NASA @ GMP - 3/30/14 (Day 2; races 2 & 3)

Day #2 was Sunday and forecasted some warmer weather as well as 2 races!  The morning started out cold and we'd discussed a setup change for the car to help it through the oval - this after the owner took it out for a session the previous day.  I'm all for changes, so I said let's give it a try!

Qualifying was up right away and the changes didn't seem to make things any worse.  However, everyone else got much quicker including 2 newbs that just finished Competition school the previous day.  I would be gridded 5th again (this should have made us realize the changes weren't good).  After the opening session with my student, the first race of the day was up.
Within a few laps, I was really starting to fight the car for grip.  The worst being in the oval where I had to back out of the throttle nearly every lap as it was literally pushing uphill.  At one point it pushed all the way through the marbles and nearly to the wall as I got it safely under control.  That was pretty much the story and I ended up 6th with a best lap of 1:14.6.  I had some good battles with another Miata though, so the race in itself was still fun and definitely challenging. 

I got with the owner and asked him to reverse the changes - and to even go the opposite direction with them!  I was anxious for race #3 and I had nothing to lose and the owner really wanted my opinion on helping to dial in the car on what were new springs and new tires for 2014.
I would be gridded in the front row for the final race around 3pm when the temps were finally much warmer.  I let the pole sitter set the pace which was insanely slow and I was in 2nd when the green finally dropped.  Unfortunately I missed 3rd gear and nearly got bumped on the start.  I lost a few positions there and had my work cut out for me.  I pushed the car hard and it eventually paid off.  Video of the entire race is below - where I ended up with a 1st Place Finish!  To add to that, I took back the track record with a best lap of 1:13.5.  Enjoy. 
So I ended up with a 2nd, 6th and 1st place finish, along with a new track record.  No rest for the weary... as I'm headed out again this weekend to Autobahn for a Chumpcar race...

NASA @ GMP - 3/29/14 (Day 1)

It was going to be a busy freaking weekend.  3 races altogether and I would be instructing.  While I have instructed before, and most often at Gateway, I had never instructed for NASA; nor while I was competing.  It simply takes a ton of time and a lot of focus away from the task at hand.

Arriving around 7am Saturday, it was cold, overcast and windy.  The car was ready and except for BFG R1 tires (instead of Hoosiers) and a different steering wheel, the setup was the same as last year.  In warmups, the car felt fine.  There were some 944's and a few e30's in our group that were piss-poor at traffic mgmt - which isn't uncommon.
Working in instructing sessions with my student in his BMW 318i, the morning went quick and qualifying was up next.  There was a 944 that had a huge spin in T1 and 2 other 944's that got crazy sideways in T6 that majorly affected several of my laps.  By that point, there wasn't a lot of people working with traffic and I wasn't in a very aggressive mode so my qual time of 1:16.4 put me in the back row of a deep 6 car PTE field.  All of us within 1.5 seconds though.

I knew I needed to be much more aggressive in the race and push hard right from the start.  That's exactly what I did.  And I started picking off spots with a late entry PTE Miata following me through traffic and causing me to watch ALL my mirrors.  In about 4 laps I had worked my way into the lead!  It was a pretty happy moment really and my racecraft wasn't this good last year.  An unfortunate accident in T7 went from a yellow to waving yellow to double-yellow with the pace car returning.  We cycled for several laps, wondering if the race would end under yellow or not.  I would have been ok - as I was in the class lead and the blue Miata was directly behind me.  Adding to that the rest of the PTE field was now that much closer to me even though we (the blue Miata and I) had put a few other out-of-class cars between us.
The pace car did pull off and we went single file to the S/F line and got a very late green.  T1 was 3-wide chaos as expected.  The outside opened up so I took it, but it closed down quickly and I had to check up.  I painfully looked left but was trapped - with the blue Miata finding an opening and passing a few rows of car.  Pretty sure he was gone for good at that point.  Now back to 2nd, I aggressively worked my way through with the 3rd place white Sentra not far behind me.  Wanting to stick cars between us, I executed a nice clean pass a few laps later in T1 and promptly shifted from 5th down to N.  As you can imagine, neutral doesn't have the same desired effect that 3rd would have.  I lost both the positions I had passed and the white Sentra made it past too to relegate me back to 3rd.  There was a little back-n-forth but getting loose in T7 on the last lap sealed my fate.  We'd later learn the blue Miata would be DQ'd for passing under yellow.  I took 2nd behind the white Sentra.  My fastest lap improved to 1:14.2 on the day - with nobody overtaking my 2013 track record of 1:14.0 quite yet.

