Dragonfly at 2021 Thill 25

[Sgt.Gator]

Best Wishes to Dragonfly 818R drivers Leo Del Castillo, Scott Mosier, and Christian Guirguis a the Thunderhill 25 this weekend.
Friday Practice shot:

Dragonfly Thill 25 2021 Practice.jpg

Live Timing on Race Hero: https://racehero.io/events/nasa-norc...underhill-2021

And for the EV 818 enthusiasts, there is a EV entered this year: The Entropy Racing EVSR.
https://nasaspeed.news/race-coverage...ctric-racecar/

I expect NASA to post a list of livestreams on their FB page: https://www.facebook.com/NASA25HrsofThunderhill/

[Fman]

Very cool my brother in law is also racing out there this weekend, those cars and drivers are definitely getting a workout.

[Dave 53]

Hope to have my 818S at Thunderhill on the 18th for its first track day, weather permitting.

[Sgt.Gator]

The Dragonfly 818R qualified P1 in the E0 class.
During the race they were running at the top of their class and doing great.
However they dropped out after 48 laps. I chatted with Leo, they had a CV axle fail just as in the Portland Cascade Enduro. They were swapping in the new CV when they discovered the the other axle was about to fail. At that point they ran out of axles and clearly something else was going on because they'd just swapped in a new axle after the Cascade.
Back in the shop they found the issue appears to be failing rear wheel bearings taking out the CV axles.
Better luck next year!

As an aside, it looks to me like the Thill25 is either dying off or will change to a high speed/power race. There were only 38 entries this year. But there were 8 ESR cars, the fastest class made up mostly of Radicals, a Norma M20F, and a Elan DP02 LMP3 car. And the 4 ES cars.

Meanwhile WRL had their championship the same weekend at COTA, with 90 cars, a sold out race. Lucky Dog had their Championship at Thunderhill the weekend prior, also a sold out race.

ESR and ES are generally too fast and barred by other rules from racing in Lucky Dog and WRL. So they have a place to race at the Thill25, but all the other cars in E0 thru E3 are switching to other race series. And now SCCA is running a new Endurance series and another new series is starting in the NW, the Revolution Racing League. There's too many other choices for racers. Just my $.02 !

[NevaLift2Shift]

The Dragonfly 818R qualified P1 in the E0 class.
During the race they were running at the top of their class and doing great.
However they dropped out after 48 laps. I chatted with Leo, they had a CV axle fail just as in the Portland Cascade Enduro. They were swapping in the new CV when they discovered the the other axle was about to fail. At that point they ran out of axles and clearly something else was going on because they'd just swapped in a new axle after the Cascade.
Back in the shop they found the issue appears to be failing rear wheel bearings taking out the CV axles.
Better luck next year!

As an aside, it looks to me like the Thill25 is either dying off or will change to a high speed/power race. There were only 38 entries this year. But there were 8 ESR cars, the fastest class made up mostly of Radicals, a Norma M20F, and a Elan DP02 LMP3 car. And the 4 ES cars.

Meanwhile WRL had their championship the same weekend at COTA, with 90 cars, a sold out race. Lucky Dog had their Championship at Thunderhill the weekend prior, also a sold out race.

ESR and ES are generally too fast and barred by other rules from racing in Lucky Dog and WRL. So they have a place to race at the Thill25, but all the other cars in E0 thru E3 are switching to other race series. And now SCCA is running a new Endurance series and another new series is starting in the NW, the Revolution Racing League. There's too many other choices for racers. Just my $.02 !

Definitely interesting to hear what's going on with endurance racing as a whole. The past few years it has changed drastically, I guess it's the appeal of the seat time compared to sprint racing? But, it seems like there are a lot of big teams and money coming into the sport. Richard Childress was out there dominating the GTO class at WRL COTA last weekend.

It's even starting to bleed down to Champ Car. I guess growth is always a good thing, but seems like the budget friendly series are starting to get taken over. I remember when I helped crew for the first WRL Race at High Plains in a J35 swapped S2000 and it was one of the fastest cars on the grid, there might have been 2 or 3 GTO cars. Now, it looks like an IMSA race field.