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Capital Punishment in DC: Northeast Divisional Championship

Some drivers can do more with less. Co-founder Dave Corsaro is one of those drivers, having regularly dominated classes like HS in a street tire shroud Honda Fit, AS on a Toyo R888s, and STR in a stock sprung S2000. Despite his reputation for hamfisting the competition with under-prepared cars, Dave decided he was going to show the autox community what he could do behind the wheel of a "fully" prepared vehicle. His STR Honda S2000 was blessed with some air freighted coilover suspension from Japan's top performance parts manufacturer, HKS. Secondly, running the wrong rubber this year was out of the question. Dunlop made it easy for him to outfit his new 18x9 SSR wheels with the right treads (no pun intended).

A midnight-last-minute corner balance and alignment at Johnson Scale, in the great tradition of team Hamfist Racing, tied up all the loose ends. That weekend the car was rolling down I95 on it's competition rubber to make a run for the divisional championship in Washington DC. Needless to say, everything came together beautifully. By day one he had over 1.5 second lead. Day two was no different, sweeping a field of eight STR driver gunning for the championship. Dave Corsaro had won his first Divisional Championship, Congratulations! Next stop Nebraska.

2010 SCCA Northeast Division Solo Championship Results

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

VOTE: Hamfist RX7 for GRM Ultimate Track Car Challenge Invitation

Readers,

Please take a minute and rate my RX7 5 stars at CarDomain for Grassroots Motorsports Magazine Ultimate Track Car Challenge. To rate the car, please use the following link. After you go to the link, click "Rate this ride". http://www.cardomain.com/ride/3837402/1

I promise, if I get into the GRM UTCC, I will drive the wheels off the car. This car has been built for track performance and reliability (as much reliability as one can expect from a FD RX7). I've spent countless hours in the off season trying to tie up all its loose ends hoping to create a highly capable autox and track contender. The car may be set up fairly conservatively (by some standards), but I hamfist any car I get behind the wheel of and generally embarrass machinery that should be much faster with driving skill and budget mods.

Thanks!
Jake

Retrospect of 2009 Print Media Coverage for Hamfist Racing & It's Drivers

By: Jake

The 2009 race season has faded to just a fond memory by now. Many racers have retired to their man-caves to diligently tweak and tune their setups in preparation for the 2010 race season. HamfistRacing.com has been updated with a Retrospect of 2009 Print Media Coverage for Hamfist Racing & it's drivers. In this latest posting you will find magazine cuts of articles featuring autocross and time attack events from Grassroots Motorsports Magazine, DSport Magazine, Performance Auto & Sounds Magazine, 0-60 Magazine and Sports Car Magazine. Please enjoy these articles at your leisure. Happy New Year!

*Click on images to expand*

Grassroots Motorsports Magazine February 2010









Grassroots Motorsports Magazine December 2009









Performance Auto & Sound Magazine November 2009









DSport Magazine November 2009









Sports Car Magazine November 2009


















Grassroots Motorsports Magazine October 2009









0-60 Magazine Fall 2009










Sports Car Magazine October 2009









Sports Car Magazine September 2009

Hamfist Racing in Performance Auto & Sound Magazine

*Click on images to expand*

From The Lincoln Tunnel to Lincoln Nebraska

By: Jake

2009 ProSolo Finale: Lincoln, NE Sept 5th - 6th

The journey to Lincoln Nebraska started out with a circus of undercover NYPD officers swarming my vehicle within half a block of my apartment. I knew it was a bad idea to leave the exhaust dump and those damn Redline Time Attack decals on the car. There I was, sitting in a flashy, sticker ridden race car
--> with a matchbox spoiler on my trunk, surrounded by fifteen plain clothed undercover NYPD officers with shields dangling from their necks. The traffic stop was a hell of a spectacle for the hundreds of New York City passers-by.












NYPD Traffic Stop (Dramatization)

It was nearly an hour until they sent me on my way with a measly traffic violation (no massive drug bust here, sorry folks). I guess the undercover detectives were not very familiar with the practices of cutting traffic tickets. As it turned out, I allegedly honked my horn without any clear sign of danger. We were in Manhattan for Christ’s sake, who doesn’t honk their horn? That battle would have to wait for another day; I had a more important one waiting for me in Nebraska. It was peddle to the metal out of the Lincoln Tunnel on a mission to a new Lincoln.