If I had qualified better - didn't get completely hosed on the 50/50 direction call on the restart - or had better luck with the gearbox --> I really think I'd have the class won much easier.  As it went starting from the rear of the field and working through slower traffic from other classes - I had a hell of a great time.  There were still a few crappy drivers with poor traffic mgmt skills; however none of them were in my PTE class I'm proud to say.  My racecraft has picked up by leaps and bounds since 1 year ago and so has the confidence.  Being my 2nd weekend in this car definitely helped, finally some familiarity!

2014 Season Begins - NASA @ Gateway Motorsports Park

First event of 2014....
NASA Midwest & NASA Central @ Gateway Motorsports Park March 29-30th.  This is a return event from 2013 for me - in the same car!  I'll be driving the Team Cohn #7 PTE Miata once again.  Last year I put it on the pole and set the PTE track record on the way to the class win on Saturday.  On Sunday... well... the whole freakin event was cancelled!  Seriously!  Based on the weather forecast no less.  We ended up with 10"-13" (10 in STL; 13" at my house 90 miles N). 

The pic above is from 2013; with me behind the wheel of the #7 red/white PTE Miata.  I'm in the oval on the banking working the pass on the #74 SM being driven by the Race Director of all people!  Even more crazy; I nearly bought the #74 over the winter!  Small, crazy world eh.

Anyways, I'll be looking to improve on the 1:14.0 track record from last year.  Assuming the car is all good - and I have no reason to doubt Mr Cohn otherwise - I fully expect to demolish that.  I'm looking for a good 2 seconds on it.  After a season of driving some lower hp cars, including several on slicker Toyo tires, I really hope the skillset has improved.  Optimal conditions will be needed; so we'll have to wait and see.  Forecast shows a high of 59 Sat and 70 Sunday!  Crazy considering it's 32 degrees there now...  Wish us luck on a great 2014 kickoff!

Racing this Friday - NASA @ Autobahn 4.5 hr Enduro!

It's hard to believe I haven't been racing since June!  There have been several opportunities out there but either pricing or scheduling have been the hiccups.  But this race has been on my radar for awhile and I've got a seat! 

The race is a 4.5hr NASA Enduro on the FULL course at Autobahn Country Club outside Chicago, IL.  It is scheduled to run from 5pm - 9:30pm and with sunset around 7:10pm, we'll definitely have some dark racing!  I actually had a line on about 3-4 different rides for this one, and was trying to work stints in multiple cars at one point! 
The car is my friend Dave's and the pics are below.  The Mustang was tested at the same exact track on Monday on old tires and came through just find in multiple 30min stints so we're feeling confident.  Starts are about 310whp @ 3300 lbs and the class will be E0.

We are planning on a 3-driver strategy and I believe I'm tagged for the middle stint which should start in the sunlight and end in the dark!   
Stint #2:  est 6:30 - 8pm but could change.  This will be my first ever time running in the dark, and first time since 2008 running the FULL course at Autobahn!  Dave has solicited some pitlane help for fuel stops and we've got multiple guys working on strategy.  We'd love to win, but the car will not be maxxed out for the E0 class - however with a good pit strategy and good racing, everyone has a chance!  We are working on multiple fuel mileage and tire wear strategies; plus some radio mis-match issues!

#929Evo Projects - Pics and Press

Recently, I took some time putting together a group of pictures sort of detailing the 6+ years I had with the #929Evo.  As I purchased the car brand new, it went through quite a transformation to a weekend track car, to adding sponsors, to eventually being trailored and at the end being completely gutted and caged.  Below are the pics that work down from top-left.  It's a 16x20 framed photo.
Pics:

Project #2 was an effort to capture a magazine article for the #929Evo from mid-2012.  Many thanks to Evolution Magazine.  This was a long work in progress from the time the written interviews were taken until publishing over in Europe, then eventually I received a copy.  I eventually tracked down a few additional copies and was able to cut everything out and fancy it up with some additional pictures to round out the mount. 
Evolution Magazine article:

