davidfarmer

Lou out with a blown engine, Cadillacs held back until 5 to go, then cranked out the fastest laps by 1/2 second, Porsche also very fast on last lap. Saved the best for last I guess.

z060ntrack

How is Lou "tuning" that LS2? I didn't think anyone had cracked the code except of course unless your engines are factory engines from Katech.

kaiser

'Tuning' is a good question. I always meant to ask, what PCM is used on the WC cars?

TIA

John Shiels

LS2 edit is out Lou may have had a Beta version. Caddies may be sand bagging. They learned their lesson last year. It looked so stupid when they went from the back to the front with ease.

BrianCunningham

Just a thought, could you not put the Winner's name in the title of the thread. I'd wanted to wait till I actually watched it to find out.
thanks.

yellow01

Damnit damnit damnit...you ruined the ending!!! Agh!

Oyishdog

that sucks! I left work and Lou was in 5th after 5 laps...i guess things turned for the worse

runamuk

Damn, that sucks. Lou had a bad ending last season and is not starting out good this season, I hope things turn around for him

JiminFL

In answer to the question about who's sandbagging, just look at practice times (no qual due to rain) and then race times. The answer is EVERYBODY to one extent or another (except maybe the Volvos ).

I like the WC, and thought they put on a good show, but I am not a big fan of socialized racing. If you're going to try to equalize things, it's critical that the sanctioning body in control of the specs be capable of doing it well. Last year with the Audi's 'woe-is-me' charade at RA that clinched their championship, the Caddys getting hamstrung after being naive enough to actually run hard at Sebring, etc., I think everyone has learned how to play the game called WCGT.

I wish it could be worked out so everyone gets to run their hardest with their given rules package, but no one seems to trust the SCCA to make that a fair situation. Kinda sad, IMO.

LG Motorsports

We weren't sandbagging. The rules mandate that we use the Lingenfelter heads and I cracked another one just above the intake port where they port it too thin.

I was pushing the car trying to stay in the top 5. the AXA porsche with Liddell driving got a bad start but passed all the top 10 cars with ease to work his way up to 3rd. Of the $40,000 in purse the Vipers in the top ten got $20,000 of it.

At Laguna in 04 the Viper set the fastest lap even while carrying a total of 450 pounds more than the fast Corvettes. So SCCA decided to add 150 pounds to the Corvette compared to our weight at the last race. Whereas the Viper which was the fastest car on the track lost 250 pounds compared to their weight at Laguna.
So the weight swing is a grand total of 500 pounds in favor of the Viper??? Did anyone really think that the Viper was going to lose the race??

How did the SCCA justify this? They said that our 6 liter LS2 engine was larger than our old 5.7 LS6 which would make too much hp and the Viper had to run shorty headers which take away 20 hp. All this while they won't allow us to run the Z06 7 liter engine that comes in the car.

Then on the restrictor size, we are now restricted to a 67.9mm throttle body plate while the Viper gets a 15% larger opening compared to the Corvette for their throttle body.

Then we were beat up and restricted by SCCA on our C6 Z06 bodywork while at the same time they were allowing a new nose, hood and larger wing for the Vipers. The Viper has 972 sq in of louvers while the C6 can only have 288 sq in of louvers. The louvers help reduce lift and can provide down force as well. The Viper louvers were an elaborate array that created a tremendous amount of down force.

The SCCA used a computer modeling program to try to determine what power could be extracted from each brand. This is all well and good but they totally ignored the real world results from Laguna that showed how fast the Viper really was.

Maybe their modeling didn't understand what a 500 cu in V10 can do compared to a 366 cu in Corvette LS2.

It is sad that the SCCA will not listen to this kind of logic. They are talking about adding 50 pounds to the Viper but ignore the fact that with 500 pounds they were still the fastest car on the track at the last race of 2004.

PS, the fastest Corvette on the track was a rookie in a C5 at a 213.9. The Sandbagging Viper had only a 214.0 to take the win.

Oh, And SCCA has told us that our hood is not going to be legal and we must now close off 30% of our hood louvers!!!

Thanks
Lou G

John Shiels

I started to think after watching the series last year it was a waste of time and money. Now I am sure of it. Rules continually changing and driving everyone nuts. It seems like htey pick the winner they want. To bad the DP car deal didn't come through for you. That series is growing by leaps and bounds and everyone seems fairly happy with the rules.

#001 2001 Z06

John, I would agree with you the rules are b.s..

Lou, you and all the other Corvette drivers should threaten to pull out and run in another series. You are not paying in time, frustration and money to lose. They would lose the competition(no cars), money and their T.V. coverage. Who are they going to race with? You should have the GM racing PR department hammer them as well(In the end they have most to lose), on the phone, in writing to them and threaten to send Press Releases the to all the mags and Associated Press. Fight fire with fire, baby.

As far the LS7, cannot wait until it gets into a production car so that you can race it in your car.

John Shiels

All GM wants to do is see the Caddy win so they can sell it and lift the brand of Caddy. Corvette they sell them all anyway especially with a new model like the C6 and ZO6

Scooter70

I was watching from the corner before the back straight. Watching Lou pick off a few cars, then he lost a few places, then he was gone. You looked good for the first few laps Lou. I'll have to post my LG pics when I get home.

-Matt

Oyishdog

very true...and the caddy name has done a 180 in the last few years....BUT, I think GM needs to get onboard with both domestic and foreign car makes and sell a factory race ready car...the new z would be ideal and an easy way into that side of the market

#001 2001 Z06

GM is broken...Government bailout in the next few years.
SAD.

John Shiels

Who's going to bailout the government in a few years?

z060ntrack

Lou your good at tubed framed cars, leave the WC behind and get into the new GT class in Grand Am where the engine is not an issue, although you may still need to deal with GM's lobbying on the part of the GTO but at least you will be dealing with people who know what they are doing.

davidfarmer

I agree that managing these series' is difficult, but I was watching the live timing lap by lap. Watching everybody "hang back" giving Archer just enough room was one thing, but then the Porsches and the Cadillacs "poured it on" with 4 laps to go, knocking over a second off of their own best times, and 1/2 off of the fastest laps of the race.

That bothers me, even with a little less weight from fuel, the tires usually fade towards the end, not get better.

Anyway, wanted to point out one more thing. Not only does Lou know how to build tube-frame cars, he is a multi-year champion in THIS series, the 2nd most winningest driver ever (I think I've got this right), and knows as much as anyone about building/driving any kind of racecar around. If he can't get to the front with his experience, the rest of us are doomed.

Dave

#001 2001 Z06

"Who's going to bailout the government in a few years?"

Jon,

Foreign governments that were buying our debt are already running.

My guess the only way is an,

Alien Invasion or a Nuclear Bomb.