New guy questions

[AirCooln]

Hello everyone. I'm a new guy here looking to get his car on the track as I got bored with my endeavors into drag racing. I have a couple of questions.

I have my affiliated club membership check in the mail, and I have started to go through the prep paperwork, and I have hit a snag. I don't know how to rate my car as per the "Application for vehicle classification" as per the PDF from Solo Ontario. The calculation for power/weight...Do I use pounds or Kilograms? When I attempted to get the handling index, it seemed a bit out to lunch to me (Mind you the HP rating is very low, so maybe it isn't). The car weights 715Kg officially and seems to be in the region of 40Hp with the research I did. Can anyone give it a help out here?

As for modifications..Well, I don't know that it has any as I'm not to familiar with this brand of automobile yet. I bought the car used. Problem?

I defiantly wont be the fastest, heck I might even be the slowest, but I'm looking forward to it.

BTW, The car is a 1977 Mini 998cc.

[Triumphracer]

You use the weight in lbs to calculate the ratio; how many ponds per hp not the other way round!

As for the title of slowest competitor, that's been mine for some time but I'll race you for it!
Simon, TR4A
(Red cars are faster than green!)

[ctenche]

Aw man, it will be awesome to see a Mini at the track! Looking forward to it.

[AirCooln]

Thanks for the input. Im not going to bother figuring it out. The rule book says I can request a classification from the director. I'm going to let someone look at it for me. Ah, I'm lazy when it comes to math. That way its get done right.

Getting slowly ramped up. I'll be going over the inspection sheet and making sure everything checks out as soon as temperature co-operates. I have some wider (by Mini standards) 165-55-12 Yokohama 048R's being flown in from England (just try to get 12 inch tires here). With Mini handling and these gum ball tires, I'll bet I dont even need a brake peddle! ;)

Lol, red cars faster then green? They don't call it British racing green for nothing! Let the battle of slow ole' Brit cars begin!

[Chris P]

oh man, now i don't have the smallest car anymore. Ahhh but i'll take Japanese engineering anyday :p

[JohnC]

Hey, AirCooln, welcome to the group. A source of all things Mini would be Malcolm Elston. He owns a BRG Mini which he used to race and shared my CRX in solo 1 the past couple years. This year he is in a VW and I've moved on to a Beemer. His email is : carsport@globalserve.net
Tell him I sent you. Look forward to seeing you out there.
John Charles

[AirCooln]

Thanks John; I will definatly drop him an e-mail. See if I can't tap into his knowledge base a little.

[Champ98]

The pic that you posted is not of the car right? The badging on it and the grill suggests a later version. I know Malcolm well and I can tell you his Mini is well sorted. When I started in solo there was a mini running in D Street Prepared, but it had mods. I used to race a Mini and the easiest way to mod it was to go to a 1275cc lump from an Austin America, imported from 77 to 79. It was a near bolt-in.

A good source for mods is Mr Mini in stoney creek.

It is real nice to see these lil' bricks still racing.

[AirCooln]

Hi Champ98;

Yeah, that my car in the sig. The car has been buggered up a little in terms of badging, door and shifter parts and a few other things. It was OK by me, because its almost exaclty what I think a 70's on Mini should look like.

Thanks for the info! I was warned that what I want to do with the motor may be a very bad thing by the 2004 rules. So its all up in the air now. Which is fine, as the fund is rather low right now any way.