1998 Virginia City Hill Climb - June 20/21
The Revenge of the Flame Mobile

Next in line to David Beddor's Screaming Yellow Ruf Twin Turbo CTR2

XXXXX NSX-FILES REPORT XXXXX WED JUNE 24 1998 8:36:44 PST XXXXX
(posted to NSX List Server)

Disclaimer: This is how I remembered the last couple of weeks.....there may be some inaccuracies in this, but here it goes: (if you want to just look at the final times, scroll down to the bottom of this to get through the fluff.....)

Not Exactly South Coast Plaza with Nordstrom as the "anchor" store

Background: The Virginia City Hill Climb is run twice a year, in June and in September. The Hill Climb course is 5.2 miles in length, and is a paved road built originally for the ore trucks going to and from Virginia City, Nevada. It is approximately 40 minutes from from Reno, and 25 minutes from Carson City. The Quattro Club sponsors the June event, and are pretty cool about having "brand X" cars like the NSXs show up. The September event is run by the Ferrari Club of America and the Shelby Club, and they ONLY allow Ferraris and Shelbys at this event. Bummer for September. The cops block off the road, and we use both lanes to blast up the Hill, with the goal of getting fastest possible lap time.  You get up to 20+ runs up the 'Hill over the weekend, depending on whether or not your car breaks or you crash into the mountain, or you drop off the side of the hill..........

Main Street, Virginia City USA

Leaving off from the Buttonwillow update, about 10 days before the 1998 Virginia City Hill Climb......

So now I got these new Tecnomagnesio 17/18 inch wheels from Comptech, and decided to run the Hoosiers with them based on the suggestions of some of the NSX list members. I get the Hoosiers, and they are 245x45x17 and 275x40x18 as a couple of people suggested. The caveats are that:

1. It will be a very tight fit
2. I might have to take a sledge hammer and pound in part of the inside wheel well by the firewall to gain a little more clearance for turning.
3. Traction control won't work either, but who cares, as you turn it off for the race track and steer with the throttle anyways.
4. I might have to remove part of the plastic wheels wells to make the tires fit
5. The inside of the tires will scrape inner wheel well where the body is at full lock, but who cares, as when you are on the race track, you rarely, if ever, get full opposite lock.

I buy the wheels from Comptech (real nice looking, very light), get the tires, but there is a problem. They don't fit at all on my car. I ride down the street and when the tires roll over something as small as the crosswalk paint, the front tires scrape pretty bad. I pull off the plastic wheel liners. Now the tire is scraping against the aluminum fender well tabs for the plastic lines, which is sharp, so I see it cutting the tire. I email a couple of guys, and Bob replies, "Oh, don't you have the ride height adjustible shocks, you need to go up an inch or so to accommodate the tires." I curse myself, as I can see how I am going to go into another rathole real quick. So I determine that I need some type of ride height adjustible shocks......and new springs of course.....to make this work.

I do a little research, and decide to get the same shocks/springs setup that Alex has. I call Ground Control, and explain to them my scenario, and what can they set me up with. The guy there thinks I am a little wacked in the head, as I hear him say in the background, "I got an idiot on the line with an NSX trying to fit 245x45x17 in the front". Great, now even people I am buying go-fast parts from think I am losing it. They promise to send me out a setup that should work, and they put it on priority and set it out in two days, and say that normally it takes 4 days to make this happen as they have to modify the Koni Shocks to accept the adjustable perches. They promise I will get the shocks Monday morning, which is four days prior to us leaving for the Hill Climb. I have them shipped to Wayne's business, Phone Guys USA, as he is one block from an alignment shop that Wayne claims is really good. I setup an appointment for Dave's Frame and Alignment for Monday at 11:00 a.m., so he can finish up the car, as I still have to get brake lines replaced, oil change, change tranny fluid, replace rear pads, etc.

