last one...
Before the fifth heat I motored back to the trailer, grabbed some tools, and came back to re-assemble the uprights. I can't blame anyone else, as I was the one that bolted it together last time. Doh!
When the fifth heat finally rolled around we had Amy gridded up and the spoiler was back into the "fixed" configuration. She had a healthy 3+ second lead coming from Day One, so I wanted her to concentrate and try to get as close to my times as she could. Her first run was a mess, with a clean but off pace 72.333 run. She admitted to getting lost in several places and having trouble seeing past Roger's course's visual tricks. I had her look at the map and sit in the truck until her second run.
Click above to see the video from Amy's second run (71.007).
This run was an improvement thanks to finding her marks better, but she still under-braked into one section, which pushed her off line going into another section and messed up her rhythm. It was a clean run, but still 2.3 seconds off my last run. I tried to get her psyched up for a final "all out" run to drop more time, but she slowed down nine tenths and hit a cone (70.901 +1), but still managed to win.
Looking at her times compared to ESP open, she would have still placed 15th which was better than mid-pack. Her times on the West course were a lot more competitive, but these "visually challenging" courses seem to catch her out. It's something we need to work on for next year if she is going to run in ESP open.
Wednesday Awards Banquet
As usual the fifth heat on our side finished hours after fifth heat on the opposite course. After impound we still had to load the car into the trailer before heading to the Awards Banquet, which started at 5:30 pm. Once the car was in the trailer (in record time) it was after 5:30 pm, so we just drove straight there and skipped going to the hotel to shower and change, unlike most attendees. Of course we got there way early and none of the award stuff started until about 7 pm, so we should have stopped and cleaned up.
We sat with our fellow Texas Region racers and waited for the trophy presentation. And waited. And waited. Lots of non-competition awards and presentations, delays, and the banquet stretched on for a total of four hours, ending at 9:30 pm. During the ESP awards, which were very late into the banquet, people had started wandering off and looking at professional photographer's pictures and such. Then they forgot to announce to our group beforehand to "get on deck" and the first half of the trophy recipients never heard their names and didn't walk across the stage, including myself. I walked up and grabbed my plastic 4th place trophy that I don't want to think about how much money went into earning.
We figured out who was on stage and calculated when ESP-L would be called so Amy was there to get her "Class Winner" trophy, but she won't get another National Championship jacket or name in the rule book. Yay, this is the new "three car minimum" requirement in action, and the beginning of the end of Ladies classes.
After that marathon banquet we crashed out at the hotel, got up late, and hooked up the trailer. Then we blasted back to Texas on Thursday, getting home by 9 pm and ready for work on Friday. We would have loved to have stayed all week, but we both needed to work the next day. On the drive home we both bench raced some ideas and I calculated what I thought we would need to do if we wanted to be more competitive in ESP in 2013. Being 1.6 seconds back from the class winner was a huge gap to make up, and more than I think I can get with just chassis tuning and driving improvements. I had a feeling we were one of the heaviest cars in the top 10, but I had no idea how much so until we got back.
Mustang on the Scales & the Big Surprise
I didn't weigh the car at Nationals because we were pretty busy both days of competition and I hate being "that guy" that wants to weigh his car on the SCCA scales needed for Impound weight verification. I have scales at our shop and we had weighed it numerous times in the past, so I "knew what it weighed". Just for grins I had the guys throw it on the scales right out of the trailer, at the exact fuel load and race weight we ran at Nationals. Then I looked at the readout and did a double-take...
3540 pounds!?! WTF! I went to my computer and found all of the weights we had taken of this car, all the way back to when it was brand new (
3563 lbs). Holy crap - the car had gained 72 pounds since our last weighing at the Mineral Wells ProSolo earlier this year (
3467 lbs), and now it was within 20 pounds of bone stock! The lowest it ever weighed was
3442 lbs, back in December 2011 when we ran it in STU form on 18x10's and 275mm Bridgestone tires.
Wow, this was an eye opener. We weigh it often, but let this 72 pounds kind of creep into the car without notice. I knew that Mark's winning '88 Firebird was about 3100 lbs and Tim's 2nd place '07 GT was 3260 lbs. This 3540 pound weight was way high. Now we know what to concentrate on - WEIGHT! We have since weighed some cars, pulled some parts and scaled them, and have a pretty good idea where all of the lard is. I will expand on this GREATLY in future posts.
Photo Credits and Car Impressions
About 95% of the pictures in our
2012 SCCA Solo Nationals Photo Gallery were taken by me or Amy, with our Nikon D90, and a few with our iPhones. I also got a few from C Prepared racer Jeff Stroh, two from gotcone.com, and a few from Tom Reynolds. Thanks to all of you! I need these pictures to help me remember what happened & to better explain this crazy sport and these events. I can't say autocrossing is the most exciting sport to
observe, but it is competitive and very intense. The pictures also help me see what our car is doing, what other's are doing, and they point to areas we can hopefully improve. Like this one Stroh took:
The Lean Machine
One thing that I noticed (and many other people pointed out!) looking at the pictures of our car vs the other top ESP drivers' cars is that our Mustang has a lot more LEAN, which also kind of crept up on us. The updates we made with the Whiteline bars, UCA and especially their Watts Link Kit added a lot of lateral stability and more grip, and the switch to Hoosiers from Kumho added grip, as did the concrete surface over our test site.
So yes, we are going to raise the spring rates from the current soft set-up (450F/175R) to a firmer set of rates (550F/250R). The soft set-up worked great for both road course and autocross events when we were dealing with other issues like lower grip tires (street tires all the way up to the V710s), the steering shudder (yes, which is gone), and a clunky Panhard rod set-up. These new springs are going on the car next week.
We also noticed that our car was sitting higher in the rear than most S197s, so we will test a lower rear ride height separately. Once we have the stiffer springs on it will be tested at the current ride height, then lowered and tested again. After watching the videos, the car seems to have a good bit of steady state push which we need to work on too. So we have a lot of work to do for next year.
What's Next?
In the short term we have a
Global Time Attack event we will run in this Mustang on September 22nd at Texas Motor Speedway. We just ordered some fresh V710s that we will use for that event. The spoiler is staying on because my big APR GTC300 wing is still on Brianne's Pikes Peak car, which we will hopefully bring to the GTA event as well. The very next day we are autocrossing the Mustang with the Texas Region SCCA at
a new concrete site in Crandall, TX, which is closer to the shop than any other Dallas/Ft. Worth autocross site. This concrete parking lot could become my new favorite site to autocross in Dallas, and I am asking them about renting it for private test events as well.
There's also a NASA Texas race weekend at Eagles Canyon Raceway on October 6-7th, where I will run the Mustang one day and the E46 330Ci the next, if everything lines up perfectly. After that... well, we have some surprises in store. We will be concentrating on a much more purpose-built ESP autocross-only Mustang for the 2013 season. Less weight, more tire, more power. Don't know a lot yet, but we have made budgets, parts lists, and extensive plans, but that's all I know for sure right now: more tire, less weight, more power. I'm not going to improve my driving enough to beat these guys, so I have to get more serious about the car!
Thanks for reading my epic 2012 Nationals post. I will post again after the GTA event and autocross in two weeks.
Ciao!