Well the build continues! Bob is up to his tricks and creations. Below is the begining of the templete that will be used to make the front fender flares on the Sentra.
Amazing!
Bob Legere has been hard at work creating a truly one of a kind Nissan Sentra SE-R VVLSC for the HillClimb!!
Some pics as promised.
Quartermaster clutch/flywheel:
Manley rods with CP forged pistons:
Tilton pedalbox and bias adjuster:
Vortech supercharger:
1.5:1 steering quickener:
Starting to cut out the rear wheelwells:
Flares being layed out with 1/8″ metal wire (this will be removed however):
Steel flares taking shape:
Since these photos were taken the top ‘eyebrow’ piece has been fabricated and the rocker sill extension has been designed and mocked up.
Just a little bit more.Top of the left rear flare.
The side skirts will be made from aluminum in this shape (full length of course). For Mt.Washington they’ll be left ‘as is’, but for road racing I will probably extend down some LDPE plastic sheeting.
New hood. The orignal one was tweaked when it hit the windshield!
SR20DE crankshaft, polished and shotpeened.
Aluminum power steering pump from JDM Pulsar.
Original SR16VE block with supercharger mounting bracket.
New high capacity aluminum power steering reservoir.
New front racing rotors are 11.75″ x .81″.
Rear rotors are used B13 Sentra front rotors (non-SER) with 4-piston Wilwoods. Caliper pistons have tiny 1″ bores.
New oil cooler will be used for the power steering system to deal with the high temps from the high engine rpms, steering quickener and increased loading from the very wide tires.
It’ll be a lot of work to figure out everything under the hood!
The Beginning of the front fender flair…
Anyone who has done an outdoor activity in the rain knows that we never really plan on doing it in the rain, nor really would choose rain over a blue bird sky. On the flip side, if you awake to rain on that chosen day you know that once you are wet and into the day, it most likely brings a smile to your face! This was certainly the case at my first event of the Challenge, the “Ski to the Clouds”.
We awoke to these conditions with heavy rain forecasted on the Auto Road.
Anyone who knows Mt Washington knows these are crazy warm temps for May, much less for March!! We packed up and headed to the mountain. The start of the race was at 10am which gave us a lot of time to be nervous and fidget with our gear… I was lucky enough to have my good friend Lee Perkins and his wife, Kelly, up for the weekend with Sas and me. Lee was entered in the race with me.
I geeked out with my gopro camera, chest harness and all, careful not to totally cover my bib number up front, and we headed out into the rain to the start. There were a lot of racing colors on the competitors… A bunch of colleges showed up with their Nordic teams, a strong (and young) looking group!! Here are some shots from the race... I was sporting my $5 ebay classic skis and had my own look working :-). Here is some video from my “Chesty” Gopro camera.
The start of the race… notice how fast I am left in the back of the pack!!
We skied 4k around the trail system of Great Glen Trails before heading up the hill…
Up we go!
Here I am coming into 2 mile park. Remember it is pouring out, I mean really pouring!!! The volunteers were just wonderful!!!
I am sure by now you can see from these videos that I can use them to show folks how to race!! Quite the forum, huh!! Well let me just say this was definitely a learning experience for me! First, how to ski race (never have I done that before!), next, how to ski up a hill… oh yea, in the pouring rain and 40 degree weather… My goal was to get to the finish, not win any style or time awards along the way!!!
Pretty much for the entire climb I had one competitor a little ways in front of me which was great to keep me moving… I did manage to catch him near the finish but there was no way I was going to try and pass the guy who dragged me up the entire hill, besides, what was the point of that anyway!!
Somewhere along the climb.. when it was very obvious that I was not going to win my age group 🙂 I picked the number of 1:30 for the time to beat. Don’t ask me why, it was just a number I picked. I also did not even look at my watch until after the finish… Here is my finish..
My buddy Lee was right behind me! Not bad for a guy who skied only a couple of times this year!!
Now for the fun part, the ski back down the hill!!! I grew up alpine skiing and also enjoyed downhill nordic skiing as a kid (what kid didn’t!) and really was looking forward to the 4 mile downhill run! The biggest issue was how wet and cold I was!! My boots were filled with water, no, I mean really water sloshing around in them!! I changed my gloves and put on a coat but I was soaked to the bone, pure adrenaline got me back down the mountain!!
Here is my descent, if you are bored enough to still be watching these videos 🙂 If you listen carefully, you can hear just a bit of the “little kid in me” enjoying the downhill!!!
The effort to make it up the hill really never felt that bad. Of course, I was not skating it in 43 mins like the overall winner!!! Results here… I just managed the best pace with the traction I could muster from the skis. Here is the Garmin file from the race.
