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CL As far as the future of the Enviate and the LoveFab racing program? First, I have transitioned the team to be called, “Cody Loveland Racing”. LoveFab will still be involved, and will remain a primary sponsor, as heavy duty fabrication and dyno tuning will be performed at the LoveFab shop, after hours, etc, but for the time being, racing and LoveFab, Inc. will remain separate entities, as far as business goes.
CL I have slowly begun to rebuild the Enviate to compete again, in our home-based shop (the old LoveFab shop). With the new addition to my family, I will not be competing in the 2014 Pikes Peak International Hillclimb, unless someone writes a six digit check so I can shut the shop down, put employees to work on the car and complete, and test the car by the February entry deadline. Not likely to happen, and I’m ok with that. Nearly all of the sponsors are more than willing to support our team again, so we will be carrying them over into 2014 for the testing process, and hopefully to the 2015 season.
CL The new car features inboard suspension, all-new suspension components, and stressed-member engine and transmission orientation which will reduce overall weight by over 100lbs. The body which is a ways off from even being laid will be unlike anything seen before, though I suppose my design direction will be combining current F1 and Le Mans bodystyles. We aren’t homologating the car for any series, or trying to replicate a specific brand or style of car, so we have total freedom here. We are reducing weight as much as possible, while simultaneously producing as much downforce as possible.
CL Read into this – wings, tunnels, dive planes, oh my. Race weight for 2013, with driver and gear was 2510lbs. We are still trying to get to that magical 2000lbs mark, and we have a ways to go. The car will feature the same Twin Turbo Chevy LS-based powerplant (LQ9 technically now, though we will go Aluminum LS block for 2015 knocking another 90lbs off), spinning through the same Porsche G5052 gearbox, though things will be moved around to facilitate the much smaller and sleeker body. The gearbox will remain standard H-pattern through 2014 so we can get the chassis sorted, and then, we are hoping to convert to full-sequential for 2015, as it’s worth well over a minute on the Peak. Our goal is to begin testing without body or aero by spring of 2014, with body completion and testing by SEMA 2014. With any luck, the car will be in a sponsor’s SEMA booth in the 2014 show, and we will be hitting the Peak with everything we have (no pun intended) in 2015.
Through such terrible misfortune it’s almost unbelievable how positive and excited Cody is about racing at the Peak again, but then again that’s exactly what defines his personality. He is, without a doubt, one of the most determined and hardest working people I am likely to meet in my life. I can’t wait to see the development of the next generation of Enviate, and I will be sure to buy a round once it stands triumphant on the summit!
