Details involved in preparing, choosing and competing in various wheel-2-wheel events mainly in the Midwest both in my previously owned 2006 Mitsubishi Evolution IX and other racecar rentals!
Showing posts with label nasa time trials. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nasa time trials. Show all posts
Recently got some new rubber to be mounted up for this weekend's event at Mid
Ohio. Going to try out the BFG R1 tire, both because they're cheaper
than Hoosier and they're race contingency is a lot better (Hoosier upped
the min starters to 5 this year). The only downside is in the NASA PTx/TTx classing system they actually are counted as a higher pt tire; taking more 'pts' to run them and less to prep the rest of car. Nevertheless, we're giving them a shot!
Since my car is at GP Racing between events, I had everything shipped
there for mounting. Check out the pic with Ryan being probably
forced to be the photo model here!
Now let's just hope they fit with minimal rubbing/scraping as they seem to be helli-wide... They'll be mounted up and running on the car all weekend!
The day started with a 7am meeting. The TT group was first out at 8am. I went out on street tires with a goal to learn the track, stay out of the way of the locals, and try to set a fast enough time to stay towards the front of the grid.
The track was... pretty fun. Nothing too crazy. I was motoring down the backstraight and glanced down to see the odo approaching 140 really quick. Damn! Got past that; through the 'S' curve and then I went under the bridge and down the hill into T12. Holy sh1t; it was like the Log Ride - seemed like it was straight down. This was going to take some getting used to...
For S2 - I went back out on the street tires again. I was picking up the track, but definitely coasting down the latter part of the backstraight and down 12 (the huge hill) I netted a 1:39 still on street tires! I was actually pretty proud of that.
For S3 - I bolted on the Hoosier R6's. 2 were new; the other 2 were used so I'd need to scrub everything in. I tried to keep my track positioning in the first 2 laps and control the inevitable skids - which was fun. After a 1:37 I reset my tire pressures and was ready for S4 to hammer it.
S4 - Traffic! By now I was working my way through some of the TTS cars that are 1 class above me and run more HP. I'd catch them in the first part of the track but they could pull away down the long backstraight and down the big hill in T12. Track positioning is definitely important for a flying lap in TT. Best of 1:36.5.
S5 - I was up to 7th on grid by now, but as not everyone went out I was actually 3rd. This proved to be my best track position and allowed me to hammer w/o having to worry about navigating any traffic in front or behind. I had my best laps of the day; with the overall best of 1:34.8 that netted my 1st place out of 3 in my class of TTA and 5th out of 38 overall in TT.
The day turned out great, the Evo made it through it's first track event of 2012 with flying colors, which included a new tune by Buschur Racing. No problems over the ~100 miles on track including a top speed of 149.87 mph on the backstraight and around 130 on the front!
So I quickly rotated the tires and checked the car over before Then off to the NASA awards ceremony just off the main straight. Above is a good vid from Session #2 looking backwards to demonstrate some of the elevation changes at this track. Enjoy!
Sunday morning the TT group was the first ones on track at 8:30! I decided to go out and defend my gridspot - as we grid by time and all the Sat times were in the 2:03-2:35 range. So I asked a buddy to go with me for the hell of it because I like to scare people! As it was in the 40's it took a bit for the tires to warm up, so the rear was pretty loose for several laps which is quite fun! Eventually we played a few laps of cat-n-mouse with a TTB 350Z and had some fun running mostly 1:38's to keep at the front of the grid.
S2 I went out and hammered it. The car felt good but I was getting held up by a TTR C6 Z06 (check out the vid below). Unfortunately he ruined 2 of my laps and after that the tires were out of their prime. I did manage a 1:33.5 to regain the #1 gridspot so I'd be in front of that C6 Z06 the next session! I was also just .2 off my TTA track record from 2010 and knew it was well within site.
S3 was probably going to be my last as there was a 2.5hr gap afterwards and it'd been a long cold weekend for the wife and dog. I led the group out, took 1 lap to warmup everything and ran a pair of 1:32's with the last being 1:32.1 and breaking my own TTA track record from 2010.
Apart from a few sloppy lines; that was pretty much everything this current config had in it. That in itself was some great knowledge to have. I only wish we could have done all that on Saturday instead of Sunday. As I had a different config I wanted to test; but it'll have to wait. All in all I ran 1.1 seconds faster that last year and reset my track record. I also had FTD both Saturday and Sunday over the entire TT group.
With zero changes to the suspension, the car is already rotating better on the setup than it ever did last year. I have to thank Aaron from Winning Formula for the setup, AMS Performance for the power delivery and Sheppard Racing for the trick rear diff. Enjoy the vid...
Finally - new rubber!
