Video: Hamfist Garage RX7 Teaser

GARAGE Edit Lighting Test from carlosfoxworthy on Vimeo.

Autocross Featured in Yahoo News!

 By: Jake

Autocross gets national news attention once this poor wife is taken for a ride sitting shotgun by her husband at a San Diego Region SCCA autocross. This video featured on the Yahoo.com homepage captures her horrified reactions. Watch he video of her ride along here: http://www.grindtv.com/action-sports/moto/post/autocross-ride-is-eye-popping-experience-for-passenger/

SoloMatters Features 2012 Devens National Tour & Hamfist Racing!

Video By: SoloMatters

By: Jake

The front right wheel lifts substantially around the 1:23 second mark in the video. The Hamfist Racing SSM Mazda RX7 finished 1st Place in class by over 5 seconds at this event!

2012 SCCA Devens National Tour Music Video - By: Steve Segius

Steve Segius made a great music video of the Devens National Tour event featuring the Hamfist Racing Mazda RX7! Enjoy.

SCCA Devens National Tour 2012 Music Video from Steve Seguis on Vimeo.

iPhone Data Acquisition - MotorsportsNE Autocross in HamfistRacing.com Mazda RX7

By: Jake

These videos were taken using the iPhone application, Harry's Lap Timer, on November 10th, 2011 at the Meadowlands autocross, hosted by MotorsportsNE. The Hamfist Racing Mazda RX-7 won top honors, as the Fastest-Time-of-Day, with a lap time of 60.705 (click here for the complete results). Harry's Lap Timer integrates racing data-acquisition through the iPhone hardware (GPS and accelerometer) and iPhone high definition video to allow for video-data-overlay. The program is not bad for a $19 application. After this first go-round with the program, it became clear the sampling rate was too low to provide any useful data for autocross application. It needed additional hardware support so an Emprum GPS module was ordered. The new unit will provide 5 hertz sampling rate. This will take five times as many data samples as the original iPhone GPS internals (1 hertz - illustrated in the below videos). Keep tuned to www.HamfistRacing.com for updates and reviews for the Emprum accessory GPS module and it's integration to the iPhone application, Harry's Lap Timer in 2012. Hopefully this program can become a new tuning (and driving) tool for the Hamfist Racing team.

Note: Video #2 has an accelerometer error (reading force of gravity after reorienting the phone)

Hamfist Racing @ Meadowlands Autox Footage

The first video comes to us compliments of John Torres of Import2Race.com. He did an excellent job capturing multiple angles on Corsaro's S2000 earlier this year, so I begged him to throw his camera rig and video skills my way. Thanks John! (note: the RX7 gets on 2 wheels at the 58 second mark!)

The second video is from PalsoMedia and includes myself, Yury, and certifiable hamfist, Chris Travis, in his stock black S2000.

-Jake

Historic STU DC ProSolo Video Uncovered -- Heart Wrenching Loss 0.001 seconds

By: Jake

It took about a year to recuperate from this heart wrenching loss at the 2009 DC ProSolo. Below are my STU runs from the fateful weekend. I walked away from that race 0.001 seconds from first place in class (the smallest measurable margin in the sport).

Wrench, Weigh, Race... 2010 SCCA Dixie National Tour

By: Jake

It was 4:30am, I was covered in garage grime from head to toe, and had a meeting for work in less than four hours. I had never felt better! The car was reassembled and the off-season improvements were complete. As an "e-mechanic", this was the longest project in which I had ever entrenched myself. It was rewarding to say the least.

The ambitious goal for 2010 was to build my RX7 for Super Street Mod (SSM) class from it's current state as an ASP car. The rules are very flexible in SSM, but my imagination and innovation is limited. I ended up simply improving on what I had, not yet going for the pre-requisite upgraded turbos and/or motor swaps.

My off-season goal was three fold; 1) Lower under-hood tempertures to optimize the factory turbos, 2) Lower overall mass towards SSM minimum weight 2500lbs, 3) Make it grip.

To address the temperature issues the car got a new thermostat, larger intercooler, custom insulated intake & intercooler piping and ducting, heat-wrapped 3" downpipe & midpipe, and a new OE radiator fan.

The car diet started with the rear end. A used Greddy titanium catback exhaust, weighing only 7 lbs, replaced the heavier Racing Beat Dual tips, saving approximately 20 lbs. '93 RX7's twenty gallon fuel tanks have notoriously weak baffles and mine broke late last season. To fix this issue a '95+ spec fuel tank, which has reinforced and re-engineered baffling, was installed. This enables the car to be run below a quarter tank without fuel starvation issues. Net fuel weight savings of approximately 60 lbs. To counter all the rear end lightening - and make room for the aforementioned intercooler - the mini Deka battery was relocated from the engine bay to the hatch directly over the rear axles.

Next on the agenda, make it stick so hard that the asphalt rips out of the ground it was laid over. What better place to start than with the tires? Second hand rubber in the form of 295/35/17 Hoosier A6s were snagged up off a corvette owner for a song. These black donuts were shoe horned onto a set of 17x9" wheels that I had laying around. Final fitment was made possible by 0-60 Magazine, thanks to a borrowed fender-roller out of their project car garage, also know as "The Gayrage".

The final stages of the "grip" improvements came from a corner balancing compliments of my '09 National Championship co-driver, and fellow hamfist, Dave Corsaro. The night before leaving for the 2010 Dixie National Tour we put the car on scales at his workplace, Johnson Scale. Not famous for their automotive application, Johnson Scale handles general weighing, force measurement, material testing, and scale inspection, calibration, service and scale rentals. Perhaps they just found a new market niche. By midnight we had the car at a perfect 50:50 cross weight, however not without incident. We spent about 2 hours adjusting perches and deciphering nonsensical corresponding weight changes. It wasn't until Dave scratched his head and murmured with deep concern "I should have been taking better notes" that helping hand Elena discovered our major blunder. The left-rear and right-rear scales were placed at the right-rear and left-rear corners, respectively...

To be continued...

Jake - 59.XXX - Run 1 Day 2 Dixie National Tour (Spin)


Jake - 59.XXX - Run 3 Day 2 Dixie National Tour