2015 VSCDA At Blackhawk Farms, Post #2

This is the track and "'Murrican Urn" post.  Blackhawk is a very agreeable place at which to watch racing.  Or, for that matter, to drive.  I enjoyed my HSAX days there.  BFR is not that fast in a low-powered street car (Turn 5 is the only fast corner) or, for that matter, that demanding to learn.  I was once told that the Newman-Haas CART team tested at Blackhawk.  I can't imagine why, or what they got out of it.  A CART race car could barely get underway at Blackhawk, and it's not especially hard on brakes.  Maybe N-H used it for initial shake down of a new/rebuilt car.

Turn 2 and, in the far distance, Turn 1, viewed from the entry into Turn 3.  This is a fine viewing spot.  It looks like an ess
from this angle, but Turn 2 is actually a more-or-less "throwaway" straight.  The main goal is to late-apex Turn 3 while
getting the power down early.  Some racers drive Turn 1 aggressively with a conventional exit fully to driver's left on
exit.  Others late-apex Turn 1 and hold the car closer to the center of the track.  Either way, you want to be driver's
right at the exit of 2, with the car settled for an easy shot at driver's left at the entry to 3.

A March Super Vee enters Turn 3A with the exit of Old Turn 3 in the foreground.  3A is a sharp right dogleg that slows the
cars down considerably.  It was deemed necessary because the race cars previously had a considerable head of steam
coming out of 3 into the very fast Turn 4, which is next to a main paddock/spectator area.  The March in this pic
was, by far, the fastest car at BFR this weekend.  Only the GT-350 below came close to its lap times.

This Shelby Mustang GT 350 has a glorious sound, which I suspect comes from an 8-into-1 collector exhaust.  If the
course was momentarily quiet where I was, I could hear it all the way around Blackhawk's 2.0 miles.  It sounds like
it is revving twice as high as it really is.  The car is running wider tires than when I saw it two years ago, and the
relieved wheel wells weren't relieved quite enough: it was trailing tires smoke for 300 feet into Turn 1.

Nowhere near as fast as the car above, but still fun.  The glory days of Trans Am still pull my chain.

Above and below: the first Corvair Yenko Stinger I've seen in the flesh.  The owner told me it was not an original build,
but a retro-conversion by Yenko Chevrolet.  He broke the left front stub axle in practice, so he didn't get much track
time.  The intake manifold is a log, cast integral with the head.  Part of the Yenko conversion was to mount four
single-throat carbs linkaged to act like a 4-barrel carb with progressive secondaries.