Urge to kill fading... fading... fading... OR Racecar PIX MeGaPoST!!!!!!

The rage is all gone. I'm looking forward to seeing the Batman movie at home on blu-ray someday, despite what I said yesterday. I'm sure I'll like it a little better next time now that I know it ain't king shit of fuck mountain. Axl Rose remains and always shall be king shit of fuck mountain. So disregard yesterdays rant except for that part.
Moving on...
You may recall (but most likely not) that I have been trying to go to this race team's shop here in Gävle to check out some of the new cars they have acquired since I was there last summer. In the last year their team has branched out from the guy I know and his brother plus one mechanic into like 4 more mechanics/techs plus a team captain, Stanley Dickens, a Swedish racecar driver AND the great-great-grandson of THE Charles Dickens. So they have expanded a lot I'd say. Anyway, I took Thursday and Friday off work which finally allowed our schedules to match up enough for me to make a quick visit to the shop on Thursday night. It was tiiiiiight. Not sure where to really start, I guess I'll kind of caption the pictures:

I don't think they had this one last time. Porsche Carrera Cup car. You buy these as you see above directly from Porsche for a race series specifically for these cars. They build these at the Porsche factory on the same assembly line as regular street Porsches I believe. These babies are all stripped out and have some bespoke carbon fiber work on the wheel arches and aero bits. Also has a standard roll cage. The engine is race tuned too, natch. Non-turbo. I believe Claes said they got this one from some team that was racing it in some FIA series, but I could be wrong about that. Also raced in the 24 hours of Le Mans a couple times.


My favorite part of this car, since it shares a lot with street cars, it actually uses a regular ass key, which you can see up there complete w/ Porsche keychain in the standard Porsche left-of-the-steering-wheel style orientation. I think this was a '96 model year car. Real pretty, Claes says it sounds amazing too. Unfortunately he didn't start any of them up this time : /


A view of the shop from the front door. It's in this inconspicuous warehouse out by the ocean. In the background on the lift is the 2006 GT3 RSR they were racing in their series the past few years. It's a real looker too, they started it up last time I was there. It sounds mean as hell. Porsche also, obv, from the shape.
The underside of it. Some pretty header work there. Anti-roll bar. The blog won't let me upload these in their original resolution so it's gonna be blurry, sorry.
The Porsche Lola. They had just bought this last time I was there. It wasn't looking NEARLY this good then. They fixed it all up like brand new. Here she was back in her glory days: http://www.championracing.net/2006/History/Porsche_Lola.htm
I recommend taking a peep if you like what you see in the pic. They bought it off some guy in England who bought it from the team I think. Oh, Lola is a specialty racecar manufacturer, http://www.lolacars.com/
which is why it's in the name along with Porsche. Lola made the car and it was powered by Porsche I believe. Claes said he had planned to take this thing out and see what she could do but when they were finished refurbishing it it was just too pretty to play with.
It is spectacular looking. All carbon fiber, a real racecar.

And here's the beast itself. I believe it's chassis 015R, previously raced by Graham Nash Motorsport. I'm not sure how I know that, I think Claes mentioned something in an email and I googled it. Saleen S7R. I don't think they have hardly touched this since they got it. No idea what the plans for it are. I was a little too star-struck to ask all the questions I wanted to about all the cars. And I was only there for about 45 minutes.


Cockpit. Thing had some sick gull-wing door action going on.


Engine bay, and rear. Brand new exhaust, whoever they bought this from was planning on racing it in some Nordic series, which had noise requirements. Really slick car. It was much bigger than I had expected. The street S7's look much smaller in pictures. The front is small, but the ass-end is mammoth.
On to the car they are currently campaigning:

Can ya make out what it says on the carbon intake plenum? Yes indeedy, it is an honest to god REAL Pratt & Miller C5R. Serial #011, the last example before the jump to the C6Rs that I had the privilege of watching race as a guest of Pratt & Miller at the 2007 Grand Prix of Houston. Meaning we were in the pits 2 feet from the cars. I think I've told this story on here before. Anyway, it was freaking sweet... But back to this car...
If you can see in the first pic of the engine bay, the big orange tubes that lead into tiny silver aluminum intake restrictors? Yah the orange tube is supposed to be the amount of air going into the engine, and the weeny assed restrictor is what they have to run in addition to like 200 lbs of ballast or so for them to stay competitive. I think he said they are down to about 580 HP or so. The Oreca Vipers they race against have like 800 HP and are lighter. So in summary, the C5R has to be much less powerful AND heavier in order to stay competitive. Because it is that freaking awesome in "stock" form. I know it barely makes sense, it seems like this thing should be getting spanked by cars that are lighter and more powerful, I mean that's just physics, but it is so well designed, put together, and cutting edge compared to the other cars in the series it has to be seriously handicapped. Another thing about this car that blew my mind. Claes says parts are much cheaper than for any of the Porsches they have owned. That also makes no sense, There's millions of Porsches out there and like, well, 12 of these. And yet Pratt & Miller supplies parts for "reasonable" amounts of money. Unfreakingbelievable. It was super-duper awesome to see this thing. Claes loves it. I can see why.
Well, as I wrote in a previous post, I had mentioned in an email to Claes that I would love to volunteer around the shop or at races or something. Didn't think much would come of it, and he never acknowledged it in any emails, but when I was about to leave we started chatting a little, and long story short he said he would give me a call sometime to help out at a race or something. They weren't sure when they next one was because apparently the races have been called on-off repeatedly, but probably in September. So, more pics and exciting megaposts to come!