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Archive for the ‘F1000’ Category

And its FINALLY about that time!

May 12th, 2009

Finally the time has come to really get the Stohr on track for the first time this year. After a little bit of a false start two weekends ago when unfortunately work kept me from the track its time to get rolling and head down the Milwaukee Region SCCA National race at Blackhawk farms. Depending on weather I’ll be running the test day on Friday as I have never been to the track before and then heading out for quali at 8:45am on Saturday for the first of my two sessions. It’s been a long winter getting a lot of things sorted back out on the car after a crappy weekend at Autobahn last year but we’re ready to roll and I am looking forward to this weekend like no other. Got the new wing mounted, various body parts upgraded and ready to roll and hopefully have a lot better camera mount than last year so you don’t just see my melon wobbling around through the whole video. Videos, pictures and results to follow next Monday.

Cars, F1000, Racing, SCCA Club Racing, Stohr , ,

A little video from Autobahn last August

February 4th, 2009

Here is my video from what ended up being a very short race last year at Autobahn Country Club as I struggled around the track with what ended up being a broken a-arm. You know its never good when you show up and set your best time by over a second in the very first practice session and then have things go to hell in a hand basket and are never able to get back within a second of that time. In any regard this race capped off the season as I just got to busy at work to make anything after Autobahn. It was a fun track that I am going to miss going back to since the whole central division SCCA schedule revolves around Road America.

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F1000, Racing, SCCA Club Racing, Stohr , , ,

My 2009 Schedule

January 22nd, 2009

Finally got all the schedule figured out for this year and REALLY looking forward to getting the car back on track! Now that February is here its time to get the car ready (hope that gas that has been in there since August didn’t gum crap up) and need to get the new front wing and a-arm on the car. More as that unfolds here. I am going to be committed to updating this page at least twice a week from here until the season ends folks so keep checking back. :)

2009 Trackpedia Racing F1000 Schedule
3/28/2009 - St. Louis Gateway National - With Billy
5/2/2009 - HPT Double National
5/16/2009 - Blackhawk Farms National
5/31/2009 - Mid-America America National - With Billy
6/19/2009 - June Sprints Road America
7/24/2009 - Cat National
8/16/2009 - Mid-America National - With Billy
8/29/2009 - Kettle Moraine National

Should be a hell of busy year. As always I am sure I won’t make all the races with my travels for work and other junk but one can only hope. :)

Cars, F1000, Racing, SCCA Club Racing, Stohr , , , , , ,

A few on track videos for your enjoyment while I clean up the place

January 9th, 2009

Here are some of the videos from last summer posted on Youtube (I plan on using vimeo in the future just because its a little clearer for all the videos that I have seen) so you can check out what my first year of learning was like in the F1000. These are videos from the June Sprints and from the Cat National at Road America in June/July 2008. I’ll add an Autobahn video when I get a chance here to get it uploaded over the next few days.

Cat National
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June Sprints

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Cars, F1000, Racing, SCCA Club Racing, Stohr , , , ,

Reliving June since its 10 degrees here today.

November 20th, 2008

So since I promised updates on all the races over the summer I figured I would go in order starting with the biggest event of the year the June Sprints at Road America and shoot through August before I get to the winter projects and other miscellaneous ramblings over the winter here. :-)

So here we go recapping of one of the first times out running the F1000 after a ton of work from the guys helping me get it together.

First and foremost I gotta thank my friends and family for busting their asses all weekend with me chasing the car all over Wisconsin trying to get it close to working the way I wanted it too (finally figured out something by the race and actually had grip!) and all the FB guys I talked to for being awesome and helpful as all hell and most importantly coming out. A HUGE thanks to Jeff Dinges for helping me sort and work through issues with my car that I was battling all weekend dealing with temps in my car following the same path as Mike B’s as well as figuring out how to get the car balanced aero wise as it was tricky for a newbie and his team. Overall as i was heading to impound I was thinking “damn the weekend after the race felt not to shabby for the sixth race of the career and whopping second in the car.” Whole weekend was a fricking blast and really what racing is all about.

But the bad news is that both Kyle and I got bumped down to 5th and 6th respectively (behind all running cars at the end of the race) for having our rear wings be 4mm to wide. Yep thats right 4mm to wide. 95.4cm versus 95cm per the GCR. It was a kick in the nuts to end a hard weekend that had turned around massively and finally during the race. We had to sit in impound for fricking 2 hours waiting for a decision and that sort of drove the thorn deeper into my side as most of us had long tows home and needed to get on the road. After two hours we got informed we could pay a nice 100 dollars to appeal the decision (how the f can I possibly want to pay 100 bucks to argue with the fact that 95.4 > 95) and then go on to the SOM and appeal a crap ton of more times. What pisses me off most is that according to my crew they measured the wings after quali one and didn’t say a fricking word to us about it. It sure as **** didn’t change size in the time between then and the race for btoh Kyle and I. In the end both Kyle and I just accepted it and moved on. Hopefully karma returns the favor to us.

Thanks guys for all coming out and making the sprints a lot of fun. I know we all didnt have much time for hanging out and BSing but next year when we all have our cars sorted and are whipping up on the Atlantics like Coop and Kyle were we’ll look back and laugh.

More pictures here http://picasaweb.google.com/scca.june.sprints.2008.b/RoadAmericaSCCAJuneSprints2008

Me in the Stohr F1000 at Road America Turn 13 - 2008 June Sprints

Me in the Stohr F1000 at Road America Turn 13 - 2008 June Sprints

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A new season written at the end of it. :)

October 24th, 2008

So the short summer unfortunately here in the midwest is over way to quickly and I apologize greatly for not even updating my blog here once. I promise in the future (yes I knew I swore before) that I will make sure I keep this page dealing with my racing more updated. I also have a job related blog coming so I’ll have double the work to keep articles flowing up here. I wish I could just think it and the page would update…maybe someone should invent that.

I have spent a busy summer racing F1000 and working as well as spending time with my lovely family. What is F1000 you may ask? Well its basically the same car I burned up before except in open wheel flavor. Net is in the SCCA its called Formula B or FB and is an open wheel single seat race car powered by a motor cycle engine. If any of you out there have ridden a late model liter bike you know the power these babies put down and let me tell you its not that much slower in a 1000lb car.

Here’s some pictures of the new girl with more details about the races this summer that I ran in complete with videos coming over the next few days here.

F1000 in Turn 8 at Autobahn.  John Stecher Rochester Minnesota driver.

F1000 in Turn 8 at Autobahn. John Stecher Rochester Minnesota driver.

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