May get some mixed reviews - some who prefer vintage liveries - others who appreciate personalization . . .
Glen and I have spent some time tearing down and re-fitting GTWC Chassis #3. It is a work in progress . . . but thought we might share a look.
From an operations perspective, Glen and I both particpate frequently with Chin Motorsports. We had an opportunity to get the car out at Sebring back in December for a post purchase "shake down" and found the car to be in great shape and seemed to handle neutral. At that outing it still had the vintage "Panoz Racing Series" livery.
Since then we brought the car into the shop and spent a couple of months on the body and the body-off chassis.
That was a pretty good eye-opener into why the car seemed to drive so much smaller than it appeared. Inside these bodies is a V-8 GO CART. There is a significant offset between the body and chassis in all directions.
We did a lot of fiberglass repair, combed over chassis, inspected welds, paid a lot of attention to the items identified by the Panoz Team as points to inspect/repair, deep cleaned the interior, added an Analog Tach and provisions for a cluster of additional higher visibility gauges, and generally got as familiar with all aspects of the car as we could. We also added some color prior to doing a complete aligned refit of the body panels.
The car cleaned up real well and the body panels aligned nicely with some extra care and fitting. There is still some graphic work to be designed and done. It's hard for a couple of rocket farmers to get out of the engineering half and into the artistic side of the brain.
We did get a chance to really flog the car at Roebling Road early this month and even though I think we both turned our best laps to date on the circuit, there are still several seconds left. Unofficially, between three drivers we saw lap times from 1:20 to 1:30. I am the slow man but I'm still grinnin. I have only driven street prepared cars before, but it may be a while before Glen's Lotus 350 Sport (TT V-8 Esprit) and my 996TT get to see more lap time.
We'll be at Sebring for two days mid April and give you some feedback from there.
bob
More to follow