Spudz

Hi All,
Here are a couple of videos along with a write up on a road race event held at Texas Motor Speedway. The following is the write up from Jeff Wertz. These videos will only be up for a few weeks so if you want to check them out make sure you save them to your hard drive.

" Hey all,

I saw some other emails about racing, and I typed the below message
up for my local car club email list. I thought I would share.

I got to run my '72 240Z ITS car a few weekends ago at Texas Motor
Speedway on the 'roval' course. The track was pretty cool, not very
hard and pretty fast as we used the apron in NASCAR turns 1,2,3 and
4. The entrance and exit to the infield section was on the NASCAR
back straight. Total distance for a lap was 2.3 miles with an
average speed in my class somewhere around 80+. At the chicane at
the end of the front straight, my car was just tickling 7000 RPM in
4th, or just under 130 MPH. My run group had 35 cars with 13 of them
in ITS. I also posted some video clips at;

http://www.rfic2003.org/JeffWirtz/

If you want to watch them, please save them to your computer first,
then watch them. WARNING, they are both about 36 megs so broadband
is suggested.

Friday we had a qualifying session in the morning. No big deal to
report, I just worked on improving my times through out the session.
I ended up qualifying 11th overall and 4th in class. The Friday race
was pretty crazy for me. For about the first third of the race I was
moving up slowly in the field as I continued to figure out the best
line. I got up to a high of 5th overall and then caught an ITE
Porsche 911. I had faster lap times overall than him, but he had
better brakes and more power. So I spent probably 3 laps battling
for position with this guy. I kept passing him in turn 1 and 2, but
he could the out brake me into 3 to be the inside line and then out
power me to 4. I was starting to get a little irked and really
wanted to break free of him since I knew I was faster on open track
and might be able to continue to move up. After a few laps of this,
I tried a little too hard under braking going into 3. I blew out the
back side of the turn into the dirt. Opps! Using all the knowledge
(?!?) gained from watching WRC, I rotated the car and held a long
(slow) power slide through the dirt coming back on track just after
turn 3. I hope it looked good, someone said something about being
close to a wall, but I was too busy looking out the passenger window
to notice Anyway, from my 'stunt' in fell back to 10th. After
that I just tried to focus on calming down and attacking cars where I
knew I was stronger. In the remaining laps I was able to climb back
up to 7th, behind a 300ZX driven by Richard Dickey also in ITS. He
and I fought it out for 6th place for several laps. Very fun racing.
Check out the video "battle for second" on the above link. Way fun.
Anyway, I did manage to get in front of Richard and hold him off so I
ended up 6th overall and 2nd in ITS. I was pretty happy with the
result but kind of upset at myself for going off, otherwise it might
have been a better finish. The car that won ITS is driven by John
Banks in another 300ZX.

Saturday was the same routine, qualify in the morning and race in the
afternoon. For qualifying I was working on getting tire temperature
data so I only got a few laps in at speed. But for 2 of those laps I
was able to hook onto the back of Banks. The 300ZX has more power
then my 240, so I was able to get a good draft to help pull me around
the long front straight section. This resulted in my qualifying 4th
overall and 1st in class for Sunday! For the race, lets just say I
blew the start. Again, check out the video "start". I was right
behind a C4 Corvette with a big boy spoiler. As we approached the
starter, I found I was too close and could not see the stand! From
the in car video, you see that right as I lifted to try to drop back
to get a better view is when they through the green. John came up
and gave me a little tire mark on the rear quarter to help me
understand I was in fact, not going fast enough at that time for his
tastes We went into the tight 2nd gear turn leading back onto the
oval, Banks on the right and Richard on the left. Lucky for me, John
stayed on a wide line and Richard (who was inside me entering the
turn) got sideways on exit and slide across the front of my car
allowing me to dive back underneath. I was able to get in front of
Banks for a lap, but he was able to out brake me going into turn 3.
From there, John was able to hook up with a wicked fast 240SX in ITA
car and the two of them were able to break the draft on me and pull
away. The rest of the race I ran pretty much by myself. I ended up
5th overall and 2nd in class.

We had a great time, the facility was awesome. It was nice being
able to pit in the NASCAR garages. The next race back at this track
in in August so we are looking forward to going back and trying to
improve.

Jeff
IZCC #220
'72 240Z ITS #91