CMC Mustang - NASA MW/GL Quals/Race @ Putnam Park 5.19.2012

After the difficulties with the water temps on Saturday, I was not sure how Sunday would unfold.  And I would know right away with warmups at 9:30am.  The outcome; water temp issues persisted still.  I left the car in the owner's hands again with Qualifying coming up around 11am.  At this point I was pretty much leaning towards heading home and not wasting my entire day once again.
After a chat with the owner prior to Quals, he explained an updated repair plan.  The new plan was to swap out the water pump with a new model - thinking that Ford made 2 models and it could be broken or possibly even the wrong one.  So that change along with another full system flush.  A repair like that would fit between Quals and the 3pm race - but not before.  So I was instructed to top the car off with water and just run 1-2 laps to get a Qualifying spot while the owner ran quickly for parts.

I went out late for Qualifying and fired 1 hot lap as best I could.  I ran a new weekend best of 1:23.1 w/o the tires being fully up to temp and navigating a bit of traffic front & rear (see vid).  It felt a bit better actually but I just simply needed more seattime in the car and with all the issues I was not getting many laps.  My time placed me in 7th today however, about 1 second out of 4th, with only 8 cars making it out as there was some attrition.  Below is a pic of the in-class cars (me in the #20) of CMC - Camaro-Mustang Challenge.

After Quals, the car went under the knife again and I relaxed with the wife and chatted up some friends around the paddock.  The car returned later and was deemed ready for action with about an hour to spare.  We packed up most of our gear for a quick post-race getaway and I got suited up for the race.  I hopped in the car to start it about 10min before the race and it would not crank over.  The owner immediately hopped under it as we jacked it up and with some quick 'massaging' to the starter it cranked over.  We all hopped in our cars and headed for grid with a few mins to spare.  Crazy crazy quick fix!

The race was another standing start, and again I was not the best out of the gate.  I think I made 2-3 laps keeping an eye on the water temps and they were unfortunately shooting up quickly once again.  Coming out of T8 it felt like something burst and the car slid sideways briefly as I decided to exit immediately.  Turns out the radiator hose came off.   Total laps for the day:  9.

Next race scheduled! NASA @ Putnam

I have secured a car for the NASA Midwest & Great Lakes Crossover event at Putnam next weekend.  I'll be racing the #20 1994 Ford Mustang in class CMC; Camaro Mustang Challenge.  The car is classed at ~265hp @ 3200lbs running on a spec Toyo tire.  Should be a lot of fun!  It's also an American V8, so the power band should be strong - I just hope I can get it to take turns!  In comparison with my Evo which ran a stickier Hoosier tire, it makes about 100whp less with similar weight.

Altogether there are 10 entries in the class I'll be running in; which is a crazy high amount for a regional event!  There should be some great in-class racing which is always a treat.  I'll be racing in the same rungroup (Thunder) as I've ran a few times in the past which is about 1/2 full of America V8's and the faster ST cars which are power/weight only with unrestricted aero and unrestricted tires.

Putnam is a fun track and imo, favors mometum cars moreso than outright HP.  It's also pretty tight everywhere, with nothing overly wide except for the main straight.  Should be fun; more details to come!

2012 Press --> #929Evo - (UK) Evolution Magazine

My apologies as I step back to 2012 to share some wicked-ass information!  I had some pretty rare overseas press on the #929Evo that recently went to print and eventually I was able to get my hands on a copy.  I'm just now getting around to scanning it in.

The story goes... a columnist from the Arizona area found me somehow and wanted to do a spread on me and the car for a new upstart British magazine. His job/goal was to share some stories about racing in the US to demonstrate that even though we're 1000's of miles apart we're not all that different. And to compare/contrast the availability of tracks, cars, competition, the racing ladder system, etc. We didn't have a lot of time (or any funds) to put together a photoshoot so I merely submitted pics that I had already. Enjoy.

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2013 Schedule Outlook

Looking into 2013, it's really wide open!  Having obtained my NASA race license in 2012 and then selling my personal car last fall really opens up a lot of possibilities.  I think the goal would be to do some arrive-n-drive rentals at a few tracks throughout the year while keeping my eyes/ears open for other possibilities that might present themselves.

