Me in John Vitamvas' STS/R RX-7 on the first day of the Toledo National Tour. (Photo by John Krolewicz)
By Pat Griffith
If you recall the article we did on John Vitamvas’ RX-7 last year, you may also recall that the car is still alive and well and proving to be a pretty capable car in STS. While it hasn’t been an overdog and Ian Baker may not have rotary nightmares, John and co-driver Greg Olsen have definitely made the car noticed* both in the D.C. Region and at national SCCA events.
[*Note: It’s been so noticed that John was able to sell almost all the go-fast parts from the car in, oh, about three weeks because he and Greg are abandoning the STS RX-7 project and moving onto an E46 BMW for D Street Prepared that’s already been built. But I had this article pretty much written before all that, so keep that in mind as you continue reading.]
The highlight of the year was John winning STS at the SCCA Pro Solo in New Jersey, holding on to a win by 0.016 over Ian, despite not picking up time on his runs Sunday morning.
(Don’t tell Ian, but I was rooting for John and Greg that weekend because I like to see oddball cars do well. Like Solo needs another class for Hondas to dominate?!)
For the SCCA National Tour July 4 weekend at Toledo (Ohio) Express Airport, I decided I wanted to go but didn’t want to pay for the gas and toll$ along the Pennsylvania and Ohio turpikes to tow my ESP Camaro out there. Looking for a ride, John mentioned that he had a seat open in his car, albeit in the pirate class – STR (Ess Tee Arrrrrrrrr!). Teen driving sensation Tom O’Bieber O’Gorman was already going to co-drive with him in STS. I figured I was just out to have some fun, and the car was completely different than anything I had ever driven, so I figured, why not?
My experience in the street tire classes has been limited over the past several years. I drove Ian’s CRX once at an Autocrossers, Inc., event at Ripken Stadium (so that tells you how long ago that was), and I drove my old Sentra SE-R a couple times in the rain the past few years. But my last rear-wheel-drive experience in Street Touring didn’t go well.
But I figured street-tire technology has advanced over the years that a lot of people claim they are on the same level of performance as early R-compound tires, maybe even on par with the old BFG R1s or even Kumho Victoracers.
So it shouldn’t be that bad right?
Right?
Well actually, it wasn’t that bad. When I got to Toledo on Friday morning, I opted to not do any runs on the practice course. I often do OK in unfamiliar cars just hopping in and driving them (well, except for the first time driving Keath and Donna Marx’s Super Stock Corvette Z06, which took me a month or so to get the hang of). Heck, the first time I sat in John’s car was Saturday morning in paddock to drive to grid. After getting a quick overview of the car from John, I headed to grid.
Well, not right away. The car wouldn’t start. “Keep trying,” John said. “It just does that.” There were a couple of “It just does that” remarks from him over the weekend. Marissa, John’s wife, said the initial conversation about buying the car involved John telling her the car only had reverse, “But he said, ‘I can fix that.’” She was hoping for a Porsche GT3.
Anyway, the car started on the second turn, and I was off to grid. STR was in the first heat, and I slotted in a grid full of cars where the oldest one – other than the RX-7 – was built in 2001, and most were models from the last five years. Mazda MX-5s and Honda S2000s.
For those of you who have never been to Toledo, the site is on an airport parking apron and is all flat concrete. There hasn’t been any resurfacing anywhere that I could see. Just a huge slab of smooth concrete. John said his impression of driving the car on the practice course, the brakes worked really well at the site.
One of the things he mentioned was that the car had no power. Well, let me rephrase that. It has 160 horsepower, but for a normally aspirated rotary, the torque band is low in the rpms and very flat. It is a 1.3-liter engine after all!
He said to launch the car at 5,000 rpms and just dump the clutch. On my first run, it just hooked up and left the line with no drama. I shifted to second and found out what John meant about lack of power. I eased into the throttle – being used to 350 ft-lbs of wheel/torque in my Camaro – and for a brief moment, I thought something was wrong. I made it to the first turn – a slow, sharp right-hander – the car rotated, and I mashed the throttle – no spinning of the rear tires — and tried to remember to do that as much as possible. I came in with a 54.7, which I guess wasn’t too hateful. I just tried to keep the back end under control, which wasn’t difficult at all.
There was a fairly fast section of the course with a chicane that led into a three-cone slalom that I thought to try and take it flat out on the second run. I made it through but overshot the entrance to the hard 90-degree turn after that. A little wiggle later, and I was into some offsets that led to what was basically a two-cone slalom, which was a little tricky because a tight hairpin turn was just after that, and you were on the brakes as you were turning the wheel. I carried too much speed into there, got on the brakes and spun the car about halfway around. I pushed in the clutch and revved the beerkeg to keep from stalling. I tried to turn around but there wasn’t a whole lot of room to do it, and I ended up running over a couple pointer cones while trying to make a quick escape. I forget what the time was, but it didn’t matter anyway.