So, to sum up the weekend, and my first event — it was a blast, I smiled all weekend; it was great to have Sas there to share this with me, as well as Lee and Kelly!! The staff at the event were great and are all really excited about the rest of my events to come!!
I guess I was singing in the rain, it was just a great weekend!! I love my life!!
Well here we are, on the eve of my first event of this wonderful challenge. My buddy Lee and his wife Kelly have joined us for the weekend. Lee will be racing up the hill with me!
We are staying at the Eagle Mountain House in Jackson, NH. If you are ever in the area, it is a must see and stay!!
As every time I am at the Auto Road it was great to see the same faces and catch up on things! I always feel so welcome by everyone up here!!
Tomorrow’s weather is not looking to be very nice. Warm, yes but rain is forecasted as well. Not great conditions for a Ski Race. Luckily for me it is not about the race but about the adventure and these conditions just add to it. So it looks like I will be going with the classic skis because they are waxless and should be the best for unknown conditions… Only time will tell!! Off to have a nice dinner with Sas, Lee and Kelly and then early to bed to rest up for tomorrow! Stay tuned….
Just in time for my first event this weekend, www.sweetiesgift.com has finished the cool logo for the challenge. What do you think? 🙂
T-Shirts to come….
I love that my fitness is slowly coming back!! Saturday I headed out for a long ride on the Cyclocross bike. I love using this bike with the 32’s on it. It makes me work harder and keeps the speeds down for the sub 30 degree rides. My goal was to get in a solid 3 hour ride and stay off the ice on the side of the road….. The loop I picked ended up to only be 2:45 hours, still feeling very fresh I headed out for another very hilly loop. I ended up with 3:45, 53 miles and 5600′ of climbing. I am very happy with this ride and effort!!!
Today I was a little worried how yesterday’s effort was going to affect today’s training. I started with 45 min’s of strength training followed by a computrainer ride. I was a bit fatigued but able to still put in a solid effort…..
Ski to the Clouds this weekend!!!!! Looking forward to it!!
I got a call from Bob Legere yesterday, Bob is a long time friend, Rally co-driver and fellow racer. Bob will also be driving this car in the NASA Road Race Series. Bob will be doing all the work on the car, so you will be hearing his name quit a bit. 🙂
Anyway, Bob wanted to remove the factory pedals to make room under the hood and just plan simplify and greatly improve the brake system on the car. Turns out with the angle of the steering column he will not be able to use the standard Willwood pedal system. So it looks like we are going old school and mounting the pedals on the floor, like an old VW Bug, or most older race cars…
We are also lucky enough to have the stock VVL racing power steering rack and pump. Bob will port and polish the pump and upgrade all the lines as we are also adding a steering quickener.
I am very excited that the build has started!!!
As I get them I will post pictures of the build.
Stay tuned…
As a mulitsport athlete, it is way too easy to become a slave to indoor training during the cold winter months… Week in and week out I do my strength training and my hard computrainer workouts, however, I always try to get outside and have some fun…
This past weekend was great in a number of ways! First, I turned 46 years old 🙂
Saturday, I got in a very tough computrainer ride, and it felt great as I nailed all the threshold efforts and felt I still had a little more I could have pushed.
Sunday, Coach Al and I met up with a long time friend of Al’s, Mark Gunsalus, for an epic (for Al and me) mountain bike ride. We headed up to Mass to check out Mark’s little winter training loop of 22 miles. It is a local snowmobile club’s private trail system, and well groomed and maintained. With temps around 18 degrees we met up with Mark and a few of his buddies. What a great ride, very tough, with 3000′ of climbing and all on snowpack!! It was a great day!
Today (my actual birthday) I meet up with my good friend, Lee Perkins, to get in a little skate skiing at Winding Trails. When we first started out I did feel Saturday and Sunday’s efforts, but soon after I warmed up I felt great and finished with 3+ hours of skate skiing!!
So what is my point… well, Sunday’s ride as well as today’s skiing pushed me and my fitness above anything I could have done on a trainer or treadmill in the dead of winter. It was outside, which required both balance and strength activation and best of all, it was with great friends!!
So get outside and enjoy life a little folks!!
Yesterday we dropped off the car to my fellow racer, Bob Legere. Bob will reinstall the super charged VVL 2 liter back into the car. Along the way he will also replace the factory pedals and brake system, and “tube out” the front end of the car.
It will be close, but we hope to have the car ready for Mt Asutney Hillclimb in May.
It is nice to see a Nissan in the shop with all the Opels 🙂
Here is video footage from the last year they ran the Auto race in 2001. It is one of my practice runs on Saturday… Believe it or not my run was pretty clear compared to some of my competitors! I believe I qualified in the top 5 overall that day 😮
If you watched my last posted video you can see how different the Auto Road can be!! Now imagine running it on foot or cycling up it in these conditions…. Good times 🙂
Enjoy!
