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Howdy,

 

Surprised to see Tunnell running in XP... Is that his old BSP then SM car?  Anyone got pics or a description of its current configuration in XP?

 

Thanks!

Mark 

marka:

Howdy,

Surprised to see Tunnell running in XP... Is that his old BSP then SM car?  Anyone got pics or a description of its current configuration in XP?

Thanks!

Mark 

didnt he sell his car SM car? Did someone say it was sold to kevin youngers?

Either XP was easier on his schedule or he stood by his no competition clause from his car sale ad or maybe he thought he teach the other XP competitors a lesson by running an overweight (by XP standards) car and he is leading XP at the end of day one.. must be one hell of a driver. I am 99% sure its still in full SM trim running XP... anyway what do I know - im just guessing.
 

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Vinax
1994 BMW 325i FP AutoX car.
http://www.myfastbmw.com

I thought i overheard someone saying his BSP car was back home

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I am Chris Hammond.
Going2Colorado.com

He's definitely got a BSP and XP M3 (both are white).  He had both of them out at the Topeka Midiv in August.  I didn't look that closely, so I dunno what the differences are, but I'm guessing the XP car is more than a BSP car.

http://www.gotcone.com/files/private/active/0/30040_large.jpg

http://gotcone.com/filemanager/active?fid=91290
 

Dave G. 

vinax:

Either XP was easier on his schedule or he stood by his no competition clause from his car sale ad or maybe he thought he teach the other XP competitors a lesson by running an overweight (by XP standards) car and he is leading XP at the end of day one.. must be one hell of a driver. I am 99% sure its still in full SM trim running XP... anyway what do I know - im just guessing.
 

 

Take a look in the back of the rulebook some time and count how many times you see his name.  Hell of a driver indeed.  

I took a look at the car in grid and it looked to me mostly like an SM car taken to another level. He was running slicks, not DOT-R tires, and the car was caged with most of the interior removed.  An enormous twin-screw supercharger was also present.
 

Bret

64ES 

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Bret Wallace
64ES
2008 ES NE Divisonal Champion
Founding Member of the National Association of Matthew Braun LookAlikes

He was running slicks, not DOT-R tires

 

 And they were R25B Hoosiers that were not available to the other competitors.

The car is the SM car with as much weight as possible removed, without taking the sawzall to it.   I asked if it could be put back to stock and he said yes, but it would be a lot of work... mostly redoing the underlayment stuff.

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Keith
'90 Miata with a really big roll bar
www.chaserace.com
www.tightntidyracing.com
www.vorschlag.com

The car is the same car that Bob ran AS, CSP, BSP and SM with.  Bob was gridded one slot from me in XP.  I asked him about the car.  You could see it was gutted but not cut anywhere.  It had basically the SM motor and wing, gutted interior and Hoosier slicks.  He said he didn't want to run XP with an SM car.  So it was a pure XP car if a heavy one.  He was about 500 lbs over his minimum. 

He had a difficult week too.  Cooling problems at the Pro caused a blown head gasket and the car was pumping out coolant during the Nationals.  It did hold together but it wasn't pretty.

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Steve Hoelscher
#27 DP - Toyota MR2
http://www.terriehoward.com

Howdy,

What tires was he running?  The pics of seen make me think they're >16" diameter... Is Hoosier making competitive "big diameter" slicks now?

Tells you something about weight penalties when a guy can be 500 lbs over his min weight and still take the championship... :-) 

Mark

He was on 23.5x12x16 & 23.5x11x16 R25B (radials). Tires that Hoosier does not make.

DaveMc:

Tires that Hoosier does not make.

 

Apparantly they do. 

 

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Steve Hoelscher
#27 DP - Toyota MR2
http://www.terriehoward.com

DaveMc:

He was running slicks, not DOT-R tires

 

 And they were R25B Hoosiers that were not available to the other competitors.

 

Prepared does not have the tire availability rules that other classes do.  The only requirement for tires in Prepared is that they meet the safety requirements in Sec. 3 of the Solo rules.  You can even make your own tires if you want! 

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Steve Hudson
DP Miata

marka:

Tells you something about weight penalties when a guy can be 500 lbs over his min weight and still take the championship... :-) 

Mark

I'd trade a weight penalty for Tunnell's driving ability any day
 

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Steve Hudson
DP Miata

stevemhudson:

You can even make your own tires if you want! 

You gettin' this, Greg?  I know a couple rubber chemists, and can probably get access to a Banbury and a compression molding press...

 

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Ed Locke
2006 CR-SCCA XP Champion (Hey! I showed up.)
#248 SM/XP/DP/GS/BS/etc.
At Track Graphics (http://www.attrackgraphics.com)
Skull Motorsports (http://www.skullmotorsports.com)

marka:

Tells you something about weight penalties when a guy can be 500 lbs over his min weight and still take the championship... :-) 

  Assuming Bob's car has traction control and ABS, it would be closer to 200 lbs over the minimum.  (disclaimer - if Bob's car does have traction control, it was probably disabled for Nationals, due to the ECU issues he was having.)

IMHO, the results say more about:

A) Bob is a great driver

B) SM car prep is ahead of XP car prep, at this point in time.