I have already had some inquiries to race with a few Chumpcar Teams, a Lemons Team as well as some NASA rentals.  Additionally I have inquired about a few NASA rentals across various regions including Enduro's and Sprint races.  I have considered larger ideas like One Lap or building towards the 25-hrs of Thunderhill endurance race as well as where my current DD would fit into the current NASA TT (Time Trial) classification system (answer; it's not currently classed).

Most of the 2013 schedules are out and pretty firmed up, with the exception of my local NASA Enduro events.  So it's really time to sit down and figure out what I would like to do, match up some dates and events and find a car that'll work for me!  That process is well underway....

And in case anyone is wondering, I still have no plans to purchase/own a racecar in the near future.  Having sold my trailer and my tow truck last year along with the #929Evo; I am not setup for it anymore either.  I am very open to offers for 24-hr races, Enduro's, filling in for teams, etc.  Hit me up:  pitchn at gmail (dot) com

Some On-Track Pics from Gingerman!

A few pics from our event at Gingerman earlier this month!

1st ever Sprint Race - 6-9-12 @ Gingerman!

After arriving about 10pm and drinking until 2:30am - morning came quick and I made the registration switch from PTA over to ST2 already.  I knew I didn't have a chance in ST2 w/o at least good tires but I wanted to be in the faster rungroup and get used to the traffic.  My goal was simply get the car through the weekend successfully and see how everything felt and reacted over the course of an entire race.  I prepped the car and went out for practice on street tires to feel out the brake updates.  Everything felt solid, although the car pushed hard on the street tires - which it has all year since the cage went in - I ran a 1:47 and had a car spin in front of me and 2 of us had to split to miss it in the track which was fun.  I was weighed afterwards and started doing to the math for the ballast I'd need.

I switched rims to the last of my leftover 2011 255 Hoosiers and stuffed the car full of fuel until it ran back out!  I only ran a few laps and qualified with a 1:41 trying to save the tires as they were pretty beat up from running hard TT sessions last year.  Last year pushing hard on the tire setup I ran a 1:38.8 (current TTA record) so I was in the ballpark.  I made weight, but not by much, so we definitely would need to add ballast.  Another issue was the oil temps.  In my effort to fix the brake cooling issue I admittedly borrowed from the oil cooler flow as well as fixing the hole in the rubbed fenderwell by adding a chunk of plastic.  I think the latter made things worse so I removed it and then worked up a special duct from the 'faux hole' around to the oil cooler.  I was fairly confident this would make things at least manageable. 

With a 3hr gap before the race I had some prep time.  I had a tire that was starting to cord, so I replaced it with an another used 255 I had.  I also was able to secure the ballast I needed, with the help of Jason from GP Racing we secured 25 lbs in the passenger side and another 30 lbs in the trunk.  I'd already topped off every fluid container in the car (oil, radiator, drink bottle, windshield fluid, fuel, etc).  Not knowing how much fuel the car would burn I errored on the heavy side as I didn't want a DQ.

The race went pretty well overall.  All of the ST cars lined up in the 1st of 3 waves; I was 9th of 12 in that group and started on the inside of a very tight T1.  I got a good jump, but all the big V8 N/A cars in front of me pulled harded off the line.  I also realized from my vid I should have been up closer to the car in front; so I'll learn.  I took T1 pretty slow trying to stay clean and dropped below boost in 3rd so I lost some momentum there.  I ran a few 1:42's and after that settled into a pace around 1:45-46 carefully eyeballing my oil temps the entire time around the 280-285 range.  I babied the car, avoiding the high rpms when I could by shifting early and pushing the clutch in to coast into braking zones - all tricks that I know help the oil temps.  Brakes felt good throughout and the tires stayed underneath fairly well since I wasn't pushing hard.  I picked up a few overall spots from traffic and I picked up the pace on the final few laps just to see how the car felt and the tires were giving up for sure.  In all the race lasted 17 laps and I covered about 43 miles.  As for the fuel, after the race I had exactly 1/2 tank but was not weighed.

Putnam Park - 5.13.2012 - Drifting into 1st place!

Saturday evening I rotated the tires; X'ing the front backwards. I figured the LF would be nearly bald - and it was. But the RF was worse! Sunday was going to be interesting with no grip in the rear, but I was thinking since the fronts looked ok that I'd at least be able to turn like I could early Sat.

(Pic):  Left side tires from Sat evening. Front on the left; rear on the right. I rotating the bald ones to the rear....

