Mt.Washington Hillclimb in a 1991 Sentra
So, this past weekend my friend Tim Mather competed in the Mt. Washington hillclimb in his 1991 Sentra. This was Tim's 11th time competing in this event.
I had done some minor upgrades to the car recently. I made a new aluminum exhaust, new aluminum rear strut housings with B15 Koni inserts, made some rear fender flares in steel, fitted 949 Racing 15 x 9 wheels and 225/45-15 Hoosiers, etc. All of these updates are posted in the fabrication section on this site BTW. But the car was still running the same old 15 year old engine with maybe 100 whp.
The weather couldn't have been better, and the car was just on rails. Tim was also 'in the zone', and easily won his class. He ran 7:26 up the 7.6 mile hill, beating his previous best time by about 8 seconds.
The overall record was set by David Higgins in a Vermont-Sportscar prepared Subaru STI rally car, in 6:09. Travis Pastrana was close behind in 6:12. But to put it in perspective, those were both $600,000 professionally prepared rally cars with professional drivers. And when Tim arrived at the top, Travis Pastrana shook his hand and told him he was by far the fastest driver thru the last few curves (visible from the finish).
My decision to run without sway bars proved to be efficient. Not only was the car faster on the gravel sections than it would have been with the bars, but the bumpiness of the asphalt would have prevented Tim from running the car flat-out as well if he had kept the bars on. He had more body roll, but also far more grip.
I had done some minor upgrades to the car recently. I made a new aluminum exhaust, new aluminum rear strut housings with B15 Koni inserts, made some rear fender flares in steel, fitted 949 Racing 15 x 9 wheels and 225/45-15 Hoosiers, etc. All of these updates are posted in the fabrication section on this site BTW. But the car was still running the same old 15 year old engine with maybe 100 whp.
The weather couldn't have been better, and the car was just on rails. Tim was also 'in the zone', and easily won his class. He ran 7:26 up the 7.6 mile hill, beating his previous best time by about 8 seconds.
The overall record was set by David Higgins in a Vermont-Sportscar prepared Subaru STI rally car, in 6:09. Travis Pastrana was close behind in 6:12. But to put it in perspective, those were both $600,000 professionally prepared rally cars with professional drivers. And when Tim arrived at the top, Travis Pastrana shook his hand and told him he was by far the fastest driver thru the last few curves (visible from the finish).
My decision to run without sway bars proved to be efficient. Not only was the car faster on the gravel sections than it would have been with the bars, but the bumpiness of the asphalt would have prevented Tim from running the car flat-out as well if he had kept the bars on. He had more body roll, but also far more grip.
Last edited by 1450Racing
on 2014-07-22
at 14-49-39.
Reason: spelling errors
Originally Posted by shady45 
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