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I've watched others document their Optima experience and it's very obvious the D&E section is used to bump up the cars the sponsor would like to see in the final round. Cars with interiors, a/c ect. Getting dinged for no apparent reason. The series is getting built for TV so the car has to have the "personality" they are looking for.
As you all have likely noticed, Photobucket is being stupid. I am in the process of uploading all of the pics to the Facebook account at OneLapMiata.com under Photos -> Albums -> Build.
Later, will go back and update all the links to point there.
PS: There are some behind-the-scenes pics of the flare job that have not previously been posted.
Been under the car for the last week prepping it for "Miatas at MRLS". Installed the freshened K24 that had been my NASA TT motor for the CRX (286hp), along with some new design parts from KMIata. Aluminum oil pan and race header shed 20 lbs and clean up the engine bay. The "bundle of snakes in the bay" Lovefab header was melting my wiring harness and fuse box. Wrapped the new one in DEI Titanium, and the stuff around it barely gets warm now.
Working on adding a splitter now...
It also looks like I'll be getting an invite to the Optima Finale at SEMA based on points. Against my better judgement, I am planning on going 'cuz that was the mission in the first place. So I have some D&E work to do in the engine bay, interior, and trunk.
Impressive build as it always is when Mr. Hollis is involved. I read the whole thread today while I should have been concentrated on work.
My co-driver and I chased you in STS2 more than a decade ago. My co-driver came close a couple of times (he was slightly faster than I) but never could best you.
I sold that car not long after our second STS2 season. I just picked up another NA8 after 10 years without one in the garage.
Didn't go. Found an oil leak at the front timing cover which i did not have time to fix. Also, got the invite to the Optima Finale, so decided to take the time to prep for that.
So, based on points we got the invite to run the Optima Ultimate Street Car Inivitational at SEMA. Never been to the show before, so we accepted. But, in order not to get embarrassed in D&E again, we did a bunch of work on the interior.
Found an uncracked full NA dash which we very carefully trimmed around the roll cage. Added back the NB center console to cover up the control box and pile of wires from the electronic shocks. Aftermarket radio went back in, and we were even able to get the dome light trimmed to fit behind the eyebrow bar. All original interior plastic bits were trimmed around the cage and reinstalled. All the trunk carpeting went back in. Installed matching Kirkey to the passenger, which we already owned. Car ended up right on the money for min weight (95% of OE curb weight = 2215) with an empty fuel tank. So no loss of performance.
Unloaded at LVMS...and found we had left some key bits of our newly-constructed splitter at home. Dammit. And since you can't work on the car once it gets put on display, there was no time to ship the stuff. Oh well.
Here we are on display in Optima Alley, where tons of attendees come through. Had a ton of fun chatting with folks and just watching them oogle. Was totally surprised how much attention this car got, in deference to the American Iron surrounding it.
Day 1 started off with the autocross...we ended up second in class but were well back overall. With cool ambients (never got above low 70's) our huge RE71R's never came up to temp. Add blowing sand to the mix, and the cone dodging was a challenge.
That night we did the Road Rally, which consisted of heading back into town through a huge back-up on the freeway...but ended up at the Shelby American plant. As a former Shelby owner, I really enjoyed drooling over all the vintage Shelby Mustangs and Cobras on display.
For Sunday, we had to bop back and forth between the road course and the Speed Stop. The latter is a mini-autocross with a long straight at the start, a few wiggles and then a run at a too-short stop box. Launch and braking are key to good results. Given the lack of grip, and our lack of ABS...we suffered. Still finished second in class, though.
The outside road course at LVMS is pretty cool, though not rocket science. Each session we dropped about a second off the previous, though traffic management was tough. Lots of folks not playing nice, even though they seeded the field a la NASA time trials. Won our class on track.
D&E results were also announced mid-day, and we finished well back as we had at NOLA. We scored a lot more points due to our interior work...but in the stronger field at the Finale it was not enough. So for the whole weekend, we finished second in the GTC class. The class winner finished no better than 2nd in all the dynamic segments, but did well enough in D&E to overcome that for the win.
04-27-2017, 10:02 AM
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