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How anyone could logically put these two cars in the same class is beyond me.
Members of the STAC have said openly that they don't really care about Pony cars/Mustangs, and that they think this request to move the S197 from STX to STU is pointless, but at least they have agreed to it so far. Your volume of letters could not be ignored. The STAC now actually seems more concerned with adding a virtually-never-raced, low production two seat Corvette (
non-Z06 C5 Corvettes, to be exact) into STU than helping the much more common S197 Mustangs and Pony Cars be competitive in their new class. They sit around and compare thrust vector calculations rather than using any logic or common sense about vehicle choice. Just... ignore the whole Corvette-to-STU thing, it will blow up in their faces. Please write a letter opposing it, of course. I feel that if more Mustang folks just show up and run STU, then they can't ignore these cars forever.
Mark's fifth run in STU was his fastest and good enough for second out of four in the class.
Big thanks to Mark C. for the co-drive, and to the folks in STU at this event for being cool with Mark running in the class "a bit earlier" than the planned class move (2014-ish), hence the STU* class marking in the video description above. Mark drove his tail off and took second place out of four in the class, but I don't think traditional STU racers across the nation are too worried about these heavy metal pony cars moving into the top ST class. The 3500-3600 pound V8 S197s will need some help (more tire and/or extra allowances) if they are to ever trophy at the National level against 3000 pound AWD cars making 350+ whp. After having prepped and raced in several AWD turbo Subarus and EVOs as well as E36 M3s in STU, I know it is a rough road ahead - but at least the car is going into the a class that allows
a little more usable tire.
Vorshlag 2011 TT3 Mustang GT - Pre-Nationals Preparation
There is so much going on to our red 2011 Mustang GT that I really don't know where to start. I've been gathering front end parts for this planned aero re-work for a couple of months now, and the fabrication work to make the changes we wanted have been going on for the past week or so. As I've said several times in this thread, we're taking our street car Mustang GT to the NASA Nationals and throwing our entry into the TT3 class. Many racers think I am foolish to even try, and they may be right, but since we're not going to the SCCA Solo Nationals (always the same week as NASA's road race Nationals) we wanted to go check out NASA's big annual shootout instead. We have a lot of customers who will be at the NASA Nationals that we can see and I've never driven Miller Motorsports Park in SLC, Utah. It should be fun.
Miller is a large, fast track with straightaway speeds exceeding 160 mph in TT3 trim...
we think. The track is located in the desert just outside of Salt Lake City, so the altitude is 4000 feet, which means the air is a good bit thinner here than in Texas. We are developing a
MASSIVE new splitter up front with a ducted hood to hopefully help with the high speed push we've been experiencing this year, and to compensate for the thinner air in SLC. We designed this splitter in-house and had it water jet cut to our specs, and everything else shown below is also being built here at Vorshlag.
Left: The "let's take a look" phase, showing the 3" aluminum tubing. Right: Off with the Leguna Seca splitter.
This new mega-splitter (10.25" long at the nose) should make considerably more front end downforce than the 5" long ABS plastic Leguna Seca splitter did before, and hopefully it will help with cooling (which is also more difficult in thinner air) as well.
Left: Since she won't let us cut on OEM sheet metal, we bought another hood. The 19" wheels are on for "ease of pushing". Right: Proposed ducting.
We have moved some things around under the hood in order to make room for the large holes we're adding to the hood (a used 2010-12 stock aluminum piece) to better pull air from behind the radiator. The OEM coolant reservoir is no longer sitting behind the radiator on the right side, it is now relocated off to the left side of the engine bay, out of the airstream we're adding.
New bumper beam is 1.75" x .120" wall DOM tubing and it bolts on to the frame rails. Plenty strong, but less bulky than the OEM beam.
The cold air inlet tube is no longer blocking the left side of the engine bay like the factory routing. Now it goes over the top of the radiator support towards a Corvette style air cleaner located in the space where the old bumper beam was. A new tubular bumper beam replaces the stock piece and will anchor the down-stays for the splitter as well as a tow hook. It looks like the 3" diameter tube snaking over the radiator support wouldn't fit under the hood, but this 3" aluminum tube (with a MAF sensor plate welded in place) does clear with the hood down. The hood has been clearanced on the bottom side (two of the three layers of aluminum were notched), the center mounted OEM hood latch is gone, and the hood will be held in place by four aero latches.
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