F500 teardown and DQ at Moroso

I think most of you have already seen this, but for those who havent....

Julie Cook sent this out eariler today. I'm forwarding it here for the
benefit of those of you who didn't get it. 

--- Included message from Julie Cook ---

Moroso Raceway - West Palm Beach, FL
January 12, 1997

I have learned from several sources that Sven Pruitt attended the National
race at Mororso in West Palm Beach, Fl. He participated in a teardown of
the top four finishers in the race. Jim Elder was disqualified from his
second place finish for having a 'balanced crankshaft'. Apparently the top
four finishers were required to pull a cylinder and Sven inspected the
lower end using a magnifying glass. Any crankshaft with tooling marks or
added metal were deemed illegal.

Jim Elder told me that he had sent his engine to 2-Stroke International
(2SI - formerly AMW) to be rebuilt because of a bad crankshaft. This is the
same engine that has been found illegal.

After the 1996 Run-Offs, 2SI sent a request to the SCCA Comp Board asking
for approval of a number of items, including permission for competitors to
be allowed to have the crankshaft balanced either by 2SI or an outside
shop. This request was denied by the SCCA Comp Board

I will contact Sven and 2SI in the next day or two for comments and post
them here.

Re: F500 teardown and DQ at Moroso

It is my firm beleive that the scca is out to get  AMW   and  we, the
drivers  are going to pay the price . If you run  an AMW  you must run
another year  with built in vibracions or go spend $3000,00 plus to
upgrade to a Rotax . The rotax people seem to know how to get on scca's
good side.   

Re: F500 teardown and DQ at Moroso

 Ademir Fedumenti <Ademir@...> writes:
>
> It is my firm beleive that the scca is out to get  AMW   and  we, the
> drivers  are going to pay the price . If you run  an AMW  you must run
> another year  with built in vibracions or go spend $3000,00 plus to
> upgrade to a Rotax . The rotax people seem to know how to get on scca's
> good side.   

You know Ademir, I'm inclined to agree with you. Except that I don't think
it's SCCA, but one or two individuals that have it out for AMW. I really
wish they would quit yanking AMW's chain. It's us F500 competitors that are
getting the short end, not AMW.

I'm afraid that if this sort of harassment keeps up, AMW may just decide
that it's not worth the trouble to continue to support SCCA racing. It
would be a shame to loose tham as a supplier. 

--------------------------------------
Eric D. Christensen - Web Janitor - Remedy Corporation 
Email: edc@...    Phone: (415)903-5244    FAX: (415)903-9001
Oznog Motorsports - SCCA Formula 440  http://www.oznog.com  
"You can educate ignorant, but you can't fix stupid!"

Re: F500 teardown and DQ at Moroso

Hi. This morning I spoke with Howell at amw who told me that the scca
had the sample of the machine work needed for approval of the balanced
cranks. I then called scca and spoke at lenght with Jim L. at the tech
line, after  listening to  me vent my frustations  he told me that the
crank sent to scca was from another amw engine and was only a sample of
the machining to be done. He then told me that if amw sent them the
proper part ( a machined and balanced crank from a f500 engine) he is
sure  that the comp board would accept their recomendation for approval
by the FEBRUARY  comp board meeting. We , amw owners, MUST work together
to defend our vested interests with the scca, if only 2 or 3  people do
all the lobying with scca we might  be percieved as trouble makers and
could suffer the consequences. Let's get more people involved, let's
stop complaining among ourselves and get on the phone and WRITE to the
scca. Thank you all for your attention (as you can see I am still
venting) Good racing    

Winter National at Moroso

     The following message was sent out to Jim Elder today to use in
his appeal. 

January 14, 1996

To Whom it may concern;

This is in reference to service work performed for Jim Elder on his
AMW 500R2C Formula 500 engine.  This past December, Mr. Elder shipped
only the crankshaft assembly to our service department for a routine
maintenance overhaul.  Overhaul included replacement of connecting
rods, rod bearings and crank pins.  All components replaced were
manufacturer original equipment parts, in full compliance with SCCA
specifications.  This process also involved disassembly and reassembly
of the press-fit components, and the straightening of the crankshaft.

Through information circulated by our company to F-500 engine owners,
Mr. Elder was aware that we were working on improving engine
reliability through more precision in balancing crankshafts.  He was
also aware that, as early as October, 1996, we had submitted a formal
proposal to the SCCA competition Board requesting approval of the
crankshaft balancing process.  Details on this process have been
provided to the SCCA Technical Staff, and to members of the
Competition Board.  Based on the fact that the crankshaft overhaul was
a major operation, and a considerable expense in preparing his engine
for the 1997 season, Mr. Elder made the decision to have the
crankshaft balanced while it was apart for the other work.