I made more suspension tweaks, rolling back the changes I made late Sat in hopes it would help the car grip more. I had some pulsing in the front end under braking on the out lap. I figured something was stuck to the rotor and/or the tires were flatspotted from sitting all night as I had reset my pressures to my normal morning starting pressures. It seemed to go away with some really hard jabs so I put it out of my mind and hit it hard. I ran 6 laps with a best of 1:18.2 which the car was no longer sliding, but rather drifting today! Jeff's Evo was behind me this session and got some good vid; check it out below.

For S2 I bettered my time to a 1:18.1 but that's all I could get. The rear was drifting around so much that I had to do more than countersteer, I had to get out of the gas some which is a killer for times. This is the session I put the camera on the rear and had a Mustang 302 behind me. My overall times were better than his, but in this session I just couldn't get the power down and after drifting through T4 and getting out of the gas I simply pointed him around.
When done, I looked over my tires carefully to see how bald the rears were now and to verify nothing was corded. The tires passed inspection, but the LF rotor did not. Check it out:

While I had a spare, it was 12:30pm at this point and very hot. With basically 0 chance to improve my times and only to play around more, I decided to forgo the fix and just pack things in and go surprise visit my Mom with it being Mother's day and all. It'd only add about 45min to my overall trip. With all the crazy turmoil with my wife's family recently; I've been trying to take the extra effort with regards to visits and calls and whatnot. I was actually going to cancel this event but the wife told me to go and enjoy the distractions. So I watched the start of my friend's race after packing up and took off.

Overall the car did great. No mechanical issues, just the broken exhaust bracket which was no biggie, the broken rotor which is a wear item and my boost gauge is still broke (so no, I've no idea what boost I was running). Oh, and my time easily held up Sunday for first in TTA once again.

After looking deeper at all my GPS data, everything is pretty cut and dry.  An 8/10's lap from 2011 on wider A6's yielded a nearly identical laptime to this year's lap at nearly 10/10's on skinnier R6's. Nuff said.
Braking force with R6's is crap compared to an A6; I had data confirming this already. Cornering G's were about the same but that's the 8/10's vs the 10/10's thing to allow that. I was able to push my brakezones a bit which is good and the car rotated great w/o hardly any understeer given what front grip I had at least.

The 2012 setup vs the 2011 setup to me feels better with regards to power and rotation. I'm really happy with how smooth the car idles, and I don't even notice the Synapse BOV thx to Buschur's tune (he assured me it'd be smooth; he's right). The differences being a Buschur tune on the engine this year and an ACD-tuning update in the ACD unit. Also different on this track were taller tires and a taller 4th gear as compared to May/2011 - both of which hurt my laptimes as the car was previously geared incredibly well for Putnam. With less speed on corner entry from the ****tier tires and the gearing changes I was actually forced to downshift twice more per lap to keep the turbo spinning. So factor in all those changes and running 1.3 seconds behind my blitzing 2011 time of 1:15.7 and I'm feeling pretty good about the car.

Video's coming...

4.22.12 - NASA TTS @ Autobahn

After the brake caliper failure on Saturday, I switched the car to run Time Trials on Sunday to do some testing with the brake setup.  As for changes, I swapped out the leaking RF caliper with another that I had (always bring extras) and did a quick bleed of the brakes.  The odd thing was besides being a bit low of brake fluid, there really wasn't any air bubbles or darker fluid that came out of the system.

Having no time in TT from the previous day, I gridded in the rear and clawed my way through the traffic to find a descent lap while trying to be nice.  I ended up with a respectable 1:34x, similar to what I was running in the race the previous day - on the same setup.
Session #2 I bolted up my better 255 A6's that were leftover from 2011 and laid down a personal best 1:31.9, running just 3 quick laps.  Everything felt great including the brakes and things seemed to be back to normal overall although the car was rotating more that usual with the more aggressive ACD map from ACD-Tuning.  By this time it was lunch, so I popped out the front brakepads to check for wear assuming I'd need to drop in a new set.  But, they did not look any worse so I left them in. 
Session #3 I was lined up behind another Evo and we turned some good fun laps, nearly identical laps all right around the 1:32x range until he had an OFF and we both came in.  Overall, no better.
Session #4 I stayed out and ran 6 hard laps; which coincidentally was all the further I got in the race!  These turned out to be my best laps as I was pushing the car pretty hard - a bit too hard probably for the tires - through some of the tighter turns.  I had multiple laps in the 1:31x range.

