Paolo Castellano
Enthusiast
I would like to thank Joe Dell for letting me prep his car for the Silverstate and to run it in the standing mile race! Thank you Joseph!
I would also like to thank Todd at Quantex, Jim Wilson and Ab for their financial support! We could not have done it without them!
I would also like to thank Cam Douglas from Optima Batteries for donating his entry spots for the mile and open road race as well as setting up all the hotel reservations and helping me get my certification to race the car!
I would like to thank Scott Parkhurst, editor of Street Thunder Magazine who was my co-pilot for the standing mile and was to do the open road race with me as well. Scott hooked me up with Tyler @ ATS when we got to Vegas. Without Tyler's help we would not have made it.
I would like to thank Tyler Beauregard from ATS, www.T56kit.com , who selflessly let me use his lift, shop and shop tools to finish up what we did not get done before we had to leave. Tyler is a young guy with loads on the ball....... He is going to make it big time!
Tyler did for me what I would do for anybody in my situation, he stayed there late, set up an alignment, told me where to go to get whatever parts we were seeking, set up map quest directions so me and Bill would not get lost.
Tyler, you're the best! Thank you!
Now the biggest thanks I need to give is to Bill Evans who flew out to Chicago on wednesday the 10th and worked around the clock "Paolo" style for 20+ hours/day for 5 days straight, then switched off driving to Vegas, worked on the car day and night until the day of the race. I bet we had around 180 hours each plus the hours for the 1800 mile drive to Vegas and then to Ely(~260 miles) into the car by the time we rolled up to the starting line. I have never seen anybody else work that hard ever! ==> Bill you are one bad ****!
We could not do any top speed testing due to Joe Dell having had to replace the left rear suspension in the last few months and not having the car aligned since.
Once we got the car aligned to my specifications after some ride height modifications, we took the car on a closed course, Top Off of course, and did an 80-210 MPH blast in less than 10 seconds.
The car pulled it so quickly that it really did not feel all that fast to me.
Everybody says the RT/10's are unstable at high speeds. After TOOFST telling me his car felt fine at almost 190 MPH with the top off, I figured 200+ would not be a big deal.
Guess what? It felt fine to me! I would have liked to have stiffer springs for the 130+ MPH slalom, but we really did not need to do that!
I pulled it up to 200 MPH on the speedo and realized the 27.5" tall tires made it read slow...... So here's the calculation.
A 335/30/18 is 25.913" tall, a 345/35/18 is 27.50787" tall.
25.913/27.5078 = .94202
200 MPH/.94202 = 212.309 MPH ( I originally used a 26.2" tall tire but later realized the 335/30/18 is a little shorter.)
We did one more 3rd-4th partial pull through a sweeper to feel how the car would accelerate on the open road course at speed and it accelerated smoothly enough that anybody not scared to go that fast on a sweeper could drive it. The car ran nice and cool and could lug 6th gear at 150+ all day long or so it seemed.
We cruised back to town and did some finishing touches to get the car ready for the 1-mile shootout the next day.
Prior to the start of the 1-mile shootout, there was such a strong crosswind that it would take your breath away if you were facing it and it hit hard. I would guess it was at least a 40 MPH crosswind.
I went up to the starting line on Michelin Pilots, pulled 1st, 2nd and 3rd and spun the tires at partial throttle and got a little sideways at the top of 3rd gear. When I shifted into 4th the car was not pulling as hard as it usually did(we thought the clutch might have been slipping from some earlier testing), I thought it might have been the clutch but did not smell anything. It went through 4th about as fast as my blower car did and 5th was starting to lay down when I noticed the oil pressure gauge reading ZERO. I quickly got out of it and shut the car down and coasted to the end of the shutdown area. There was no oil under the car anywhere, the oil dipstick had clean oil on it with no metal particles on it.
When I take it apart I will hopefully figure out what happened.
I drove back to Chicago by myself and will be getting into figuring out exactly what happened soon.
