Addition of Blue tail light due to rule change

We have been primarily racing the SCORE Desert Racing Series and the rule set for our class originally required that we have only a single orange "dust light" in addition to our normal brake and running lights.  Some other race organizations have required a blue dust light in addition to the orange light; the blue light denoting a "slower class vehicle"......  I always found that funny; we regularly find ourselves "in the mix" with "5 unlimiteds", 1/2-1600's, class 7's, class 8's, etc.; not because they have broken down and we've caught them as a result but because 5/1600 cars are surprisingly fast when driven well.  Since we want to race the SCORE series, we now must update our car to incorporate the change. 

We talked about the possible options and looked around the shop to see what materials we had on hand; the more we thought about it, the more we liked the idea of making a new "dual light" mount from carbon fiber to replace the existing single light aluminum version.  The hard part was making a mold; we finally settled on using a piece of acrylic sheet heat formed into shape.  Once we settled on that idea, it only took a couple of hours start the lay-up of the actual part.  We let the part partially cure, then trimmed away the "overhang" and the openings (there is a perfect time to trim parts during the cure - it's not fully cured and is soft enough to cut with a razor blade but isn't "gummy" any longer).  Once the part was fully cured the following morning, we "dressed" all the edges (rough carbon fiber edges will tear you up!) and installed the lights.  Then, it was just a matter of attaching it to the car and changing the wiring harness to include the new light.  Here are a couple of photos:

 

Acrylic mold and carbon fabric ready for lay-up

Finished part mounted on the car the following day
(we could have made it out of aluminum faster but we wanted something made from carbon fiber......)

Blue Light spliced into the Dust Light circuit
Now I just have to protect and secure the wires

Addition of second fire extinguisher due to rule change

Another requirement coming from the HDRA rule set forced upon us is the requirement for a second 2 1/2 pound fire extinguisher mounted to be accessible from outside the car.  We currently have a single portable extinguisher mounted to the floor on the co-driver's side, so we need to find a place to add one accessible from outside the car.  That poses a bit of a challenge; there really isn't much structure out side the body lines of the car..... The only real external structure is the rear bumper assembly but there is no obvious place to mount an extinguisher (at least nowhere safe).  The other option is to mount it just inside the rear window on the roll cage cross tube that sits just below the lower window sill; the extinguisher will be accessible from outside but not at risk of collision there.  Of course, the engine area is what would probably be on fire so there's not really any safe place at all.......

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