A Project Epiphany

Last night I spent a few hours sitting in the car. I had decided over the weekend I needed to take out all of the interior, or at least most of it, and clean up the inside of the car. I can always get the outside painted later, but the inside, if I’m going to be in it, needs to be cleaned up, and painted. It’s orange, or red, I can’t tell which, and though most of the interior items cover the orange there are gaps that show through.

So I took out all the diamond plate looking black vinyl, and then started removing the tar board and furry coating over the transmission tunnel. I’ve removed all that I think I can remove right now, and eventually will also pull the dash out and replace the dash with a fiberglass dash I acquired when I purchased the car.

While sitting in the car I had a lot of time to think, and based on the state of the car (old, rusty, partially assembled) I have decided that I won’t be building the car up to SM2 rules anymore. I’ll be aiming for the new XP class in SCCA Solo. By going to XP, I no longer have to worry about a few major things that I was concerned with.

I don’t have to deal with the interior anymore, I can do whatever I want (I think), so I can do something custom inside, without having to worry about SM2 rules about interiors. Moving to XP also frees up my options with mounting my seat. With SM2 mounting my seat like I plan to mount it may not have been legal, it’d have been a grey area, but within the rules of XP I believe I’ll have all sorts of options for mounting the seat and remaining in the rules.

So, XP here I come. I still plan to compete in SM2 for St. Louis region autocrosses this year, at least 4 more in SM2, then I’ll try to run the 240Z in XP, unless of course I just talk myself into running XP for enough events to qualify for a year end class championship.

Photos of the interior after last night’s work.