Ted Cahall – Page 3 – Cahall Racing

Racing the Clock to be Ready for my First Race

Drat! Just when I thoughts I was in the running to complete preparations for my first real season of racing in the SCCA, I find I had some bad information on the requirements. It seems I may need a roll cage for the TCS T1 class that I plan to participate in. It was hard enough to buy seats that fit (that took three different sets through trial and error) and finally get them installed. Please note that both of the previous two sets stated that they fit the 2001 Corvette Z06. I guess they assumed you did not want to close your doors, roll up your windows, etc.

Roll cage! Now we are seriously drilling holes and welding stuff to the car. No more going back to selling this as a Corvette driven by a little old lady from Pasadena to go back and forth to church on Sundays. It will be clear this car had definitely seen some track time. Oh well, after GM goes out of business, maybe it will be a collector’s item.

Nothing like a little added stress towards maintaining that delicate “work / race balance” – especially with work being so calm and constant at AOL over the last few weeks. One of my cats is sick too – so it only makes sense that the racing hobby throws me a curve ball just to keep things all in perfect harmony.

Oh well, I know I can use this car (if not in the shop getting the roll cage) or my newer 2006 Z06 Corvette for the Saturday April 4th SCCA Performance Driving Event (PDX). I will also be OK testing out the new Ferraris and Lamborghinis with World Class Driving even if I cannot get this beast race ready. So at least the whole summer will not be a bust for going fast.

The trials and tribulations of the need for speed.

Ted Cahall

Installing Corbeau Seats in 2001 Z06 Corvette

While continuing my saga of preparing for my 2009 MARRS/SCCA season, I have completed another step of transforming my 2001 Z06 Corvette to meet the SCCA GCRs. I now actually have put the passenger side Corbeau Racing Seat into the car along with the fire extinguisher. While none of this applies to my future attempt to drive over 200 MPH, it is all required if I am going to race my own car this summer while attempting to maintain that precious “work / race” balance.

There were nine (9) basic steps to this procedure:

Remove the old seat
Attach the bracket to the new seat
Attach the safety harness connectors to the seat
Connect the harness under the seat
Install the seat into the car on the four bolts in the floor
Install the fire extinguisher on top of the front bolts
Install the “harness bar” between the seat bolt and the harness bar
Bolt down the four bolts
Connect the remaining harness belts

Please note that the “harness bar” that runs behind the seats for the top two belts of the 5 point belt was already installed for me at Tony’s Corvettes. Similarly, the harness connections down by the lap belt connectors was also installed there.

I decided to capture some of this work here in the blog with a few pictures. I was considering bottling some of the sweat as well just to show I actually do some of these things myself…

Step 1: Remove the old seat
I do not have any pictures of me removing the old seat. It was done long ago on the previous attempts of installing Sparco seats into the car. Below is a shot of the car without the seat in it. Note the four bolts sticking up from the floor. These are the bolts that the new seat will bolt down on. The fire extinguisher is attached to the two front bolts in this picture.

I do have a shot of the old seat next to the new seat before it went in though. This allows some comparison of height, width, etc.

Step 2: Attach the bracket to the new seat
I ordered two different brackets (driver and passenger) for the identical seats. The main difference between the brackets is a connector for the “inside” lap belt connector. Clearly the inside of the bracket is different for a driver or passenger seat (left or right). In this case “inside” means towards the middle of the car versus the lap belt connector out near the door. The bracket simply bolts onto the bottom of the seat with four bolts that come with the seat. Below is a picture of the seat after the bracket was bolted onto it.

Step 3: Attach the safety harness connector to the seat
The lapbelt and inside belt connector need to be attached to the seat. They can be seen on the side of the seat below. The new safety harness connector is the solid metal part and the block part is to the old lap belt.

Step 4: Connect the harness under the seat

The photo below shows the connector for the leg belts being connected to the interior side of the seat. This has to be done before you install the seat or you will never be able to connect it.

The result below shows that the leg belts are now sticking out of the middle of the seat. This is the main part of the 5-point harness system as it contains the buckle that all of the 4 other belts (2 shoulder, 2 waist) will connect into.

