continued from above
Josh Dunn was fast in his EVO running in TT2, and he and I swapped best times with each other all day on Saturday, with Josh's TT2 drive edging me out by tenths at the end of the first day (and he went faster still on Sunday). At the end of the day's racing, there was a great banquet by the NASA folks and everyone stuck around to eat, drink, and hang out. There were trophies presented to last year's regional class champions, based on points earned over the 2012 season. Then we hit the hotel and crashed.
Sunday, Race Day Two
Each new day on a NASA weekend makes for a new Time Trial competition event, so all of our times on Saturday were now thrown out (except for grid placement in session one) and we had to start the day anew. Four more TT sessions were available to shoot for our best lap time in class. Amy was to drive the Mustang in three of those four sessions, under her new car number "197" this day (S197... 197... get it?), so I made sure her transponder was charged and mounted, and my wired unit was turned OFF during her sessions. To make sure there were a minimum of seven drivers in TT3 class for Sunday (to help "make the class" for better contingency payouts) I was going to hop in for one TT session, unless she was really on fire and wanted the car all to herself.
Joe D's 2013 Mustang Boss 302 Leguna Seca.
Since I wasn't racing for most of the day I took on another student and worked with a customer/friend of ours in his 302 Leguna Seca. He made big strides and we bumped him up to HPDE3 by day's end, with HPDE4/TT probably only a couple of weekends away. In order to show the line to another student, I took the Mustang out in an HPDE3 session and made some 8/10ths laps, which he enjoyed immensely. Amy was struggling with grip and was mired in the 1:45s all day, with most of her laps only tenths of a second different from each other.
Mike P taking it 2-wide into Turn 17 during an AI race.
I spent most of my time Sunday as Amy's "track b!tch", or so she named me.
It was nice to spectate a bit and I got to watch some insane American Iron and CMC battles in their race group. Mike Patterson was "super-sized" and ran in both Time Trial and American Iron, with a 3rd in TT3 on Sat and 4th on Sunday, plus a win in AI on Sunday as well. Not bad for his first event since he returned from some mid-season repairs last season - congrats!
Sean Farrah (above left) was having a ball in his Scion FR-S, running in TTE (he normally races in a TT2 classed 350Z) with the new Enkei 17x9" wheels and some mild suspension tweaks. He placed a respectable 4th in TTE in his relatively stock FT86, only a couple of seconds back from class leader Ken Brewer. It was good to also see Pranav Patel (above right) in his LT1 powered 4th gen Camaro for the first time on track. This future CMC car did well that day and he was working on getting his comp license, running in HDE3.
Left: We were quick enough to be gridded in P1 in a number of TT sessions. Right: Taking Amy for some recon laps on Saturday morning.
Like I said, Amy was struggling with learning the track and kept complaining about low grip. So when I went out in TT session three, I quickly found out what she meant - the tires, which had already seen a long hard life, had really degraded on Day Two. My best lap was a 1:42.536, fully 1 second slower than Saturday. I had clear track and felt like I had put in a good lap, but the car just wouldn't corner in the higher speed sweepers (Turns 2, 6 and 7) or transitional sections (Turns 8 through 13). Oh well, we got our money's worth and then some out of this set of tires.
Sunday TT Results: http://www.nasatx.com/resultspoints/..._Sunday_TT.pdf
Still managed a class win with 7 entrants on Sunday, which should be good enough for two more tires, for a total of four Hoosiers for the weekend. Can't wait to get these mounted up before MSR-Cresson event March 16-17th, where I think we are running the 3.1 mile course again (which merges the 1.7 and 1.3 mile courses for a big, technical course with a bunch of turns). And I just made a deal on a pair of 31 spline Torsen differentials - a new Torsen T2-R and new T2. So we'll have a real differential in the car for March, finally!
We wrapped up after the final HPDE sessions and before we loaded the Mustang into the trailer, Brandon took a few more pictures against a backdrop of a field with some electrical towers... Mmmm.
We said goodbye to our friends and competitors and hit the road for a long drive back to Dallas, stopping in north Houston for some damn fine Cajun food at a Pappadaux. Great weekend, lots of fun, but a bit hectic with the instructing and talking to folks stopping by to look at the Mustang. We had a few from the W2W groups stop by, after seeing the times we were running (again outpacing our American Iron race group, with the same power-to-weight ratios and carrying about 500 extra pounds). Most everyone remarked how
little safety equipment we have in this car, and I agree - so we're pulling the trigger next week on a 4-point roll bar kit from Maximum Motorsports. This will provide a more secure cross bar to hang the shoulder straps from and give us some roll-over protection, "just in case". I am not a fan of full roll cages in street cars, and Amy doesn't like me cutting on her street car, so this will have to suffice.
What's Next?
After we got back to Dallas on Tuesday morning, I flew out to New Orleans for two days of fun at NOLA Motorsports Park, testing tires at the BFGoodrich Rival tire launch. I will post about that in my next thread update. We have the T2-R to install, the roll bar, and a few other suspension goodies that I will show once they are installed. We might have some new transmission mounts as well, if the prototypes show up in time. These could hopefully cure the shifting issues we're seeing, due to the body mounted shifter. When the drivetrain is loaded up mid-corner, it is sometimes impossible to make a clean shift. Amy and I both noticed we were early shifting or holding a gear longer, to avoid these mid-corner up-shifts. Just isn't possible for the drivetrain and shifter assemblies to synch up sometimes, when the big heavy motor + trans are loaded up and under power.
This was the weight with me in it, as we unloaded it from the trailer... with WAY too much hastily added ballast in the trunk. Needs to be 3775.
We are also going to work on a trunk-mounted,
easy to adjust ballast system, so we can get the car closer to the 3775 pound minimum weight for our TT3 set-up, and swap known ballast amounts between Amy and I, since I outweigh her by a good bit. To get some additional rear bias, we are thinking of moving the small 14 pound engine-bay mounted battery to the trunk, and replacing it with a more sizable Optima Red Top. We are at 53% front weight bias (and 49.9% cross) in the picture above, but that is with a LOT of extra ballast in the trunk. We over-shot the minimum weight to be safe for both drivers using the same ballast. The roll bar structure will likely add 60 pounds
mostly to the rear, and then the larger battery relocation, then whatever weight plates we need to make minimum will be in the trunk. Oh, check out the "motion capture" photo of the '11 GT that Brandon shot, using the new modular camera rig that he and Olof built. Pretty cool.
I just ordered a brand new tow vehicle from our buddy
Corey White at Five Star Ford of Plano, a red 2013 Ford F350 Diesel 4x2 DRW, which should be here at the middle to end of March. I
think I just sold my
2006 Dodge Cummins MegaCab 3500, so I might be truck-less for the NASA/Cresson event. If so, we'll have to drive the Mustang the two hours to the track and mount the Hoosiers there - oh, the horror!
I have two other posts started for
this thread as well as the now very late BFG Rival review, so I need to stop here so I can get caught up. Going to work all weekend and
write write write! With the shop closed and the phones ignored I can get a
lot more done.
Thanks for reading,