Hamfist Racing Subaru Begging for Unwanted Attention

After about fifteen hours of driving I was in the middle of nowhere and getting restless. A quick glance at the GPS showed I was approaching the Mississippi River. If there was one thing I learned throughout the many years I was forced to take social studies in grade school, it’s that civilization cultivates around water. There was bound to be something along the river to do or see. I discovered downtown Moline, IL and in this city there was a hair salon... two actually. At that point I had grown an incredibly grizzly beard and a Jew-fro that rivaled Seth Rogen. I sat my ass down for a relaxing professional grooming - my first paid haircut in nearly 10 years - to take my mind off the fact that I still needed to drive another 12 hours. Despite being in Bumble-Guam, Illinois the two hair stylists were really cool. Without second guessing my directions – or mental state – they carved the mysterious pylon into my head.

Photo By : Danny Kao

Thanks Beth And David From DaVarah Salon For Making Me A Conehead Like Dan Aykroyd

Back on the road, I spent nearly half a day dodging oversize tractor trailers with one hand while the other was fingering the novel scalp terrain.

1300 Miles Worth Of Insecticide On The Street Driven Hamfist Racing STU Impreza

Upon arriving in Lincoln I could see the racers in attendance were the best of the best from the 2009 ProSolo series. A win in Lincoln, I realized, was going to take perfection. Expecting my Subaru to understeer on concrete, I decided several test and tune runs would be necessary to obtain that perfection. Since the car has non adjustable shocks I jacked up the rear pressure to astronomical levels in an attempt to induce oversteer. The concrete was too grippy for that trick, so I had to rely on alignment adjustments, which I have not played with all season, to get the car to rotate at corner entry. Corey Ridgick – driving the Bridgestone Mitsubishi Evolution in STU – helped decipher my rear toe adjusters, and Max Hayter – driving the ChaseCam/Fordhal Motorsports Subaru STi in STU – let me borrow his set of Longacre toe plates, to achieve a slight rear toe-out alignment, effectively dialing out the terminal understeer that plagued my car on concrete. Thanks guys!

2007 & 2009 ProSolo STU Champion Ridgick (left) and 2008 ProSolo STU Champion Max Hayter (right)

Day 1 of ProSolo competition started out well. On the left course I was chipping away at the clock with some solid runs and respectable times. On the right course, however, I felt off the mark having gone too deep into the braking zone after the far right slalom. Despite imperfection I was sitting behind Geoff Clark in second place going into the afternoon runs. In the afternoon it got hairy. I red lit after psyching myself out thinking I needed a solid improvement on the right course. With that red light still etched into my retinas I must have overlooked a wall of three slalom cones. Swinging around for what would be my last run of day one I shook off the cobwebs and yelled at myself to look ahead. With the announcer calling out all sorts of action at the top of STU, I tried my best to concentrate. On the right I pulled out a three tenths improvement moving me ahead of Clark, but it wasn’t enough. Both Ridgick and Hayter edged me out and I was sitting in third place, 0.517 seconds from first.

Hamfist Racing Subaru STI in all its impound glory

The spread to first was within reach but I knew Ridgick wasn’t going to give it up without a fight. Sure enough, on day 2 he improved by eight tenths. I simply needed to go faster… and I did, improving run after run with a near 6 tenths pick up on the left and almost a full second on the right! I stormed ahead of Ridgick and Hayter and ultimately secured my first ProSolo victory.

The win felt fantastic but at the same time bittersweet. All season I’ve been chasing one driver: Corey Ridgick. Every event I would get closer and closer to victory until I finally began to drive faster than him. The times I was faster, however, were always on one course out of two course events (National Tour or Prosolo format events). He would best me on the other course, by a greater margin, ultimately winning the event. I always “won the battle but lost the war.” This included finishes at DC ProSolo, Finger Lakes National Tour, Northeast Divisional Championship, and the Holbert Memorial.

The Provisional Hamfist Racing Win

After finally driving faster than Corey on both courses and securing the event win at the ProSolo Finale, Ridgick once again managed to edge me out and win the war. I finished 2nd place in the overall season points championship and Ridgick secured the 2009 ProSolo Season Championship. Congratulations!

Corey deserves the season championship. He was nearly perfect every second of every course of every event all season. That’s what it takes to win this game. I still wake up covered in sweat thinking about the 0.001 second differential from DC ProSolo and how things could have ended differently. I swear to the world, next year I will hamfist my way to perfection and to a ProSolo Championship. No more f’in What Ifs.

2009 ProSolo Season Finale Results
2009 ProSolo Championship Points Standing