Cutting the roof off

After Nationals I realized that I need to put the car on a dramatic weight loss program and I have to take out 400 lbs to get down to the class minimum weight. I have plans on how to do this and it started with removing the roof.

Here is the Pink Panther as it was raced at Nationals, 2250 lbs with me in it

I removed the hatch and spoiler, which must have been around 75 lbs

And I don't need the fuel filler door or hose anymore

Once I had cut the top off, I enlisted help to lift it off

We figure the roof weighs 50-60 lbs

I lost a lot of structural strength when I cut out the top bars but I'll make that up with door bars. When I pile up everything that I removed, it weighs about 200 lbs. Of course some of that will go back in with the door bars and boot lid but I still have the door structure, hinges and latches to cut out.

2012 SCCA Solo Nationals

Briget and I drove the 14 hours to Lincoln, Nebraska for the 2012 SCCA Solo Nationals. We immediately signed up for 4 Test N Tune sessions which would give us 16 chances to get the set up right. I kept fairly detailed notes on everything so I had an idea of what was doing what. Here are pictures of my TNT notes.

 We got the car feeling pretty good but never completely rid the car of inside wheel spin. We also learned that the tires go off if they are hotter than 110 F when the run starts. On Tuesday competition began and Briget was the first to try the car on the big course. She came back reporting that the car felt pretty neutral and had no wheelspin. I ran later in the day and I also thought the car felt good but I did experience wheelspin and some hopping around the sweepers. I was very close to a trophy spot, which is quite amazing for a car with so little development and so few runs. I also kept notes on these runs and here they are

Quickest clean run from West course

After my runs I was very privileged to get set-up advice from Dan Wasdahl, KJ Christopher, Del Long and Peter Raymond. These guys have driven or built more Championship winning cars than I can count on my fingers and toes. They seemed to agree that I needed more negative camber up front and firmer damping out back. I went back to my paddock spot and added 1 degree of negative camber, reduced toe out to 3/16" and stiffened the rebound quite a bit. The next day Briget drove the car and came back reporting that it was fun and felt far better than before. She landed up 3rd in class.  I made no changes and went out for my runs late in the afternoon and was immediately impressed with how the car felt. The East course had a very different feel than the West course. There were places to get speed but there were some slow speed traps at the end of them. I would be able to get crazy speed through the transitions but would be going way too fast to make the tight turns at the end. In the end I landed up in 9th out of 18 cars but I still feel pretty good about it because the car is pretty good. I am making a list of changes that will make the car better.

Video of quickest run on East course

Side cam video of quickest run with data overlay