At the end of the day, we ended up 2nd out of 5 cars in class; besting 2 TTS Evo's with front/rear aero and set a personal best of 1:31.666.  Keep in mind we were actually running in legal TTA form (but in TTS for competition) and this would have set a new TTA lap record with that time.  Huge thanks to Buschur Racing, AMSOIL and ACD-Tuning for their 2012 support.
The video below is from S4; enjoy:

929 Evo Racing Debut! 4.21.2012 - NASA Autobahn

Saturday April 21st was the wheel-2-wheel (w2w) racing debut for the #929 Evo.  After warmup and an oil-soaked qualifying the grid was set for the Thunder racegroup.  Because of low carcounts in my chosen class of PTA, I'd be bumping up to run in ST2 this weekend.  ST2 would be joined with the faster ST1 and SU groups for the first 'wave' of the Thunder racegroup.  I ended up gridded 11th in the first wave.

The start was odd. I ended up beside a fellow rookie that ran TTA with me last year so there was some comfort there. We actually took the green when I was in 4th gear (yes above 90mph)... which is just odd at least compared to all our practice starts I'd done the previous week.  I was side-by-side with said Vette for about the first 4 turns including some sideways action and him taking the gators to thankfully give me room! The next turn I backed off a hair (the car was loose on colder tires) and I tucked in behind him and the leaders. About 4 laps later the 4-5 leaders were pulling away from us but we were having our own race. About this time my 245 R6's were starting to give up a little grip and the Vette running 315 A6's was able to distance himself some. The next lap my pedal starting getting longer and I was doing some LFB pumping on the straights. The next lap when I was 3-wide down the backstraight passing a slower GTS car and letting a faster GTS car past I reached for the brakes and the pedal went to the floor repeatedly. Checking my data I left the track at 85mph.

Pumping the brakes feverishly, steering strategically and downshifting accordingly I was able to drift it through the grass & weeds to an eventual stop. I kept the revs up, got the car turned around and back to the track safely and into the pits to avoid a tow or extended yellow.

The brakes - 100% stock Brembo's - have always been a bit of an issue with this car and Autobahn S can be a difficult track. Most of the guys racing have upgraded to a BBK (Big Brake Kit) and that's ideally what I would do. But, that's not the plan as I have a TTA/PTA build and a BBK is a 2pt upgrade, not to mention the $1800-2500 price. So we'll see what the longterm fix is....  I later found a faulty RF brake caliper that looked to be a big issue as well with evidence of corrosive leaking.

The vid below is the green flag and first lap.  The brake caliper issue happened on my 6th lap and caused a nasty off and my retirement from the race.  Fortunately I was able to save the car w/o damage.  And to my surprise, I didn't finish last in the ST2 field!

4.21.2012 Qualifying at NASA Autobahn

So Saturday and the Evo....
I went out for the warmup session on street tires as I did not have time to change tires as we were first up! I tossed down a very eventful and sideways filled 1:38x on a cold green track in about 50 degree weather on 5yr old Dunlops on my 3rd lap and pulled in.  lol.  It was fun; and the car ran for the first time since the cage!

Qualifying was about 2 hours later. On my 1st hotlap I seen the debris flag at T6 - and quickly found the insanely huge OIL SPILL directly on-line from T6 through T10 when I actually passed said spiller on the backstraight still limping the car around.  IDIOT.  About 5 awesome oil-soaked drifts later for myself, about 6 offs witnessed from other cars and 1 car sitting a full 180 degrees backwards track-center - and just 3 laps - they tossed checker to end quals early. I had just a 1:40x.

I had a 4 hr gap until the race.  I worked on cleaning up some of the wiring from the gauges and getting my oil temp gauge hooked back up (Thx to Boostin Performance for the wiring fix).  I had time to update some of the decals on the car including adding ST2 designations for the race.  More to come...

The vid is from Qualifying.  Not too entirely eventful as most of the sliding action was in front me.

Izzy's Custom Cages - Update #4

More updates from Scott at Izzy's on the cage progress.  Here's the rear of the cage with the attachments into the trunk.  I'm really excited to see how much this stiffens up the car and how it'll drive and rotate differently.  And I'll find out quickly!  Our timeline is tight as I've got an event scheduled for Saturday April 14th!

