MARRS 7 ITA Race
 

"If you ain't first, you're last"-Reese Bobby, Talladega Nights

Here's the video from the MARRS 7 ITA race where I started last... Enjoy!
http://www.vimeo.com/6043354

Sometimes a good day goes a little awry. It happens to everyone, no matter how much time they've spent in the garage before the event. There are just too many things that can fail on a racecar and disrupt the best of plans.

After spending far too many hours in the garage since the last race to deal with the "speed escalation" in the MARRS series this year, I was very excited to be back out at the track with some new developments. The car decided to play a little trick on me as I headed to grid though when its normally smooth exhaust note changed to one fitting of a terminally ill classic VW Beetle. The issue at first seemed like a temporary glitch, as the motor would alternate between functioning on all 4 cylinders and occasionally dropping 1 cylinder, but it became permanent on the out lap of qualifying. With a great deal of help from resident experts in the paddock like Rob Luke, Andrew Johnston, Brian Price, Bryan Pritt with Kevin Helms taking time out of his Speed World Challenge debut weekend with Team Hondaworks to try and help troubleshoot, we were able to isolate a dead fuel injector and dig up a replacement 45 minutes away. This meant I missed all of saturday’s afternoon qualifying race, and had to stand on my 2:01 lap from the morning session while I limped the car back to the pits. So, I'd be starting dead last in the ITA grid in grid spot 17. Thankfully, due to the split start with the SpecRX7 class we are grouped with, I would only be behind 16 cars and not the full 35 or so that were on track during the session.

Some other cars had issues with other races, so we slid up to grid spot 14 before heading out on track for the race. I knew I needed to make up as many spots early in the race before the field spread out, or I would have no shot at getting close to the front. From the drop of the green flag I focused on flowing my way up through the field, passing cars at opportunities where I did not lose momentum while charging through the field without overheating the front tires in the scorching 99 degree air temperature or myself, buried inside a firesuit within a 120 degree car.

Once I had worked my way up to 3rd place, I could see that Brian Price's Miata was starting to struggle with tire temperatures, so I was able to slip past him and go after the leading Rotary Performance Miata of Bret De Pedro. Once I got close to his bumper, I did a quick inventory check. My Integra was not braking or turning well, as I had burned the front tires up to get to 2nd place. Bret is a canny veteran with a substantial pile of championships and had saved his tires. So I decided I would hitch onto his bumper, cool the tires for a bit, follow him through lap traffic and put a charge on him once the car came back. An opportunity presented itself on lap 13, when I took the lead by passing him and a backmarker around the outside going into Turn 3. From there, I could not escape as his Miata drafted very well, and Bret was much, much quicker in the carousel. But in the end it proved to be another hard-fought victory for the Creative Grafix Integra!

Re: MARRS 7 ITA Race
 

nice driving.

I'm not aware of what type of class ITA is, or what they allow? Your integra walks the miatas pretty hard on the top end. Still LS motor?

Re: MARRS 7 ITA Race
 

Yup still and LS.. ITA has gotten crazy fast this year Hoppe dropped a 2:17 and change at VIR with is DA. I mean that is crazy fast.

Re: MARRS 7 ITA Race
 

Improved Touring motor basics are:
intake/header/exhaust are open, no cats required, just have to meet the track sound restrictions (103db at Summit IIRC)
port-matching up to 1" in on the head.
stock cam+valvetrain
compression increase up to 0.5 point over stock
up to .040 overbore
balancing/blueprinting.
open ECU (I use a Hondata S300... seems to work ok for the application)
underdrive pullies

Stock gears in the transmission, we can do any LSD and final drive. Stock flywheel.

Basically just a really good rebuild. Good ITA Integra should make between 140 and 150whp. My car has to weigh 2595lbs while the 1.6 and 1.8 Miata are 2255lbs and 2380lbs, respectively.




Tom's DA Integra ran a 2:17.7 right in front of mine which ran a 2:17.3 in his draft at VIR. If we had a way to communicate, we probably could have bumpdrafted to a high 2:16.

Re: MARRS 7 ITA Race
 

thats pretty nuts. Looks like fun

Re: MARRS 7 ITA Race
 

I saw his vid and thought that was you. Are you going to the Run Offs?

Re: MARRS 7 ITA Race
 

Yep; planning to head down to Road Atlanta for the American Road Race of Champions. More development to be done before then though... there is still time left on the table. I should get it cornerweighted some time between now and then...

Re: MARRS 7 ITA Race
 

Dude do you have any shots of your finished spliter and attachment system? I need to make some changes as RoadRaceGear setup I have is low cost it not very tolerant of even 2 wheel offs.

Re: MARRS 7 ITA Race
 

:thup::thup::thup::thup::thup::thup:

Re: MARRS 7 ITA Race
 

nice! I'm thinkin about buying a DA shell, and building it up for stuff like this.