Monday morning.   I call Dale at Dave's Frame and Alignment. No shocks. I call Wayne. He ain't got the shocks. I call Ground Control. They ain't got the shocks, they sent them out, and the Phone Guys signed for it. I call Joseph, who is the Phone Guys' office manager, he ain't got the shocks. I call Ground Control, tell them Phone Guys never received it, and they said they will check UPS again, but Phone Guys signed for it. I call Joseph, who is now ready to kill me, as he says, "Doug, we have a warehouse guy, his name is Lance. He signs everything. He INSISTS ain't got my damn shocks. If Ground Control says we signed for it, get him a name of who signed for it. I call Ground Control, get the name of 'Gisimov" as the person who signed for it. I called Joseph again, tell him the name, and he says that there ain't no 'Gisimov' who works here, call Ground Control and tell the package is lost. Ground Control calls UPS. UPS then calls me to verify that I don't have the shocks. UPS then says, "uuuhhhh....we'll find it, I guess we delivered to the wrong place". Great.....one day lost again, getting ready for another track event...

Tuesday Morning. Shocks get there, as UPS is able to find them. Dale starts working on the car. I get a phone call from Dale, saying, "uhh....they don't fit, your car now has about four inches of wheel clearance from top of the front tire to the bottom of the fender. Now it looks like one of those Monster Trucks." I call Ground Control. They want to talk to Dale. I setup a conference call and we talk for about 40 minutes. Ground Control confirms that Dale knows what he is doing, and he adjusted the shocks to their lowest setting. The conclusion is that Ground Control over estimated height of their dual spring setup in the front. They wanted to make sure that their shocks cleared my rim/tire setup, and did not want to chance that the tires would damage the car or vice versa, so they estimated a little on the high side. Great. Now what, as now it is Tuesday evening, and I lost another entire day? Ground Controls say they can call Eibach, which is located 10 minutes from my house, and we can do a Will Call pickup. They say to call me in the morning, as they want to do some research.

Wednesday morning. I am at offsite district meeting at, you guessed it, Speedzone. I start making my calls again on the shocks, and Ground Control says Eibach doesn't have any numbers on exactly what dual spring setup to use with my tire combo on an NSX. We agree to try out just using the single big spring that they sent me, and trash the little secondary spring. My ride will be fairly harsh, but this is all they can do to make it work in the short term. Dale agrees to try this. I call Dale at 4:00 p.m., and he says he has it setup so that he thinks it will work as long as there are no severe elevation changes, meaning no Laguna Seca corkscrew like turns where you crest and then dip violently into a turn.

Wednesday evening. I pickup the car at the Phone Guys. As Dagmar and I drive into the street where Wayne's business is located, we notice a motorcycle cop sitting in a driveway. We stop and chat with Joseph for a bit, and the cop casually cruises by. Seems kinda suspicious, as Wayne's business is in a cul de sac. I wait about 10 minutes, hoping the cop will go away. I drive out, short shifting all the way due to noise from the Supertrapp, and go about half a block, and sure enough, I see flashing lights. I get pulled over and the cop says, "We have five complaints of a red car with flames on it racing up and down the streets making a lot of noise and driving recklessly". I explain it wasn't me, it must been "my mechanic". The cop says he says he saw me pull in, and the people who called in said it was a guy with red hair. WAYNE! Damn his ass, I told him to take it for a spin, and I guess he was blasting up and down the streets, checking it out the suspension at high rates of speed. The cop rights me up for "Illegal Tires", and no front license plate. I explain to him that the Hoosiers are DOT approved, and I only have about 20 miles on the tires, but the officer patiently explains that 3/32nds is the bare legal tread depth, and he points to the Hoosiers outer half of the tire that is pretty much a slick, and says, "Does that look like 3/32nds to you?" I deem it best not to argue with him, and say, okay, I will change the tires, and I am sorry my mechanic was driving like an idiot, and I will make sure I don't tip him next time around.  The fine?  $117 bucks....

Larry, the NSX Tech at Riverside Acura, stops by our softball game to pickup my NSX, drive it back to Riverside, work on it, and he said he would drive it back Thursday night. As we are running out of time, this sounds like a great deal. Larry is quickly becoming well known in Southern California, as he has installed my short gears, R&P, Supercharger, etc, on my car.