929 Evo - First trip to Road America!

Ah, the drag strip known as Road America!

Our final event on the NASA MW/GL calendar was a crossover event at Road America. I signed up about 30min before the deadline and decided to go and check out this new track since it was only 350 miles from me and super duper famous! As with any yearend event, I would be trying to use the last of my 2011 supplies of tires and brakes before the winter. I knew I didn't have much of a chance in my class on such a high HP track, but what the hell.

My top 2 competitors - who both eeked me out at Nationals - were there and both of them ran the Friday practice day. I'm pretty decent picking up new tracks and I'd played this on Forza so.... I went out for the first time Sat morning and ran 6 laps in the practice session with a best of 2:35. Not bad eh? It was long and straight with a LOT of braking; way more than I'd thought. My top speeds weren't as high as I'd thought but I figured they'd come up as I got more comfortable. I was 8th fastest out of 38. Lots of C6 & C6 Z06's here!

In sessions #2 and #3 I fought brake fade; badly. My pads were < 50% when I started the day and that makes them heat up soooo much faster. Plus I was probably overbraking as this was a new track to me. I ended up having to pump the brakes with my left foot down the straight...fun. Anyways, a best of 2:30.7 in the morning which slotted me in a respectable 3rd. Top speeds well above 140mph in 2 sections!

For the afternoon I switched out my pads (which were shot) to another set with about 50% as well. I was held up in session #4 by 2 C6 Vettes that wouldn't get the hell outta the way. Did 5 consecutive 2:32 laps behind those bastards; best of 2:31.8.

Session #5 (last of the day) I was lined up behind another C6 that braked waaay early. I was stuck behind him for 3 laps; probably within a car length in several corners; then he'd pull away and I'd catch him in the next braking zone. Rinse/repeat for nearly 3 laps... Getting frustrated I was going to try and dive-bomb him in the braking zone if I had to; but I couldn't get close enough. After watching him in the last few turns on the track from 'Canada Corner' through T14 I had figured my area to pounce. He braked way early for 'Canada Corner' which is about 138mph for me. So I caught him and he strayed a bit wide so I was nearly side-by-side but I had momemtum and the better outside line through T13 and T13A. He finally yielded for T13A as you have to setup on the outside and I was already there! I pitched it in a little sideways and kept it floored; slid to the outside got through T14 and was on the loooonnngg front straight. Then I see that yellow Vette pull out to pass. I screamed 'NOOOO'; all my hard work could be lost. I went deep into T1 and left room just in case but he braked way early and I was going to have a clean lap finally! I made the most of it with a 2:29.2. I took 2nd in the afternoon and that'd finish the competition year. That lap also was the 4th fastest out of 35 in TT. First place was a 2:26x - ran on stickered A6's. I ended up cording 5 tires...lol. They were a bit overdriven from Nationals I think; plus the carousel is hard on them. Top speed of 147.2 mph. Yes...still on the stock turbo!

NASA - Gingerman - 1st in TTA & Track Record - June 5th!

The TT group was the first group out on track - 8am. Very early. I figured the track might be a little damp, but I was wrong. After about 1.5 laps of 'recon' I started pushing it. I ran a solid time of 1:39.6 but I didn't have the optimal tire/pressure setup so I left some on the table as I did not think the track would be optimal. It was almost a grave mistake as another TTA car ran a 1:39.0 but got called for 4-wheels-off and DQ'd for that session!

Session #2 was at 9:45am so still pretty early. I set everything up, left the wing alone and fired a 1:38.9 which was my fastest of the weekend, reset my track record from Saturday and stood for 1st in TTA on Sunday to give me the weekend sweep!

I pushed the car hard through every session this weekend; really hard! Because of the track layout, I think I was pushing near 7500 rpms 4 times per lap. I kept expecting to find the rev limiter on the front straight but never did. So lots of high rpm revving in 4th, high oil temps, lost rubber, cranked up boost, etc. Everything help up beautifully though.  Thx as always for a great tune from AMS Performance.

It's been a pretty good year thus far. 8 wins in 8 events and track records at all 4 tracks I've been to. I've got some ideas for things to change and a lot of mid-season maintenance to take care of before a busy July schedule. Check out the progress via or twitter (@boomn29).

