I guess something we are starting to see is guys using only the floor pan and body for a particular car so that the full tube fram race car that they build is still legal for the class. That explains that all-CF bodied Lotus Europa that came out here a couple years ago.
This was prompted on the FLR list by discussion of the Lotus Esprit that ran in EM at divisionals last weekend. I guess the only thing that was actually from a Lotus Esprit was a couple of floor panels. The body was from a kit car. The engine was a Busch Grand National racing engine. It was running on tires from a Toyota Atlantic formula car. It finished within a couple hundredths of the nasty Fiat that runs locally in WNY and FLR. With a cone.
Probably the same reason ricers spend that kind of money putting a big ass turbo or bottle of nitrous in their cars to go roll racing in Syracuse.
That is an impressive buildup. The overall length looks shorter than the normal vette. and the bars front and aft bent to keep the body pushed out. I’ve never seen that. I think the Busch engine might be overkill though. How much does this beast weigh?
yea, but those same ricers car drive their cars to an from work.
does this car meet the requirements for some other form of racing, or is it just for solo2? if it was setup to move on to something else… then :tup:, but if it was just built for sunday drives in the parking lot… then it seems a little over the top.
You’d be surprised the kind of cars that get built just for Solo. Most Solo 2 cars can also compete in Hill Climb races (think of them as paved time trials up or downhill, similar to Pikes Peak). There is also a new Solo 1 class that started this year, that they can compete in. same concept as auto-x, except no cones. You make a fast lap around a road ciruit (like Watkins Glen for example).
Unfortunately, there are very few regions with roads to support hillclimbs. The closest one here is in Reading PA. At one time there were quite a few. I know in Cali, the virginia City Hill Climb use to be a big deal. Guys with fully built cars (like this), and exotic cars (RUF, F40s, F50 one year, every flavor of P-car, etc etc) would bomb up the hill. Those were exciting to watch.
CLIFFNOTES: Yes, they can compete in more than just auto-x. Whether the owner actually does is anybody’s guess
i was reading about solo1. sounds like a lot of fun, but i would def drive like a pussy… i would be totally afraid to run in to a wall.
not that any of that matters, i cant do shit with my busted ass tranny.
EM is actually a higher class than SM. There are very few restrictions on what can be done, although both EM and DM are intended to be mod classes for production-based cars. These one-off tube frame race cars seem a bit beyond the original intent of the rules.
Anyway, I would be willing to bet that the “Corvette” in the pics is built to meet the minimum weight requirements in EM (and probably uses ballast to get there), but I don’t have a rulebook handy to look up what that limit is.
Hrmm… that looks something that belongs on a track rather than autox… it seems like itd spin the wheels too much @ autox… i bet that thing is a oversteer nightmare around the cones :eek:
pretty crazy