Tonight at New Egypt...... - NJFBOA - Home of New Jersey's Camaros and Firebirds

NJSPEEDER · 05-29-2005, 12:50 AM

it was sort of a mixed night.
The Good News:
Randy Yaple won his first ever rookie feature!!!! the car carrying the njfboa on the door brought home his first feature win with an inside move coming off teh second turn on teh 5th lap of the 8 lapper.
he made his move from the drop of the green flag moving from his 9th starting spot up to 6th in only 1 lap. after that a few good breaks and a few slick moves he got into the fight for the lead. since caution laps don't count and there is no racing back to the yellow(as soon as the yellow comes out the revert back to the order of the last completed lap) he actually ended up making the pass for the lead 3 times before it counted.
the win in the rookie feature moved randy into the regular feature to run against all the regular sportsman competitors.
The Bad News:
the rookie win lets you start DEAD LAST in the main feature. this normally wouldn't be a problem, but teh person starting directly in front of randy was a complete smacker who made it into the feature through a b-main with a lot of dumb luck.
the driver of teh other car was all over the place, the end result was a lot of damage to randy's car. basically randy got a good drive off turn 4 and went to the high side down teh front stretch. about the time randy got his front tire fully along the other car teh guy decides he needs to be in the high line.
the important thing to understand here is that the right rear of these cars stick way out and the front tires don't have any protection around them. the result of the sudden lane change was tire to tire contact. randy's left front climbed teh right rear of dumbasses car and put the front of randy's car about 4ft in the air. when the front came down randy spun and stalled the car bringing out the caution.
although the landing was less than graceful but it looked like nothing was wrong at first. that is until they threw the green again and randy got back to full throttle. al of a sudden teh car lost drive and came to a top on teh back strech.
the landing must have tweaked things around adn broke the driveshaft, u-joint, rear input, pick arms, after catching air the torsion bars are junk, prolly the jack shaft inside the rear(it's a quick change) and god knows what else.

the 17b with ej harrington had a much less eventful evening. the car wasn't really right for the track at any time and he ran pretty much in the middle of the pack all night. he was quick enough to make it into the feature where he finished 13th after starting 19th.

hopefully we can get randy's car completely apart tomorrow and figure out everything that is damaged. hopefully it won't be as bad as it initially looked and we can get it all back together for next weekend.

later
tim

Tru2Chevy · 05-29-2005, 11:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by www.newegyptspeedway.net

There was a new face in the winner's circle in the Advantage Financial/Cradle Rock Developers Rookie Sportsman series. Randy Yaple, 21, of Ewing, NJ, took his very first checker, with Pat Wall, current series point leader Dan Cucinotta, Clay Butler and Ben Donaruma trailing.

Great Job Randy!

- Justin

NJSPEEDER · 05-29-2005, 10:56 PM

just got home from about 4hours of helping out randy at the shop. teh bad news has turned into much worse news than we thought.
looks like the damage comes to somewhere around $1500 worth of parts. basically the whole right rear suspension is completely f'ed up.
the landing from his flight was hard enough that it pulled a 9/16th bolt clean through a 3/4inch thick piece of billet aluminun.
looks like there are gonna be a bunch of late nights to try to get it back together for saturday.
the time frame just became double important since last nights win threw him into teh thick of teh points race.
hopefully there won't be any more surprises and everything will go back together smoothly wednesday when new parts get in.

later
tim

j0n · 05-30-2005, 10:07 AM

i gotta come and watch one of these races...they seem real exciting!

NJSPEEDER · 05-31-2005, 12:10 AM

i just got home from teh shop again. another night of minor progress. everything is apart and everything is ready to go to lawrence engineering tomorrow to get replaced/fixed.
the list of parts is long and distinguished. everything from a small bolt to a tranny rebuild.
hopefully most of teh parts will be instock and the work that needs to be done can be taken care of quickly so the car can be put back together in time to be properly reset for saturday night.

later
tim

Untamed · 05-31-2005, 10:50 AM

I was contemplating the cost of such a "hobby". Who / how many prople or groups sponsor his ride?

I thought paintball was an expensive hobby till I jumped into restoring cars. Racing? Sounds like there is a rebuild / replacement every week, and this isnt even a professional circuit(?).

Tru2Chevy · 05-31-2005, 01:06 PM

I don't know the exact number, but Randy's car is somewhat well sponsered for a Rookie. Our name is on the side of the car

Some sponsors have given him money, while others have bought him tires and other parts. The majority of the cost comes from his wallet though.

http://www.southjerseydirtracing.com...eview20054.htm

The first two pictures on this page are Randy's #99, the second two are EJ Harrington's #17B. These two share EJ's shop and help each other out with their cars.

- Justin

NJSPEEDER · 05-31-2005, 04:26 PM

to get started and not have complete junk you can figure on spending $10-15K. add to that your weekly expenses, gas @ $7 a gallon, oil change every 3-4 weeks(7quarts + filter is $30-35), tires every 3-4 week(around $130 each).
there are also some things that just become consumable over time. rods ends are about $7each and you will bend/break a few every week or two, bumpers, rub rails, body mounts, get shewed up all teh time(they are all little bolt on things, not a big deal but material costs over time). you will also need a battery charger(they don't run an alternator on smaller tracks liek new egypt), radious rods, spare front axle, ......lots of spares basically.
also don't forget to add in all the larger things you will break as you learn to drive teh car and avoid teh others who are learnign to drive in teh rookie class and you can see how it adds up.
randy saved for at least 1 full year before he even went car shopping. then he still had to get a motor, tires and as many spares as he coudl find deals on.

later
tim

Pampered-Z · 05-31-2005, 04:47 PM

Must have been the weekend. Buddy in NY crashed his car ( modified class? ) Not sure, I know it runs an alki injected alum. bigblock and no trans, car is direct drive, you have to push start it.

Anyway, over the winter is put 12Gs in to the new motor. Well Sunday he spun and backed into the wall in excess of 100+ MPH and hit a support so no saftey barrier!

He hit so hard the rear moved forward enough to push the crank out the front of the block! Even cracked the fire bottle, Other then the injectors and front wheels the rest of the car is totaled.

BUT, he will be fine. He got "the ride" to the hospital because he was knocked out from the impact, they say you can see the outline of the seat's rivets and supports outlined in bruises on his back. Did mess his lower left leg up. But not bad for what happened. Don't think he'll be able to afford to rebuild. Someone has the crash on video, I see if I can get a copy.

Tru2Chevy · 05-31-2005, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pampered-Z

Must have been the weekend. Buddy in NY crashed his car ( modified class? ) Not sure, I know it runs an alki injected alum. bigblock and no trans, car is direct drive, you have to push start it.

Anyway, over the winter is put 12Gs in to the new motor. Well Sunday he spun and backed into the wall in excess of 100+ MPH and hit a support so no saftey barrier!

He hit so hard the rear moved forward enough to push the crank out the front of the block! Even cracked the fire bottle, Other then the injectors and front wheels the rest of the car is totaled.

BUT, he will be fine. He got "the ride" to the hospital because he was knocked out from the impact, they say you can see the outline of the seat's rivets and supports outlined in bruises on his back. Did mess his lower left leg up. But not bad for what happened. Don't think he'll be able to afford to rebuild. Someone has the crash on video, I see if I can get a copy.

Ouch. That sounds like it would hurt. Most of the DIRT modifieds run gas big or small blocks and a hi/low trans, but he could be running a SuperModified, I know several tracks in upstate NY run that class. I dunno if they are direct drive or not though.

- Justin