely do more in the future.

 

That is definitely good to hear. My concern is not necessarily with an obvious cheater car. I am thinking of the simple cases. A guy runs an e36 with a m3 cam, or the commonly found "stock" SM motor, etc. I am sure if we look around we can find a lot more subtle changes to give you an advantage that aren't easy to pick up.

None of these are particularly obvious, especially considering we are talking about a small margin of difference in power, but definitely something that could be noticeable. It would be EASY to blame this on tires or driver or "healthier" motor. especially if its offset with a bit more weight.

It just seems really easy to cheat, or be called a cheater for winning. Especially as the series matures, you are going to see people being called cheaters for running a good setup.

With all that said, I am not sure dynoing cars (or even a NASA-like point system) is the best way to go.

I am definitely interested, especially with the churn in chumpcar at the moment, but I am not nearly as excited now that I have had a chance to really look at the rules. Its a young series, so we will see though. This series was born from an ex-chump so I am sure he has some good ideas if he can get the support early on.

 

I was honest, gave them the dyno numbers of 136/125. This put us into GP2. I have run both Lemons and Chump, and this racing was a bit more serious. Cars were of a higher caliber. Only wish they would run some more west coast events.

 

Ha, nothing like Chump or Lemons. This was about racing, not the other stuff.

GP2 was ridiculous for us. Granted we won, but a SM was running 2:03s all day in GP3, with a best time in the low 2:02s. Granted their car was much more developed and they were beating on it pretty good (heard plenty of rev limiters), but we were only doing 2:10s all day long, with a best of 2:06.5. Only reason we won was their header vomited cylinder 2/3 collector at hour 6.

With proper tires, ~10 more hp and ft/lbs, ~200 less lbs, a little aero, bigger (longer lasting) brakes, a torsen, and some suspension tweaks, we could easily be mid pack GP2. We were lucky there weren't more in our class to wipe us out. But I think I calculated a 250lb loss and 35hp gain before we we'd be approaching GP1 classing. Never say never...

 

I did not race because I am regional Director for WRL. You probably saw me all over the place I hold Many hats for WRL and have been at all the races so far. Keep the chatter up i like seeing all the Miata folks I surf the forums reading are doing some WRL events.

 

If you could get some additional NorCal, Oregon & Washington races rolling we'd be signed up already.

 

<p>Thunderhill pretty pretty please. That would be a blast.</p>

 

Now that we have a Torsen, better tires, bigger fuel tank, some suspension items, I think we will be a more legit GP2 contender. I feel happy with the win. a bit David v. Goliath in terms of budget and development time.