Mid Ohio Continental challenge Doran 370Z RC
 

It's officially Mid Ohio week for the Grand Am Conti Challenge series.
As some of you may know... Doran racing has been hard at work putting the 370z RC back together after the turn 1 incident at Barber back in March.
The car spent over a week on the frame rack getting back square... the new quarter panels... paint... and then back home to our stable.
The second part of this cars development went into full swing as work began on our own projects with the car.
The team has opted to go with the spec Bosch motorsports ecu... This meant a major project in engine harness ... changes to our chassis harness... and starting from absolute scratch on the engine mapping.
The swapping to this ecu will give the team a much more detailed engine map and better throttle response.
Along with this we have also now dry sumped the engine which should help in a couple areas and possibly another few ponies.
The biggest overhaul has been on the suspension where we have designed our own bushings through the entire car, new upper control arms (version 2) new front and rear sway bars with adjustable blades, and new rear control arms.
From all indications this will be a whole new car from what we had at Barber... Especially in the suspension department.
We move in Thursday am... And begin testing Thursday afternoon.
And so.....the journey begins.... again
Dwnshift

Dry sump? I'm in for pics on that....Can you show some? If not I understand. If you go dry sump do you run the cooler lines from the oil tank? Where did you fit the oil tank? Now that would be a cool kit to make for the Z masses, a dry sump oil kit using a CNC oil tank with fittings, super easy oil changes..My Aprilias and KTM bikes are dry sump.

Represent boys!

Eat 'em up! Wish I could come down for the race.

Good luck guys. :tup:

Made that race last year. Wish I could make it this year. :mad:

Let's do this......
;)
Dwnshift

Good luck guys. Show those damn mustangs and camaros how it's done.

Congratulations on pole position! Unbelievable. Wish I was there to watch.

:tup: yowza great job guys !

Link to pole article.....

Fast Buckeyes win poles for Mid-Ohio Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race

OMG!!! That's wild! Congrats to you and to Bryan! He is our local AX star turned big time racer! New car and new driver getting pole is just awesome! Not many people understand how hard that is to do in this series. You guys have my attention now! What did you do to make the car work so much better?

Thanks guys.... Still lots of work to do and tomorrow is a different day...bigger battle.
I thnk we have turned some heads...
Bryan did a great job in quali today...
The team has been busting tail trying bug suspension swings and we kept chopping wood every session.... And on old tires. We were hopeful that when we went to stickers it would wake it up a bit.
Again.... today was was goooooood day...
Let's do this
;)
Dwnshift

OMG!!! I'm so freakin' excited I could pee.
I didn't realize Bryan was driving for you guys. Me thinks he likes this track. 12th last fall and 1st this time. This is so awesome.

And to add to the mojo. I'm on my way to the beach and the hotel I booked is right across the street from a Nissan dealer!

Huge congrats on the pole. This is so cool and I wish I was there.

Last couple minutes, this ***** getting exciting!

Great result! Can't wait to see the race on the 17th!

Congrats on a good weekend result guys. Hopefully race pace continues to pick up!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Tell us the story? How did car run? Issues? Are you still outclassed power to weight wise?

Billy Johnson's a nice guy, he used to hang out on the S2000 forums dispensing suspension wisdom...

Hey there....
Crazy race... Lots of hard racing.
One thing is for sure... our cars weakness is short runs... the yellows didn't help.
This really goes to show our platform and chassis balance was pretty darn good for a slow track.
We had a slight hiccough in the beginning that sent us back in the field.
That put us in a bit of a hole that we had to do out of and fight through the field... Which is a lot tougher in this field with how stacked it is.
We made I up to p6 with about 20 minutes to go... An some hard battling w a mustang and myself... Whoops
That put us back to p9...
At the end we crossed the line p8 missing p7 by .02
We learned a lot this weekend ... turned some heads... And had a solid top 10 finish.
The car is in one piece and we can build from that.
HP ... Yes we are better but nobody can complain that we blowin by them on the straights. One thing we have is a solid platform and really good brakes.
We will continue to make strides and hopefully gain a little more umph before road America .
Cheers
Dwnshift
Ps the Rae should be on speedchannel next Saturday

I saw Bryan put you guys on pole, you must have been stoked.