Step 5: Install the seat into the car on the four bolts in the floor

and Step 6: Install the fire extinguisher on top of the front bolts

and Step 7: Install the “harness bar” between the seat bolt and the harness bar

Bolting the system to the floor all happens at once. The seat is installed onto the bolts. The fire extinguisher is bolted to the front seat bolts and the harness bar support is connected between the outside rear seat bolt and the harness bar above the seats.

Step 8: Bolt down the four bolts

From there it is as simple as tightening the four bolts.

Step 9: Connect the remaining harness belts

This is as simple as taking the belts and attaching them to the connectors on the harness bar and the other connectors.

Finally! Sit down, buckle up, and hold on! Or at least pretend to since I am in the passenger seat and no one is driving.

Most of this was extremely straight forward – aside from the fact that the lapbelt connectors and harness bar were already done by Tony’s Corvettes.

Ted Cahall

Ted Cahall Breaks the 200MPH Barrier – soon…

In addition to preparing for the 2009 SCCA season, I also plan to take part in a couple of events put on by World Class Driving. It is all part of maintaining that “work / race” balance I referred to earlier.

The event that first caught my eye was through and ad in United Airline’s Hemispheres magazine. The title of the ad was, “Break the 200MPH Barrier!”. Their web site calls it, “World Class Driving XTREME“. It is held in Miami this year in April and December. I am registered for the April session.

Most people in their lives would never even want to do such a crazy thing as break the 200MPH barrier. For the remaining few that actually do think it sounds exhilarating, the possibility of a) owning a car that can do it, b) finding a place where you will not kill yourself, and c) remaining within the laws – is pretty small (if not zero).

The fastest car that I own is a 2006 Corvette Z06 which is “only” rated at 190+ MPH top speed. So that eliminates me pretty quickly from this club. Furthermore only a few highly skilled race drivers have the talent to take a capable car over 200MPH on a banked oval (go try it sometime if you think you are Mario Andretti). So, this relegates the average (or slightly above average) schmoe like me to trying this in a straight line. Even really fast production cars barely get above 130 MPH in a 1/4 mile dragstrip. So where can us “weekend warriors” have a chance of hitting 200MPH even if we could rent the proper beast?

Voila! Abandoned airstrips across the US should work nicely if you can get access. The one World Class Driving uses down in Miami is 11,000 feet (over 2 miles) long – plenty of room to make it to 200MPH and back down safely. Let all of the legal issues be part of World Class Driving’s responsibilities. That is a much better idea than sneaking a Lamborghini from a dealer “test drive” onto some abandoned airstrip! Although I must say I was very pleased that Lamborghini of Washington let me test drive one of their Gallardos – but that is a story for a different time.

According to their web site, for the XTREME program, we will be testing some of the following cars:

Ferrari 430 Scuderia

Lamborghini Gallardo LP560

Ferrari 599 GTB

Mercedes McLaren SLR

Lamborghini Super Leggera / Lamborghini Murcielago

It will be the first time for me in any of these cars – although the Super Leggera is just an improved model of the Gallardo that I mentioned above.

The other event I will be joining World Class Driving for will be their “normal” track event. These are held in several states around the country all year long. I plan on being over in Richmond, VA for the morning session in late May 2009. That series of events uses normal race tracks and features the following cars:

Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione

Audi R8

Ferrari F430

Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano

Ferrari Scuderia

Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560-4

Lamborghini Murcielago LP640

Maserati GranTurismo

Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren

Porsche 911 GT3 RS

The training specifies that you will get to try five of these cars throughout the day. Many of these cars are nice additions to the autos I will get to test in April down in Miami.

If anyone gets inspired to register for one of their events, please use my Ambassador Reference code: fa63280f. I think I get some bonus points or something if you do.

Here is a video of some of the cars making their 200MPH runs.

Ted Cahall

Maintaining that "work / race" balance

Some years have been easier to get out to the racetrack than others. As I prepare for the 2009 season with the SCCA, I began to realize this year might be a bit challenging. When I moved to AOL back in January of 2007, I had the best intentions of moving from Novice to Regional member in the SCCA. Somewhere between January and the end of the year my job took over… AOL asked me to add the Technologies division to my then current responsibilities and it was December before I knew it. So there were no trips to the racetrack for me in 2007.