Thursday - I am running around like an idiot, trying to pickup stuff for the trip, like a chain to secure the wheels in Wayne's truck. (I bought one last time, but evidently Wayne couldn't find the key to the lock and they needed to pickup some phone equipment, so someone had to cut the lock. Chain was left outside his shop, and someone ripped it off). At noon, I decide that I have enough time to try to get the correct electric brake module for Wayne's trailer, as we are using it with no brakes at the moment. Wayne says it is fine, as long as he doesn't have to stop quickly......but since I will be following him, I figure I should get it fixed...

Eugene(Wayne's brother), narrows it down to we have to get the correct trailer module adapter from Ford. I go to the first Ford Dealer, explain to them what I need, show them the module I have, and explain to them it doesn't work with the brakes. He does a parts lookup, and says it is not in stock. Problem is we are leaving in 7 hours, so that doesn't work. I ask him where else can I get it, and then he picks up the speaker phone, calls another Ford Dealer, punches in the part number on the touch tone phone, and proclaims that the Ford dealer in Tustin has the part in stock. Wow! What a cool, automated inventory system. Ford DOES have a better idea. I drive 25 minutes to the other Ford dealer, ask them for the part, and the guys says it is not in stock. I explain that the other dealer said that they have one in stock. He mentions, "Did the guy use the automated touch tone phone inventory lookup?" I say yes, and the dealer replies, "That thing is inaccurate, it is never up to date." So I guess Ford DOESN'T have a better idea. No wonder I don't buy American cars. He says to call dealer #3 in Irvine. I call dealer #3, explain to him what I need, and he says, "we don't make that part, go to U-Haul and buy the adapter." Bastards, all of them. I call to get the 2nd Hot Lap transmitter from our friend, but he doesn't have it, someone else has it, and they live 50 minutes away. Which means two hours round trip to pick it up, and I ain't got two hours, as I lost two days getting my damn tires to fit under the front fenders. I call Longacre, and tell them to Fedex me a 3rd Hot Lap transmitter directly to our hotel in Virginia City, as we need to have two transmitters, one at the start line, and one at the finish line, for our Hot Lap timers to work.

I go back to Wayne's shop, and Eugene says, "let's just wire the electric brake line in series with the brake lights, and that should activate the brake, since it will be getting an electrical signal." Makes sense to me. Wayne has about five employees standing around, diagnosing the brake problem, instead of working at selling business phone systems, giving their opinion on how to fix the brakes. We got electrical testers, wire cutters, etc. We proceed to splice in the wire, and it still doesn't work. We say screw it, we don't REALLY need the electric brakes, as we towed my car home last weekend from Buttonwillow without the brakes.

Larry drops off my car at 9:00 p.m. at my house, after replacing all the steel brakes lines with factory rubber lines, oil change, tranny fluid change, O2 sensor replacement, and helps me fix the passenger seat that was loose. Larry also mentioned that the suspension felt real good on the freeway.

Just as Wayne is packing up the trailer for our 10:00 p.m. departure, we discover now that the brake lights now don't work at all, as we have shorted out the whole system. The fuses look okay, but no lights. So now we can't drive at night, and have to wait until the morning. Of course now everyone at the Phone Guys USA denies anything about touching the brake system, or making suggestions on how to fix the electric brakes....

Friday Morning - Eugene and Wayne take trailer to dealer, and apparently on a separate page from the diagram for the fuses in the owner's manual, is the fuse diagram for the trailer brakes and lights. Ford, learn how to make a user friendly manual, three of us looked at the damn diagrams and didn't see this fuse. We get fuse replaced, now we are ready to go. Instead of cruising at 90-110 all the way up, we are going 55-75, since Wayne is pulling a trailer with his 944 on it. We drive about 3 hours out, and I see smoke coming from the trailer tires. I radio Wayne to pull over, and smoke is coming up from one of the axles, and grease is bubbling and oozing out of the hub. Guess what? Now the electric trailer brakes work, but it looks like they work ALL the time, so it heated up the wheels and axle to the point where the grease was bubbling and smoking. So we do the only normal thing we can think of.....we cut the electric brake line, and proceed to the Hill Climb....who needs brakes anyway.......