It was our hope, and probably that of Mr. Elder and other F-500

[Fwd: Winter National at Moroso]

The attached is the message I received from Pat Cronan from 2SI
regarding Jim Elder's disqualification. I will post this letter, in
full, on my web page, but thought everyone might like to read it in
advance.

-- 
Julie Cook
Fine Line Racing
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~jcook03/flr.html

"There are only three true sports -- bullfighting, mountain climbing 
and motor racing. The rest are merely games."
                    -Ernest Hemingway

Julie,
     The following message was sent out to Jim Elder today to use in
his appeal.  You may post all or any part of this message on your Web
page. This is all we have to say on this subject at this time.

January 14, 1996

To Whom it may concern;

WOW!!!!

Folks,

Thanks to all of you for subscribing to the F500 list! We already have
almost 20 subscribers in just over 24 hours since I announced the list. I
think we already have a forum that will be a powerful resource for all of
us. We have several National and Regional drivers, a couple F500 mechanics,
car builders KBS Engineering and QRE Racing, and engine builder 2 Stroke
International (AMW) on the list. Great!!!!! I'm excited about the
possibilities!

FYI - I've removed the restriction that requires you to be subscribed to
the list to post to it. There seems to be some problem with the list server
software and this wasn't working correctly. I'll investigate and see if I
can get it fixed. 

Also, the web archive of the list at www.oznog.com is a little clunky, I
know. I'm working on it. It will get better. In the mean time, please be
patient with the somewhat awkward organization of message in the index.

I'm hopefully off to Phoenix for the Double National tomorrow if the
weather cooperates. I may actually have trouble getting there due to SNOW!
See, even us Californians sometime have to deal with bad weather.  

Cheers-
------------------
Eric D. Christensen  
Oznog Motorsports - Formula 500
Email: edc@...
WWW: http://www.oznog.com

Brake pads

Last night I was packing parts in the trailer for Phoenix (which it turns
out I'm not going to go to after all.... long story), and I noticed that my
supply of brake pads is getting awfully low. Time to stock up again.

The question I've got is this....

I've been running the Hawk pads for the past 3 years. I've been fairly
happy with them, aside from the wear rate being a little higher than
normal. But I've been hearing very good things about the wilwood Polymatix
pads as well. Anyone run them? Comments?
Any other pads that you've run that you like or dislike? 

Thanks!
--------------------------------------
Eric D. Christensen - Web Janitor - Remedy Corporation 
Email: edc@...    Phone: (415)903-5244    FAX: (415)903-9001
Oznog Motorsports - SCCA Formula 440  http://www.oznog.com  
"You can educate ignorant, but you can't fix stupid!"

KBS MKVII for Sale

I'll be posting these cars to my Web Page (actually one is already
posted) however, I thought I'd go ahead and get the information out now.
It's late and I'm working on a web page project for work so I won't have
time to update my own page.

One of the cars has been on my web page, the difference is that we are
now willing to sell these cars as rollers. I don't know how many of you
are running into trouble selling cars with AMW but we haven't been able
to. Actually, most people seem to be waiting to see what's going to
happen. I even got into a nasty e-mail throwing contest with someone who
wanted to tell me that I was supporting AMW just because we wanted to
unload all our AMW stock (anyone who knows us knows this is a joke). 
Anyhow, we'd like to sell these two MK VII this year if possible, so
we're willing to sell them without the AMW and we'll just have the
engines in stock. Anyone interested in buying a used AMW may want to get
in touch with us, afterall, we don't really need three spare engines per
car :).

We have one KBS MKVII for sale now (the car Rusty drove during the first
of 1996). This car has somewhere around 35 races on it. Rusty won 6
races, finished 2nd in 3 (out of 10 starts); took 6 poles and set 5
track records in 1996 with this car. We're asking $10,500 for the car
complete and $8,500 as a roller.

The second car will be available sometime in the late winter/early
spring. We have a MK VIII on order and as soon as it comes in the VII
will be available. This car will be the best value of the year, I assure
you! This is the car Jack Walbran is currently using as a back-up car
and it spends it's life riding around in the trailer. It has less than
30 races on it. The car is in immaculate condition. We're asking $11,500

Looking for good starter car

I'm looking for a good starter car.  Some for school, auto-x and enough racing
to get me experience, not wins (but I'll take those .

I've seen several cars listed in Sports Car in the $4K range, which is a nice
number at this time.  Any comments on the cars in general (Red Devil, Dolphin,
Z-19) or specific offerings?

And where are people storing their cars?  A two car garage with two cars in it
already won't work, and deed restrictions keep me from building a shed.

Thanks

--

-- 
dillon pyron
dillon.pyron@...

PADI OWSI-54909    USPSA TY-26031
The next time an extradimensional being asks you if you are a god,
say yes.