I would also like to thank Todd at Quantex, Jim Wilson and Ab for their financial support! We could not have done it without them!
I would also like to thank Cam Douglas from Optima Batteries for donating his entry spots for the mile and open road race as well as setting up all the hotel reservations and helping me get my certification to race the car!
I would like to thank Scott Parkhurst, editor of Street Thunder Magazine who was my co-pilot for the standing mile and was to do the open road race with me as well. Scott hooked me up with Tyler @ ATS when we got to Vegas. Without Tyler's help we would not have made it.
I would like to thank Tyler Beauregard from ATS, www.T56kit.com , who selflessly let me use his lift, shop and shop tools to finish up what we did not get done before we had to leave. Tyler is a young guy with loads on the ball....... He is going to make it big time!
Tyler did for me what I would do for anybody in my situation, he stayed there late, set up an alignment, told me where to go to get whatever parts we were seeking, set up map quest directions so me and Bill would not get lost.
Tyler, you're the best! Thank you!
Now the biggest thanks I need to give is to Bill Evans who flew out to Chicago on wednesday the 10th and worked around the clock "Paolo" style for 20+ hours/day for 5 days straight, then switched off driving to Vegas, worked on the car day and night until the day of the race. I bet we had around 180 hours each plus the hours for the 1800 mile drive to Vegas and then to Ely(~260 miles) into the car by the time we rolled up to the starting line. I have never seen anybody else work that hard ever! ==> Bill you are one bad ****!
We could not do any top speed testing due to Joe Dell having had to replace the left rear suspension in the last few months and not having the car aligned since.
Once we got the car aligned to my specifications after some ride height modifications, we took the car on a closed course, Top Off of course, and did an 80-210 MPH blast in less than 10 seconds.
The car pulled it so quickly that it really did not feel all that fast to me.
Everybody says the RT/10's are unstable at high speeds. After TOOFST telling me his car felt fine at almost 190 MPH with the top off, I figured 200+ would not be a big deal.
Guess what? It felt fine to me! I would have liked to have stiffer springs for the 130+ MPH slalom, but we really did not need to do that!
I pulled it up to 200 MPH on the speedo and realized the 27.5" tall tires made it read slow...... So here's the calculation.
A 335/30/18 is 25.913" tall, a 345/35/18 is 27.50787" tall.
25.913/27.5078 = .94202
200 MPH/.94202 = 212.309 MPH ( I originally used a 26.2" tall tire but later realized the 335/30/18 is a little shorter.)
We did one more 3rd-4th partial pull through a sweeper to feel how the car would accelerate on the open road course at speed and it accelerated smoothly enough that anybody not scared to go that fast on a sweeper could drive it. The car ran nice and cool and could lug 6th gear at 150+ all day long or so it seemed.
We cruised back to town and did some finishing touches to get the car ready for the 1-mile shootout the next day.
Prior to the start of the 1-mile shootout, there was such a strong crosswind that it would take your breath away if you were facing it and it hit hard. I would guess it was at least a 40 MPH crosswind.
I went up to the starting line on Michelin Pilots, pulled 1st, 2nd and 3rd and spun the tires at partial throttle and got a little sideways at the top of 3rd gear. When I shifted into 4th the car was not pulling as hard as it usually did(we thought the clutch might have been slipping from some earlier testing), I thought it might have been the clutch but did not smell anything. It went through 4th about as fast as my blower car did and 5th was starting to lay down when I noticed the oil pressure gauge reading ZERO. I quickly got out of it and shut the car down and coasted to the end of the shutdown area. There was no oil under the car anywhere, the oil dipstick had clean oil on it with no metal particles on it.
When I take it apart I will hopefully figure out what happened.
I drove back to Chicago by myself and will be getting into figuring out exactly what happened soon.
On the oil pressure issue, is it possible that it was just an indication issue? I'm sure you guys wil figure it out quicklu and be back at the races very soon 
