Know any Spec Boxsters racing near here?

[Phokaioglaukos]

Steve, Glen had a momentary lapse of good judgment, George noted it, and Glen corrected it. The photos are off the web site and the honor of your wife is unsullied by this brief epidsode.

Back on topic: I spent an hour on the phone yesterday afternoon with Brad Roberts (http://mindovermotorsports.zoovy.com/category/boxsterspec/ and http://www.boxsterspec.com/index.php?). He has 20 years in Porsches and helped create the Spec Boxster standard. He has talked with Dell (LVDell on Rennlist) and knows the origin of the spreadsheet he sent me, and noted that the toe links on the spreadsheet are not yet legal. He knows of Mitch Piper's shop (near Dulles airport--does vritually all the Miata cages in the area and did Glen's 993 cage) as the place people tell him to get fabrication done in our area. He works with Farnbacher-Loles and Werkstatt (http://www.werkstattcville.com/index.htm), the guys who brought the Spec Boxsters to NJMP last week. As soon as that race was over he got a call from Peter Dawe (http://www.dawesmotorsports.com/) who had three guys who wanted to build Spec Boxsters. While I was on the phone with Brad Chris Kellet (Synch Speed race radios and an SSM racer) e-mailed that he wants to sell his SSM to get a Spec Boxster. I think we are at a tipping point in the Mid-Atlantic states to see this class take off.

Here are some of the specifics I learned from Brad. Donor cars with about 60,000 miles can are readily available in CA for $8,000-$10,000. He can get a TIG-welded mild steel cage done for $2,500, MIG welding is cheaper but not as pretty. He gets about $1,500 for the take-off parts. Farnbacher-Loles is building ten cars to be kept at Monticello (the private track newar NY) for arrive-and-drive (and Brad came out for a couple of days to get them going). If you swap a 2.7 liter engine in a SPBOX car you can race it just like that in GrandAm Pro. You want a Fiberglas top and Lexan rear window for about $1,000. He sells a turn-key car all set up for $35,000-$45,000, with the top price including paint, pretty cage, all updates on the engines and the like.

There are a lot of cup car racers on Rennlist moving to SPBOX, mostly in CA and TX, but it's spreading here too. Brad noted that the guys at the Thunderbolt club race put on a good show with close racing. He complained that the CA POC racers just will not come East to show us what the class is about, and that when one gets a large lead he keeps it rather than fall back a bit to provide a show for the spectators. Bottom line, Brad is a super enthusiastic promoter and this is one of his businesses. That said, the class needs a promoter to expand. It could grow as Spec Miata has, but I do like the cars better.
 
In addition to PCA these cars can run with SCCA and NASA. The San Francisco SCCA region added a class for SPBOX. Of course they run with other classes, like ITA, but if the cars are close as they are with the 944s and 951s in PCA classing, it can be fun to run with those classes too as well as within class. Brad would like to see these cars in SCCA E Production. That's not a very popular class in the area SCCA races so it may be ripe for a number of new cars to join.
 
Lots to think about here.