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This would have been the view of our pits after the 1st session on Saturday morning. Some dicks tried to take pictures by putting their cameras over the Hankook banners. I simply slapped their lenses. Fuck your lens if you didn't listen to me. I don't give a shit how much it costs. You got verbal warnings already.
Controversy #2 – Sierra Sierra covers up the pits to block any view of work to be performed.
1. I’ve seen multiple posts on the web and their accompanying comments about us covering up the pit area after the morning Saturday session because we had something up our sleeves. I think I also read some stupid comment somewhere to the effect that what we did “goes against the open and friendly nature of time attack.”
2. I’ve also read posts where the authors suggested that the CyberEVO team was trying to play mind games by disturbing our work flow with the protest.
3. I’ve also read, and even heard the announcers at the track say that we pulled it back into the pits to “change a head gasket”.
Let me dispel these ridiculous notions one by one. The numbers below correlate to the numbers above.
1. As far as the rules were concerned, we had nothing to hide whatsoever. We had a CAMS guy freely walking around behind the covered pit areas. Are we stupid enough to pull a fast one in front of a scrutineer? The joke that night at the bar was that we should market and sell a Sierra Sierra nitrous kit – it's so damn good you can't even see it. As for the open and friendly nature of time attack, people from other teams were still politely asking for tools and supplies. Sierra Sierra were still loaning out tools and supplies like they always do. Just because we wanted to keep the cameras away and wanted not to be bothered, doesn’t mean we were telling people to fuck off.
2. I don’t think it was a mind game thing. I think our front straight speed surprised the crap out of the CyberEVO team. Considering Christine’s massive weight (1270kg) and our approximately 40 kmh faster speed on the front straight, they were probably scratching their heads and wondering how the hell the laws of physics were being bent in our favor. I suspect the development programs of the CyberEVO and Chirstine took different paths. My guess is the CyberEVO’s development has concentrated mostly on weight savings, maintaining engine response, and aero enhancements. Christine’s development relied heavily on horsepower and power band width or in other words, engine and turbo development. I think almost everybody present during Dave’s Saturday morning run noticed that Christine was the fastest car on the front straight by far. I think literally over 50 people told me, “Mate, the Sierra EVO sounds CRAZY on the front straight!” Considering the Sierra Sierra EVO program has only been around for less than three years, I think Sierra Sierra and Cosworth have come a long way with both car’s handling and engine power output. To summarize, if the CyberEVO team were trying to play games, I’m sure they would have waited until just before the last session to protest. Now THAT would be playing games.
3. Head gasket? The 4G63 in Christine doesn’t even have a head gasket. It is a hybrid sealing system we borrowed from our WRC and ChampCar/CART engines that involves seals used in nuclear sealing applications (no bullshit). If you’ve read my pre-WTAC article, you would know that almost all of the changes we made to Christine previous to WTAC 2011 were untested. This was no different from the rest (not tested with this much power with the new BW EFR 9180 turbo at least). After Dave ran the 1:29.024 lap, I made the call to replace the cylinder seals because we decided the last session would be our “make it or break it” run. Richard from SSE told me, “It’s your call on the boost Eric.” I was thinking to turn the boost up to 2.6 bar (37.7 psig). The 1:29.024 run was at 2.0 bar (29 psig). Datalogs were showing me that the engine seal was still healthy, but call me conservative. My past experiences weren’t exactly great ones if you’ve followed the development of this car. Anyhow, to prevent any cameras or pictures being taken of the deck of the cylinder block, I made the call to block off the pit area. Call me an asshole if you didn’t like that. I didn’t think that the cylinder block was anybody’s business other than Cosworth’s. After all, “anybody” didn’t pay for the development of it.
This wasn't the Garage Revolution RX-7's quickest straight speed of course, but most Pro cars were in the 250-260 kph range.