Congrats on your first points paying finish!

Great job guys, just sad I couldn't make it to see in person.

I was at the race and I have to say you and Bryan raced the wheels off of that car.

Bryan held 3rd until an unfortunate pit stop put you guys back to 21st (I believe it was 21st). The pit stop kinda sucked, but it was nice to watch you then go from 21st to 8th in an hour... Making up 13 spots in that time leads me to believe that car (and drivers) are running pretty solid.

I hope you and Bryan are starting to practice your interview skills for all of the podium finishes you have in your near future. :happydance:

Holding my breath and hoping for that story at the end of the season about how a lone 370z that didn't even run all the races was able to win the championship. :excited:

Thanks guys n gals...
Like I said... Having a race under our belts.. A competitive one at that.. And taking it home for a week in one piece... is huge for this program.
We have a good stretch coming up with back to bak race weekends (road America and Watkins Glenn) and then a 2 day test a Indy.
We have something here for sure....
;)
Dwnshift

Just and FYI the Mid Ohio race is on Speed channel today at noon EST.
Dwnshift

I watched mowt of it. You guys did well. :tup:

I saw the race on speed today. Great job out there! That was some very hard racing and the Fords, Chevy’s and Porches’ showed no reluctance to use a fender to make space for a pass.

I loved the way you stalked the Aston a car length behind waiting for the time to pass.

Also, great move at the end going inside of three (or was it four) cars battling for position to steal a position.

Way to represent Nissan and the 370Z.

Thanks again.... leaving tmrw for Road America with a test day on Wednesday.
We may have some new power ...... But we shall see.
Dwnshift

Good luck!!!

Good luck!

damn! i missed watching this on TV :facepalm: oh well, glad y'all had a good event! i'll see you guys in august :woot:

It will probably show up online, check out piranha in a couple of days.

why did one of the announcers call the bold move on the mustang "lame" ... did I miss something or hear it wrong ?

The announcers suck, it's just that simple. IMHO when it comes to Grand-Am if it's not porsche, camaro, mustang, or bmw the announcers don't care.

I wasn't listening to them, being hearing impaired pretty badly I always have the sound on my TV turned off and just watch the CC words, but sometimes the words are not always what was said LOL ... they only showed the one replay and I didn't see anything that would be considered "lame" so wasn't sure as I am not a race car driver ... I just thought it was two guys wanting the same real estate and there eventually was only room for one car.

Calvin said it was a bit of a LATE move. What the coverage didn't show is us leavin the corner before where the Mustang got sideways and in the middle of the track ... I came over the hill on his outside ... And he comes back over running me
wide all the way through Thunder Valley leading into that turn. He then quickly moves back over to the normal line at the last minute ... We were both already committed
And it was too late...
Was I an angel.... No
Could I have backed off and let him go.... Probably
But with 10 minutes left... Our battle is fighting cars with more torque and hp and crappy tire wear....his tires were shot an he was lossing positions.
If I waited...it woulda took me another 1-2 laps to get a chance to get around.
Gotta fight for every inch of pavement and I hate blocking.
Ive been on the other end of that battle to many times.
Is what it was.... Hard racing with minutes to go.
Neeeeeeext

well that makes more sense than LAME ... as I mentioned sometimes the peeps that type in that CC stuff type some weird stuff ... lotta typos etc.

Good for you! Thats what any good racer would have done. You get the reputation of somone who gives up and other drivers will walk all over you. Id rather have reputation as the guy who holds position and fights for every advantage than guy who is nice.

If anyone missed the race and would like to download it, PM me for the private torrent link.

Ps....the mustang incident got reviewed by the officials and was brought up in our Road America drivers meeting......basically ....if you drive like an A hole...sometimes you have it coming.
SPOILER ALERT.....
Although it wont ve in the showing of the Road America broadcast...the same mustang beats up john edwards right in front of me in canaa corner on the last lap..watkins glenn should be fuuuun!