Friday Night - 11 hours later, we make it the Hill. We cruise it once, checking out the surface. Looks fairly good, except for some of the ending turns there looks like there is loose dirt on the asphalt. We stop, and pick at it with a pocket knife. Apparently it is mud that has hardened to clay. Looks slippery, but after picking at it, it looks like it has melded onto the surface of the road. We make it just in time for the driver's meeting.. Bill Pound says that unlike other years, he will not be telling anyone their time for going up the hill until the Sunday night dinner, as he feels that if Joe Schmoe finds out he is half a second slower than his buddy, Joe will drive like an idiot his next time up the road trying to find half a second, and will crash into the mountain or go off the side of the hill. There have been a lot of accidents at the Hill the previous couple of years, so this is a way of trying to stop the carnage. Wayne and I grin at each other, as we have our own timing system separate from the event organizer's timing system, so we will have instantaneous feedback as to which of us is faster each time we go up the Hill......and we ain't gonna let the other person win......

Quattro Headquarters

Ruf Headquarters

Ferrari Headquarters(but not FOC HQ)

Ferrari Headquarters #2 (but not FOC HQ)

Doug and Wayne's Low Budget Headquarters

Saturday Morning - I wake up, and wonder how the Comptech Supercharger + Toe Links + Bushings along with the Comptech Technomagnisio Wheels and Hoosiers Tires + Dali Sway bars are going to work on the Hill. This will be the first time at an event with the new wheels and tires, and I don't know the limit of these tires. Do they screech when you are going to lose it? Is there no warning and they just break away? I wanted to test them out at Buttonwillow the previous weekend, but we didn't get the tires to fit under the fenders last week.

NSX with Penile Implant
Supercharged, bigger wheels, bigger tires, bigger springs, bigger shocks

My previous times at the Virginia City Hill Climb were:

1994 - 4:09.126 - 33rd place(only one run up the Hill, as my clutch died on my second lap ever up the Hill)
1995 - 3:53.152 - 14th place
1996 - 3:52.320 - 11th place
1997 - 3:54.502 - 19th place

My goal the past three years is to get into the top 10, but the competition is getting stiffer and stiffer every year. Big Horsepower cars are kicking my ass up the Hill, as evidenced in my dropping down to 19th place last year.

Amir's Bad Ass Ferrari F40

Waiting in line at the 'Hill

Why ain't my NSX engine this awesome looking?

Even my rear wing is smaller......

Modified and maintained by Modena Motors

But at least I got more stickers....

I do the first "warmup run" up the Hill with Dagmar in the car, and promptly run a 3:52.83. Amazing. I am already faster than my best times in 1995 AND 1997, and his is a WARMUP run. The Comptech Supercharger + Hoosier tires are helping my NSX to scream up the Hill! My second and third runs up the Hill, I run 3:49's, with Dagmar still in the car. This is the first time I ever got below 3:50!  I jettison the wife, and now I am running consistently between 3:47 and 3:45. There are only about 50 cars entered, as the organizers wanted to keep it small so there would be lots of track time. I get 12 laps up the hill on Saturday, with a best time so far of 3:43.84, which beats Wayne's best time last year, when he was 9th place. So with the Comptech setup, I am about ELEVEN seconds faster than last year, and NINE seconds faster than my fastest time ever up the Hill. Unfortunately for me, Wayne is also two seconds faster than his time of last year, and he is running in the 3:41 range. All the other contestants have no knowledge of what their times are, as the didn't bring their own timing equipment like Wayne and I did, so they can't adjust their lines/shift patterns to see if there is a faster way up the Hill.....heh....heh....heh.....this is racing, so always seek and unfair advantage....this ain't an ethics exam.....

The "DARE" anti-drug machine. That's one way to get a tax write off....

Some people have stopwatches mounted on their steering wheel, but this is highly dangerous, as it is a running start for about 150 feet before the first timing light, and you are turning at the same time. So some people are actually flooring their car, turning, shifting, and trying to hit the "start" button on their stopwatch at the same time. Worse yet, as you get to the finish line at the top of the hill, there is a sweeping turn at the crest of a hill where you are going about 90 mph, and people are taking one of their hands OFF the steering wheel coming out of this turn to hit the "stop" button on the stopwatch....

Birdie bites the dust on a 944 windshield wiper

Saturday night - we of course go gambling at some podunk casino in Carson City. I win $600 playing blackjack, but Wayne loses about $500.

