Yeah, that was a soggy one. I wanted to get there for the Porsche GT3 cup race, but couldn't drag my sorry behind out of bed at 6:15 to get there in time. I did catch the Formula Mazda and Indy Lights races. The FM race was pretty good, the Indy Lights one was dominated by one driver at the front, but there was some good racing midpack. On the little bit of Indycar race that there was, Josef Newgarden was the class of the field, but there was plenty of action going on behind the first three.
Also, the Barber Museum is getting a new neighbor, the
Southern Museum of Flight is moving.
It's not actually a Pinto motor, it's a 1.6 liter Ford Kent engine from the English Cortina GT. They use the same block, but the pistons, cylinder head, and intake are different. It's actually a pretty nice racing motor, pushrod with iron block and heads, which is not surprising considering when it was designed. After an engine builder breathed on it, it was good for 112-115 hp, which is plenty for a car that weighs 930 lbs. A Formula Ford was, at the time, the lowest priced pure racing chassis you could get, and having that reliable lump a motor made the class wildly popular from the late 60's through the mid 80's. It's still going as Formula F, in the U. S. you can still use a Kent motor or a 1.5 liter Honda.
I had one, a Van Diemen RF84:
The "RF" stood for Ralph Firman, who was the principal of Van Diemen and the car's designer, but it could very well have stood for "really fun", because it was. The car is made of a simple tube frame chassis with removable bodywork, so it's easy to get at everything, but since it's purpose built to be a race car, it doesn't require much maintenance. The engine was easy too, you took the head off every other race weekend and lapped the valves, and being a pushrod engine, you just put the head back on, no need to fuss with valve timing. Every other year, I'd send the engine out for freshening. It never let me down. Again, pure race chassis, steering was half a turn lock to lock, great brakes, great suspension, and really light. There's no substitute for low mass when it comes to driving enjoyment. Plus, it was super consistent lap after lap. Being open cockpit, the visibility is unlimited, and since you can see the wheels, you can get incredibly close to the car in front of you, and because of the consistency, you can do it lap after lap. There was I guy I raced against, who had an RF83, and we used go through turn 12 at Road Atlanta
overlapping each other, and never touched.
To each his own, but IMO, you missed out.