Vid from Sunday:
This is actually my fastest lap of the weekend. Only the audio sucks as the camera is clicking off the window; install error! Still, the car that passes me is a TTS Vette which is 1 class up from me. He's also the 2009 Nat'l champion. We nearly get 3 wide around T6...check it out!

Tentative Schedule for 2011

Here's an aggressive schedule for 2011.  It's basically the entire NASA MW/GL region events minus Brainerd - with the GRM UTCC weekend at VIR added.  I might trim one of the events in June depending on how the car is progressing throughout the year.  We'll have a lot of new parts to dial in!  Should be a good time.

• March:  TBD - Local Test-n-Tune
• April 8-10:  Mid-Ohio - NASA Great Lakes 
• April 16-17:  Autobahn Country Club - NASA Midwest Region
• May 14-15:  Putnam Park - NASA Midwest & Great Lakes Regions
• June 4-5:  GingerMan - NASA Midwest Region
• June 11-12:  Grattan - NASA Great Lakes
• July 9-10:  Autobahn Country Club - NASA Midwest Region
• July 15-17: Mid-Ohio - NASA Great Lakes Region
• July 22:  VIR - GrassRoots Motorsports Ultimate Track Car Challenge (invitation only)
• July 23-24:  VIR - NASA Mid-Atlantic
• August 12-14:  Mid-Ohio - NASA Midwest & Great Lakes Regions
• September 8-11:  Mid-Ohio - NASA Championships 
• Sept 16-18: Autobahn - NASA Midwest & Great Lakes Regions
• October 7-9:  Road America - NASA Midwest & Great Lakes Regions

Putnam Park! - Double NASA TTA wins!

The final event of the NASA MW/GL regions was last weekend at Putnam Park outside Indianapolis. The forecast was to be gorgeous, and it actually turned out HOT! High of 87 Sat with zero clouds.
The NASA MW/GL region does an end of the year banquet now on Saturday night, so Saturday was to be a double-points day for all classes. For TT, that meant we get 1 warmup session as usual; then 2 sessions for 'event #1' and 2 sessions for 'event #2'.

The bad:  I unlocked the car early Sat morning to find about 3 gallons of 100octane spilled inside the car - assummedly on the trip there so it'd sat at overnight! Needless to say it was nasty smelling. Fortunately I've removed all the interior carpet so that wasn't an issue. It was also in the mid 40's at this time so scooping up the cold liquid wasn't fun. I did the best I could but quickly ran into another issue - the sound deadening that comes on the floor of the car was starting to dissolve and turn into a tar-like substance. Nasty. I took a putty knife and hammer and scraped out as much as I could in the driver's footwell. The rest I covered with some adhesive paper and (you guessed it) duct tape!


So with the car smelling quite ripe yet - but dry and less sticky - it was time to lineup on grid. Doing my best to breathe fresh air (which is difficult when everyone on grid is trying to warm up their cars and most run catless exhaust including me) and be aware if I got dizzy or a headache... I sat out on the opening warmup lap with 40 other cars on Putnam's 1.8 mile curcuit - needless to say it was crowded. Only ran a 1:19x to get a descent grid spot, then just navigated traffic. 

For sessions #2 and #3, I let it fly. Ended up with a personal best of 1:17.4 winning my class by about 1.5 seconds and setting the 4th fastest time of 40 cars.  By Session #3 everyone was agreeing the track was getting pretty greasy. Most were probably like me and using up the last of their old tires to finish out the year?!?

Event #2 (sessions #4 and #5) were to take place between 3-5pm. As the track was already feeling rather greasy from nonstop sunlight all day, I decided to change setups. I added a bit of weight (gas) and switched to a wider tire. The car felt more stable and ran a similar time of 1:17.9 which was enough to sweep TTA for the day!

All-in-all a good weekend. I corded the outside of both of my front tires, I believe because I'm driving too hard w/o enough camber. Really looking forward to new suspension and a much more aggressive alignment next year!
I also confirmed my suspicions; that when running my high-boost tune, my car has been down on power all year long. I've been gaining time as compared to last year in the corners with more aggression, more disregard for tire life, and most recently Shep's upgraded rear diff. I'm hoping it's just a boost leak; perhaps the stock BOV but we'll see.

Thanks to AMS Performance, AMSOIL, Girodisc & Shep Racing.