Tim Landis's blue Viper

Sunday morning - I do another warmup run of 3:53 with Dagmar in the car, which again is faster than my best time last year. 2nd run, I run a 3:44.43 with Dagmar in the car, but come kinda close to the edge on one of the turns.....but like we learned from the Peter Cunningham chalk talk at Mid-Ohio, "If you are exiting a turn too early and too fast and you don't think you are going to stay on the track, just EASE off the gas and the car will straighten out, don't do anything dramatic to overcorrect". Whew! So after the 3:44.43 lap time, I get Dagmar to hop out of the car to get down to some serious business....I promptly run a 3:42, and then a 3:41, so now I am as fast as Wayne, and possibly faster......unfortunately Wayne radios me and says he just ran a 3:40, but almost lost it in the turn where the radar gun is at. Right before turn 8, there is a person with a radar gun checking to see how fast each car gets before entering a 25 mph turn. Wayne said he was hitting about 105 mph prior going into the turn, and then just did a quick tap on the breaks prior to making the 25 mph turn, and almost spun out....not a good thing on a mountain road.....

Ori's Viper with racing slicks

Wayne and I ask the event organizer, Bill Pound, if instead of spacing us out at 40 seconds intervals for safety reasons, can we have Wayne go first, and wait 3 seconds, and then send me so I can chase him down, just like we do when we go through Angeles Crest or Ortega Highway? Bill says, "I guess so, I have been letting Frank Beddor follow his son David in the Ruf CTR2 machines with just a couple of seconds of space, so why not?" I tell Wayne not to screw up and drop coolant or fluid on the road while I am right behind him, and also not to go off the side of the mountain as I will be right behind his ass looking at his bumper instead of the road. We blast up the mountain, me going a little faster trying to chase the 944 Turbo, and Wayne going a little faster as he sees me bearing down on him in his rear view mirror. As we cross the finish line by the sheriff's station, the people watching see Wayne rocket across the finish line, and then two seconds later I rocket across the line. Wayne is estatic on the radio, as he turned a 3:39.25, breaking the 3:40 barrier!!!! I am even more happy, as I turn a 3:39.02, thus now I am beating him for our bet for fastest time up the Hill! We get back to the bottom of the Hill, and Wayne is bitching and moaning to Pilar(his fiance) and Dagmar, saying that it was no fair, I followed his line, and got a faster time. Wayne also says he is going to beat my 3:39.02 if he has to die doing it. He asks me if I want to go first so he can chase me down, and I reply that I am quite happy with my 3:39.02, which is 15 seconds faster than last year, and I ain't gonna kill myself trying to beat my own time. I tell him I am just going to take some passengers up the Hill at a leisurely pace(3:47) so they can experience the Hill, as I feel I am pushing my luck now that I broke into the 3:30's. Wayne refuses to take any passengers, and is determined to beat my time. About an hour later, after repeated solo runs, Wayne shows me on his lap timer that he has run a 3:38.18, which is phenomenally fast. I immediately cancel all passenger rides, and try to beat the 3:38.18 and get into the 3:37's. Closest I come is 3:39.26 in my next couple of runs, and it seems like the tires are deteriorating, as well my concentration, so I decided to verbally concede victory to Wayne, and Wayne heads back to the hotel to rest. After he gets back to the hotel, I again reject any passengers who want rides, and try a couple more times to beat the 3:38 so I can surprise Wayne at the awards banquet, but my times are going up now into the 3:41's or so. Bummer. 

Steve Westrate's Beautiful F355

David Beddor is now the fastest driver ever for the Hill Climb with his smokingly fast 3:20.909 this year. Steve Beddor held the previous record at 3:21.

David Beddor - The new world record holder at the Virginia City Hill Climb

Amir came in second place for the THIRD year in a row.  Can you imagine that, bridesmaid three times in a row.  This year he lost by  .17 seconds.  His F40 had a cool, custom prototype carbon fiber rear wing.  I have a feeling that coming in 2nd place again will cost him a bunch of bucks for upgrades for next year's Hill Climb....

