After the GRM awards ceremony, I went back to my pit area to transform/downgrade the car into NASA TTB trim for the weekend which besides a small tire and weight different includes about 50whp less! And guess what; it was still insanely hot.
Saturday Morning:
The call was a 7:30am meeting at the track. Because of the heat from the previous day, I felt like I had been up partying all night long even though I wasn't. Great way to start the day and along with the Gatorade and water I was drinking I had to mix in some caffeine as well to get me going!
I had just enough time to tighten everything down and make the morning warmup for TT. I was going to be running my usual TTB trim which is ~300whp & 3280lbs with 245 Hoosiers. Practice went fine although I did pop off a boost line and was overboosting on the last lap so I came in a bit early as I already had a few hot laps in for a good grid position.
NASA Mid-Atlantic does their TT program scheduling quite a bit different from what I'm used to in the MW/GL division. Where I'm used to 5 total sessions; here I was only going to get 2! So that's a lot less track time, and a lot more pressure to have your setup right and a good clean flyer of a lap w/o any offs (4-wheels off = DQ)! I thought I did well, with a 2:13.7 but that stuck me in 4th out of 7! Fortunately I had nearly 4 hrs to figure out where to pick up time.
The final - rather the 'other' timed session was around 5pm. I lined up very early and went out and just kept my foot in it. Just like the end of the day Friday, the track was pretty greasy. Did I mention Sat was even hotter than the UTCC event?? I think the high was 103 Saturday and the track conditions showed it. I was clicking off lower times on each of my laps as I struggled through some traffic. My last lap was my best - 2:11.8 which vaulted me into 2nd place; just .5 off the win. I was pretty happy with that outcome. In a sense, I picked up a 1/2 second from the previous day even though I was running 50whp less, thinner tires and more weight! Not bad... I secured 2nd out of 7 and felt pretty good about my chances on Sunday.
Sunday:
Only prep work was rotating the tires and tightening everything down. The practice session went just fine and in the 3hr gap before our 11:30am timed session I started packing up for the long trip home. We had an 11:30 timed session and then something like a 4:30pm session which I was not planning on sticking around for - not when I had a 900 mile trip home!
Anyways, once the session started I clicked off a few laps and had a 1:11.2 which was my best to date. I took a partial cool-down then hammered out a final lap. I had to pass 3 cars on this lap and still came away with my best ever - my traqmate showed a 2:11 flat. I did about the best I could and hoped it would hold up.
After about 30min of chugging water and packing I went to check the midday results. And this was how close it was:
1st place: 2:10.998
Me: 2:11.028
Yep, that's just .03 off the win... I was sooo close to taing down the win in TTB from the locals! But, I needed to get home so I packed up the car, said a few goodbyes and took off. All-in-all I was insanely proud of the car. I punished it in 100+ degree temps all weekend to the tune of 200+ track miles and it never flinched at all. I ran both a 100oct 26psi and my normal 93oct AMS Performance tune and kept everything in check with AMSOIL fluids. Thanks again for the great products guys!
Also a shoutout to Forgeline rims and Hawk pads; great products.
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