While I did make it out to the racetrack at Summit Point twice, an AMG driving event in the Poconos, and the dragstrip once in 2008, I can see 2009 may begin to parallel 2007. This year started out with a bit of a bang as the head of the Products business unit moved on to be the digital head of Univision. Much of his responsibilities moved over to me. This week the head of our International division decided to leave the company and I was tapped to add the EU and Asia Search business to my US Search responsibilities. Additionally the EU publishing tech groups and 1,500 person Indian development center in Bangalore will now report to me. I started 2007 with a great trip to Bangalore and it now makes sense that I plan a trip there again in 2009 to spend some more time with the staff.

So it is time to break out the race schedules and coordinate the 19 hour flights to and from Bangalore along with some quality time with the folks there. Hopefully I can stop by and see the Search staff in Ireland as well on the way there. 38 hours of flights in one week – before you get any work done on the ground… That requires “work / race” balance.

Ted Cahall

Preparing for SCCA Racing in 2009

2009 should represent the next step for me in the SCCA Racing program. I am a member of the Washington DC Region of the SCCA and have my Novice Racing License. I obtained my Novice license after taking training up in Kent, WA at the ProFormance Racing School at Pacific Raceways. Other than a quick trip to the dragstrip, most of my recent race practice has been out of Summit Point Raceway in West Virginia.

To move on to my Regional license, I need to compete in two regional races in 2009. There is a series of races called MARRS (Mid-Atlantic Road Racing Series) that are held in the DC region each year.

I have modified my 2001 Z06 Corvette to comply with the SCCA GCR (General Competition Rules) and will compete in the Touring Category Specification (TCS) T1 class. This class allows mostly stock cars to compete with some safety upgrades such as: seats, harness, fire extinguisher, etc.

The main issue I have faced is getting good seats that will fit into my Z06 Corvette. I wanted to keep the stock belts in addition to adding in the required 5-point harness. This caused quite a bit of additional complexity due to the very tight space between the doors and the transmission hump. After a couple of expensive trips to Tony’s Corvettes in Gaithersburg, MD, I decided to attempt to complete the rest of the problem on my own.

After determining that the Sparco XL and standard Sparco seats are too wide, I have gone with a pair of Corbeau FX1 Pro seats. I have seen these in a couple of other Corvettes with the standard belts still installed. I will attempt to document this semi-arduous process as I undertake it. The seats have arrived as seen below.

Ted Cahall

Cecil County Dragway in my 2006 Z06

I finally have gotten around to putting a blog back up after my server was wiped out in the great Seattle windstorm of December 2006. Mostly the blog will cover my driving excursions in my Z06 Corvettes. My most recent outing was up in Maryland at the Cecil County Dragway. I was able to turn a 12.25 @ 120 mph with my 2006 Z06. I need to clean out my clutch fluid as the pedal stuck to the floor on my last (pathetic) run. Check out the photo gallery below the photo below. Click on any photo to start the gallery.

Ted Cahall

Infineon Raceway and my 2001 Z06 Corvette

Wednesday night at the races up at Infineon Raceway. Isn’t it great to live in the USA? Anyone with a license and mom’s station wagon can burn up the tires. For me it was 111 mph and 13.08 second quarter mile with street tires and my work clothes on. Kudos to Ross at work for actually dragging me away from the office!

Now I need to take my Harley Fatboy up there and see how the 96 ci motor I put in there runs. I doubt I am talented enough to go sub 13 seconds on it. Not even sure if a really good pilot could do it (but maybe I will ask John Strickland to run it once as he did a 12.25 on my old 1200 Sportster that I sold him)…

Hmmm… Now I am thinking of buying a “second” set of rims and tires so I can see if I am capable of running in the low 12 second range with my Z06. Some kids there were telling me about a super-charger I could bolt on to take myself to 450 hp. Or I could just wait for the 2006 Z06 to come out – rumor has it that it will be 500 hp out of the box… That sounds nice – an ’06 Z06…

– – – Note: – – –

This post was originally published on LiveJournal LiveJournal in March of 2005. In June of 2006 I did, in fact, purchase a 2006 Z06 Corvette with 505 HP.

Ted Cahall