I believe that Amir holds the record for top speed at the end of the straightaway, running 134 mph this year clocked on the radar gun. We also believe that radar clocking is a little low, because the users of the gun didn't calibrate it for the angle that they were taking the readings at, instead it was calibrated for straight on readings.

Amir with his  jester hat

It took us 15 hours to drive home. We stopped at two casinos, and we both ended up losing a ton of tire money. We only wanted to stop real quick, but at the second hotel, the girls wanted to get massages....and we gambled while they got rubbed......but lost most of the time...So we averaged about 34 mph on the way home.....it was painful....but it is nice having a truck with the race tires, rims, chairs, jacks, tools, extra stock NSX muffler in case I blew out the Supertrapp muffler, etc.

David LeSage's Purple Porsche

My Comptech Powered NSX ran great. Since replacing the O2 sensors, it feels like the car has much more power, the engine light no longer comes on, etc. The Comptech Supercharger worked fine, I got about 5000 miles on it so far. The Supercharger is actually a great equalizer in events like this, because out of the seven people in front of me, 4 have 500+ horsepower, one is a GT2-type car that probably weighs 2400 lbs, another is the 930 Turbo, and Wayne's 944 turbo powered by a psycho driver. The Tecnomagnesio wheels and Hoosiers tires worked great, I think I am taking the advice of many people on this list and switching to Hoosiers instead of the BFG R1s. Only problem is ya gotta trailer the tires and rims, as the tires have a tread wear rating of 40, which is lower than the R1s.

As of Friday afternoon, the organizers of the Hill Climb were having some problems with the local county officials in getting the permits, as many of the local officials have changed. Luckily, Bill Pound was able to cut through all the red tape to clear us for a Saturday morning start.

Ori in the 550 HP Viper that ran a 3:30, ordered racing slicks for his car. Unfortunately, he seems to be having the same problem as us NSXers in getting slicks for their car, as his rear slicks where the same size as the front ones, as he couldn't locate the correct rear size. So his car was overly squirrelly, but he did run a great 3:30.

So I finally broke into the Top 10. Two years ago, my time of 3:38 this year would have given me 3rd place, only 4.5 seconds slower than the RennTech Mercedes that won the event. (but then again, the Beddors were not there two years also.) Last year, I would have had 7th place, and only have been 5.6 seconds behind Steve Beddor with my 3:38. (but then again, it was a lot hotter last year, so maybe that has something to do with the times).

The Comptech Supercharger + wheels + Comptech Toelinks/bushings + Ground Control shocks/springs + Hoosiers + Dali Bars helped me gain 15.6 seconds this year compared to last year. THAT IS AMAZING!! I was hoping to get 7-10 seconds faster, and I ended up with quite a bit more. With some practice learning the limits of the tires, there is at least another 3-4 seconds, maybe more left in them. The car was sticking GREAT! I can't wait to try the setup at the next time trial event........

Next year, the date is Father's Day Weekend, as there are no tour buses that have to use the Hill Climb route to make it to Virginia City on this weekend, as most normal people are at home with their families on this weekend.

No one did any major damage by crashing into the Hill or going over the side this year. Usually there are at least two or three "incidents".

The goal for next year??? Well, if the Supercharger + tires gave me another 50-60 HP and I dropped 15.7 seconds, I wonder what would happen if I could squeeze out another 50 HP and learn to drive a little better....perhaps top 5??

Thanks to everyone who helped make this a great weekend, including Comptech for the go-fast parts, Larry Garcia(NSX Mechanic at Riverside), Dale at Dave's Frame and Alighnment in Huntington Beach for figuring out the suspension setup, Ground Control for the shocks/springs and putting me to the front of their queue, Dali Racing for swaybars & support, list members Harry, Bob, Bruce, Alex, Bryan, and many others for help with wheels/suspension questions so I can get my damn car ready for this event.

Other observations: 30 drivers ran 4:00 or better, so this is the fastest group of cars ever. Last year 23 cars broke the 4:00 barrier, the year before that only 15. Either the drivers are getting better, or the aftermarket vendors are making a fortune selling go-fast parts.  And I am pretty sure that everyone that showed up this year, is plotting on how they are going to show up with better hardware next year.....I know I am!!

Best Timed Runs from 1991-1998
June Virginia City Hill Climb