Road Atlanta - 3.11.12 - Day #2

Day #2 at Road Atlanta started dark and slow. With the time change in the ET zone; it was pitch dark when I got to the track and nearly that for our morning meeting. Then a screwy schedule had me waiting around for about 2 hours. I really had no changes to make, other than remounting my camera and GPS and putting in a little fuel. I'm tuned for 100oct; and having used all I brought I was using a cocktail of 98 unleaded and 110 leaded since that's all they had (well had 112 leaded too). Oh, I did get my AFR guage hooked back up as the wire had come out. Lastly I had installed a different ACD in my car as I had planned on doing some testing on a reflashed ACD unit from ACD-Tuning. We talked over the winter and Mathew hooked with up with a unit with 3 special maps; each more aggressive than the stock Tarmac map.

When our first session finally came, I had the inevitable slow-down from a new track on a new day and not being aggressive. I also had overestimated the tire pressures so everything was high - which I could tell by the reduced grip. I took it easy on the tires and ran a some mid 1:35's. Watching the AFR down the long backstraight in 5th gear 'planted', I seen 10.5 - 10.6 on the new Buschur Racing tune with the 98/110 cocktail.  As for the updated ACD unit, I completely forgot about it until the session was done - which is good. Nothing detrimental at all to say about the map, no locking, no confusion, nothing at all that slowed me down. However, I didn't really notice any huge changes either which could mean I needed a more aggressive map or I simply wasn't pushing hard enough to tell - probably a combination of both.
I checked my data afterwards and I finally cleared 150mph on the backstraight!

Again - screwy schedule, so I had a big break before the next session. I had already started packing up, and continued that just in case I were to leave after this next session. Changes were small, reset the tire pressures was about it. I did decide to move my ACD to map #2 as I did not feel anything really different with map #1.
Finally around 12:30pm I lined up for session #2 - where I was up to 5th on grid I think. Knowing I had a 10hr drive home, I really just wanted to better my time from yesterday primarily. No sense in putting the car in danger with over-aggressive driving or torturing the tires (given the 2012 Hoosier contingencies). I ran a pair of 1:34's including my best of the weekend - a 1:34.1 - with a nice drift through T10A at the end of the long backstraight. Besides a few key areas, I was getting about as much out of the track as I could with the tires I had. I believe the time held for 1st place again in TTA and the 4th best out of 37 cars in TT.

Given the screwy schedule - I had 2:20 until my next session - I decided to head homeward. If we drove straight though I could be home around 12pm.
Gotta give huge props to David and crew at Buschur Racing for all the updated work on the car, installation of parts and most notably the new tune. Also thanks to AMSOIL, Forgeline, ACD-Tuning, KNS Brakes & Andrews Racing. The trip home was long and tiring. I'm thankful my Dad was with me, he drove the middle 4 hours of the trip probably and I ended up home about 2:30am ET. And yes I was at work Monday...