C) Radial slicks were a good tire choice.  Every other XP car I looked at was running bias-ply slicks or DOT r-compounds.  The radial slicks seems to offer the best of both worlds, but are expensive and only available in a very limited range of sizes at this time.

D) Bob is a great driver.

-Steve

FWIW -  My car was one of the lightest in the XP grid, and was exactly 200 lbs over it's minimum.  Not exactly sure where I can carve that much weigh out of the car.

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Steve Garnjobst
#75 XP
'99 Mazda Mutant

I agree, Bob is a great driver and probabably the best in the class (he did win). He also had one of the best, if not THE best, prepared cars in the class. And I have little doubt that he would have won on almost any tire. But he showed up with tires that I have been asking Hoosier if the were going to make, for more than a year, and up until a month ago they said NO.

 I can forward pictures of some of the XP cars (Bob's included) if anyone would like.

MNbiker:

 Assuming Bob's car has traction control and ABS, it would be closer to 200 lbs over the minimum.  (disclaimer - if Bob's car does have traction control, it was probably disabled for Nationals, due to the ECU issues he was having.)

Bob made a casual statement to me while I was looking at the car that it ws "about 500 lbs overweight".  No mention was made about ABS, TC, etc....

XP is a very new class (only two seasons old) with something like half the field being new to the class this year.  Anyone running Prepared can tell you it takes more than a single season to fully develope a Prepared car.  Especially when you consider the unique nature of the XP rule set.  Bob had something of a head start coming in this season with a well prepared SM car. 

I would assume that a well developed, well driven XP car that was 500 lbs overweight would be faster than a less mature XP car that was closer to its minimum.  So Steve G's Miata at 200 lbs overweight may or may not be closer to its displacement/weight formula minimum (as a percentage) than Bob's car. 

This all raises an interesting question:  How does one know what a competitors car's minimum is in XP?  Lets assume that Bob's car was 500 lbs lighter and right at the minimum for its displacement/weight formula with the supercharger adder.  It would have to weight more if it had traction control and ABS.  So how do we know if it has Traction Control and ABS?    If he was to state that it was dissabled, how would you know?  How could you prove it was/wasn't?

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Steve Hoelscher
#27 DP - Toyota MR2
http://www.terriehoward.com

Bob drove very well, the car is also well prepped (although fragile last week), if a little overweight.  Tire availability aside, that particular radial slick seems to work very well, Bob had the choice of running the DOT tire, and chose not to.

For everyone who thinks winning XP is easy, come on in.  300-500+hp 2WD cars on HPT's surface are no cakewalk to drive fast and stay off the cones (5 out of 6 dirty runs agree). 

 As for stated weights, it's certainly an honor system, up until protest time, unless imound institutes some checks (displacement, traction control, abs)

Stan Whitney:

As for stated weights, it's certainly an honor system, up until protest time, unless imound institutes some checks (displacement, traction control, abs)

How do you check for Traction Control?  If I have a custom ECU, I can have a traction control algorithm enabled whenever I have an electrical connection between wheel speed sensors and the ECU.  I think you have to assume that if all the hardware is there, then all possible firmware is there also.  Therefore, if the car has wheel speed sensors, and they go to the ECU, you have Traction Control, whether you choose to use it or not.  ECU problems?  Had to disable the traction control setting?  Oh, well - it still counts as traction control.  The analogy would be having a stock car with TC and choosing to turn it off... you still have TC, just chose not to use it.  If while the car is sitting next to you you see a wire running from a wheel speed sensor, I would assume the car has ABS and TC.  The car owner needs to prove there is no circuit to the ECU, or that an ABS pump/hardware isn't in the car. 

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Ed Locke
2006 CR-SCCA XP Champion (Hey! I showed up.)
#248 SM/XP/DP/GS/BS/etc.
At Track Graphics (http://www.attrackgraphics.com)
Skull Motorsports (http://www.skullmotorsports.com)

Ed Locke:

  If while the car is sitting next to you you see a wire running from a wheel speed sensor, I would assume the car has ABS and TC. 

 

You don't need wheel speed sensors to have traction control.  There are systems that will control angular acceleration of the crankshaft.  Catch that one. 

 

Stan Whitney:

For everyone who thinks winning XP is easy, come on in.  300-500+hp 2WD cars on HPT's surface are no cakewalk to drive fast and stay off the cones (5 out of 6 dirty runs agree). 

I don't think anyone was implying XP was easy.  I only noted that Bob had a potential head start on the rest of the class by coming from SM.  I think Prepared as a catagory is quite healthy right now.  I don't see an "easy" class in the catagory.  As for XP cars at HPT, all prepared car's have their unique challenge.  XP is dealing with the power.  DP is keeping up with how fast the car does things.   At least with my MR2 you have to stay way ahead of the car or you're toast.  It lacks the straight line speed of an XP car but if you can stay ahead of it you can just blow right through stuff with amazing speed.  The east course was a blast in the MR2 because of how much speed could be carried through most of the sections.  1.4+ g and eight gear changes per run on that course.  The west course require only seven shifts due to the 2nd gear finish.

 

 

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Steve Hoelscher
#27 DP - Toyota MR2
http://www.terriehoward.com