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Turns out the front brake pads were done by the end of TT session 3, as shown above. Went from brand new full depth OEM pads to a hair off the backing plates in three sessions. Half of the pad material seems to be sitting there inside the front wheels, where I parked after coming off track! Since we had no times in TT session 1, and I earned a big fat DSQ for TT session 2, I
had to go out and nail down
something in TT session 3. Surprisingly, with much attention paid to the quickly fading brakes, I nailed down three laps in the 2:07s with a best of 2:07.33. By then my nerves were as shot as the brakes and I changed my role for the rest of the day to "Amy's support crew". I finished 3rd out of 4 in class, well behind KenO's 1:58.678. Oh well, not very shocking... since the car had no shocks! :P
I am glad I got to experience the nearly bone stock '13 on track, so I can be better informed when I talk about
how important suspension upgrades are for this S197 chassis. After running in the beautifully handling '11 GT all day, Amy had zero desire to drive the '13 on track for Sunday, so we drove it back to the shop, following the truck and trailer pulling the '11 in for rear rotor replacement.
NASA @ ECR, Sunday Oct 7
Sunday TT Results: http://www.nasatx.com/resultspoints/..._Sunday_TT.pdf
Sunday we pulled up back at the track and quickly unloaded the '11 GT. I was driving it that day and Amy was support for the day - but secretly she hoped for a session or two in the car. She was still REALLY pumped after tracking it all day Saturday. We put in a little fuel and got to grid in time. The weather was again 47°F and warmed up to a balmy 50, with a
little less wind than the day before - but still plenty cold. The schedule showed the same cars entered, with Michael Perkins TTS C5 Z06 the biggest threat, who won Saturday's TTS class with a best lap of 1:57.5. TTA was a good 2 seconds quicker that day, so I was worried that a certain EVO might jump up to TTS to reset the track record in this class - but they weren't listed in TTS (yet).
I went out and pushed hard in
Sunday's TT Session 1 and got a best lap of 1:57.354, and was the quickest TT car in the session. Out again in
TT Session 2 and ran two nearly identical 1:57.14 laps, only a couple of tenths faster. Mike Perkins took his TTS Z06 to a 1:57.390, so it was close! I didn't know at the time (they didn't get his class right until session 3 results were posted) but Josh Dunn's TTA classed gutted EVO had jumped to TTS for Sunday and was already running a 1:56.471.
For
TT Session 3 I pushed a bit harder in a few spots and managed two more 1:57.11's, with one of those watching the AIM having a Forecasted
1:55.8 lap, right until I put two tires off exiting corner 11 onto the front straight.
GRR! I knew the car had a high 1:58 in it but I couldn't even break the 1:56s in three sessions, which was very frustrating. It was in this session that Josh Dunn had cinched the TTS class with a 1:55.326, and the results finally showed him in TTS, so I knew I was out of contention for the day. Oh well, I took to
TT session 4 with a vengeance, determined to get that 1:56 lap, just to make that personal milestone.
Click the image above to see in-car video of Terry's best lap of 1:56.33
So the two hot laps from TT session 4 in the video above were hectic. I passed 3 cars in traffic to a 1:56.9 lap, then had a semi-clear lap of a 1:56.343, with a car spinning off track in front of me (I lifted a bit there to make sure he wasn't coming back on track). I talked to the driver of the black TTS S197 Mustang, and it is a soon-to-be-AI car but he was running on Hoosiers, makes 400 whp with a 351W, and the car was about 200 pounds lighter than our '11. It looks like I was only catching him under braking, and most of that into turn 7.
By the end of the weekend on Sunday Amy and I were both utterly exhausted, but we both felt really good about our lap times. She wanted one more shot at the car on Sunday but after seeing how close to a 1:56 I was she let me take all 4 sessions. For Sunday I finished 2nd place to the EVO, a full second back, oh well. I beat the
old TTS track record by 2 full seconds, so damn the new record!
A 1:56.3 is still pretty darned quick for a full weight street car with good suspension, some aero, and two engine bolt-ons, I feel. We have had a lot of racers tell us the same thing in the past week, too. Mark Smith reset the American Iron track record at ECR with a 1:59.848, in a Boss 302-S, for comparison. The best ECR lap I had run prior to this was way back in 2008 in the E36 LS1 Alpha car, with a 1:57.2 in a gutted 2500 pound BMW with the same 315mm R compounds. We discussed our lap times and any ways to improve them in this car over excellent TexMex food from Fuzzy's Taco Shop in Sanger, TX, located at the interstate outside of ECR. This is the perfect post-race meal!
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