Carrying a souvenir back to grid after my second run on Saturday. (Photo by John Krolewicz)
With “the edge” now defined in that section, I went out on my final run to try and improve on the 54.7. Everything was going great until I got to the hairpin where I spun the previous run. The car got out of shape, but I flailed on the steering wheel and managed to keep the nose pointed the right direction.
Heading into the finish, which was a prefaced by a tight 180-degree turn, I remembered John telling me I might be able to try first gear in some sections. So I decided to try it here. Which didn’t work as the RPMs went way up, and the rear tires spun hard for a brief moment. Shifted back up to second and got on the gas. The time was a 54.3, which was still a four-tenths improvement. I’m guessing with all the ham-fistedness on that run, I probably lost about a second or so.
I was 16th out of a 23-car field, so it wasn’t too bad. A couple people in front of me weren’t too far off, so I was hoping to move up on Sunday.
The temperatures on Saturday reached oppressive levels in the upper 90s and thick humidity. I was lucky in that regard to have run first heat, so it wasn’t bad early on. Then my work assignment was to announce during the third heat, which was in the comforts of one of the SCCA’s Ford pickups and air conditioning.
The course for the next day was almost exactly backwards from Saturday, the exception being the finish, which was a bit further back from where the start was the previous day. The weather was just a bit cooler than the day before with no threat of rain. I had more confidence because I knew what the car could do, and I walked the course trying to figure out if some “braking zones” could be taken with just a little lift instead of using the brakes. John was right that the brakes worked really well on the concrete. The car doesn’t have ABS, but I’m used to that with the Camaro and previously my Classic Sentra SE-R.
My first run Sunday was drama free, and the time was a 48.8. I got the impression that this time was much more competitive than yesterday – in the same neighborhood as some of the drivers near the bottom of the trophy ladder (which was all the way back to seventh place). My second run was another four tenths faster, and I figured something in the 47-second range was possible.
Sunday’s course started off heading into a sharp, left-handed 180 (where I botched the finish heading the opposite direction on my last run the previous day trying to downshift to first). I was lightly tapping the brakes to set up for the turn on my previous two runs, and, debriefing in grid, John asked if it could be taken with just a lift off the throttle – no brakes. I had nothing to lose, so I tried that on the third run, and it worked!
Next up was a three-cone slalom that exited into a sharp left-hand sweeper, and I tried a similar strategy there – lifting off the gas and not using the brakes. It pushed a bit on exit, but there was a lot of room there, so it seemed carrying the momentum was better.
However, this is where it got dicey. Because of that, I was now on a slightly different line and carrying a bit more speed to set up for a right-hand 180. The same turn I botched twice yesterday when I was entering it from the other direction. I didn’t get the car sideways or anything but didn’t get the car whoa’ed down enough, and it pushed badly on the exit. One of those where you’re off the throttle with the steering wheel cranked, and you’re waiting for the car to come back online. Luckily, I didn’t hit the cone that was looming off to my left. But I guessed that maneuver cost me a half second or so.
In the middle of the course was a right-handed turn that you had to give up some speed for, and I think I drove that section at the limit. Just grazed the brakes and was quickly on the gas, better than my first two runs through there. Did the rest of the course pretty well, and came in with a time two tenths slower than the 48.4 from my second run. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, but didn’t.
When results came out, it showed I had moved up from 16th to 14th overall. Then as we were standing around in impound, all the other classes had left already while all of STR was still sitting there. It turned out, another competitor noticed that somebody else’s first run from Sunday was on the timesheet as his fastest run from Saturday (remember, Sunday’s course was four to five seconds faster), and the results were being corrected. When those results came out, I had moved up another spot to 13th place!
I ended up with the ninth-fastest time in class on Sunday. Later in the day, Tom ran a 48.3 in the car in STS, and John had a 48.5. They co-drove in the same heat so were better off keeping heat in the Hankooks, so I was happy with my 48.4 as a solo driver in the first heat.
In impound both days, I had several competitors come up and ask me about the car. Most were in admiration, probably because it was an oddball car even sitting in the STS grid.
I hope John – and Greg – keep up with it and don’t just dump it to buy an already-sorted Street Prepared car that lifts a front wheel coming out of every turn.
(OK, I added that last line long after I finished writing this article.)
