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The key to doing well in Time Trial is to
not get stuck in traffic. So by hot lap 2 I had backed off enough to build a nice 200 yard gap to John's LS1 Miata ahead and still had plenty of distance to a TT1 Corvette behind me so as to not impede him. Then I put the hammer down and started making up track distance to John. I want after at it for 3 hot laps, catching the V8 Miata little by little on laps 2, 3 and 4. But what I didn't realize was, John had already put in his fastest time on lap 1, when I was bunching up in his mirrors and backed off. In the end we both dropped 2 full seconds, but John came away with the win with a 2:24.643 to my 2:27.787 lap. So the win, 2 tires, and a track record went to John on Day 1, and I congratulated him after.
The LS1 Miata of John Roberts was a tick faster on Day 1 than the Mustang
I cannot emphasize this enough: The differences in the two tires were dramatic - sidewall height, overall height, compound, tread width, and steering feel. My excuse is that the changes were too drastic for me to learn with in a mere 4 laps, and I just couldn't put the right lap together. I wasn't "getting the line" right at all all day, either. I felt like I needed
one more lap, but by the 4th hot lap in that last session of the day I noticed my lap times were really slowing down. The Hoosier A6 is fast, but you need to put in your fast lap or two in early, then they need to cool down.
Basically, I drove for crap. I pondered my many mistakes that night at the NASA catered party / St. Paddy's Day celebration, where I was given evil, potent shots of some green alcohol... I was blitzed out of my mind by 7:30 pm and Amy had to take me outta there and go get some food in me, to sober up!
Sunday was a new day, and I vowed was going to put a solid fast lap in on this b!tch of a course, by damn. Amy promised to do the same, if she "could get more than one hot lap
all day!". There were 4 full TT sessions to get times in for Day 2, so Amy and I split them 50-50. She went in TT sessions 1 and 3, I took sessions 2 and 4. Did I mention that 2 people driving the same car and getting half the seat time sucks??? She put in a good number of laps in TT session 1 and brought the car in while I sprinted to the grid to instruct with my student.
What she didn't do was add fuel to the car, which we were doing after every other session, to both make weight and make sure the fuel pick-up didn't get starved. When we ran the car on track with street tires it wasn't ever a concern but I noticed some fuel starve in higher speed left handers at MSR-Houston with less than a 1/2 tank of fuel, and didn't want to repeat that.
I barely made it back to the car in time to grid up for TT session 2... and it showed to have just a tick above half a tank. Err... will this work??? No time to leave the grid and get more fuel, so I had to hope it was enough for a few laps. Again, I felt like I had the track figured out in my head, and I just needed one traffic-free lap, early, to get a good time in.
This wasn't enough fuel for ONE hot lap, actually. After we got through the end of the warm-up lap the front of the field was speeding up and I had a perfect gap ahead and behind for some traffic-free laps. I am building speed through turns 14-15-16 of the 1.7 section of the course, which are well into 4th gear, pushing the big car hard through this high-g series of corners right before the green flag... and the motor starts to stall. No... noNoNONONO! It clears up towards the entrance to Turn 1 (Big Bend), I dig in the brakes hard and lay into the throttle before the apex, letting the car push wide.... engine stalls again. NO! This is NOT HAPPENING! The gauge shows half a tank!?! But now, on 315mm A6s, with the wing set at a high AOA, in these high speed corners it is simply fuel starving. I throw up a fist and quickly dive into Pit In, not wanting to suffer through another 3.1 mile lap of fuel starvation and holding up the entire TT field.
At this point I'm pretty mad at Amy for leaving me way less than the 3/4 tank we had agreed on for the start of each session. I guess I wasn't clear enough. Sharing a race car SUCKS, by the way.
I dejectedly head to the local gas station, still painfully in view of the lower corners in the 1.3 section. I wave at some of the drivers as the car guzzles 8 more gallons of 93 octane. By the time I'm back into the track they are on their final lap - I'd never get around in time to get in a hot lap, so I put all my hopes on the final 4th TT session, as Amy is driving next. At least
I left her plenty of fuel! hehe....
I get back to our paddock spot, switch transponders, and get her helmet in the car. She waltzes back from somewhere... "Where you been? Why aren't you on track?" Oh that was the wrong thing to ask right then, as the TT field takes the checkered flag.
Somehow after arguing for a few minutes it ends up being
my fault, don't ask me how ... I always lose these fights.
So Amy goes out in Session 3 on Sunday and gets a couple of hot laps. and drops a second from Saturday, which put her ahead of a Ferrari 355 Challenge car running in TT3, so she was happy with that. There is a great sequence of pics
starting here showing her hounding this F355, then sticking a door inside of him "for a look", backing off, and getting a hast point by. She was all smiles after that small victory. The rest of her session was spent in traffic, moving up through the field, with a best lap of a 2:30.8.
Amy getting a look at then passing a Ferrari F355 Challenge racer
Amy said she never felt like she had the right line on the 3.1, and complained about a lack of seat time - which I agree with. But now it was my turn to go in TT session 4, still with zero timed laps for the day. It was the end of the day, end of the weekend, and there were very few TT racers left. All of the faster TT1 and TT2 cars had bailed, so I was at the head of the grid. John's Miata had blown up a halfshaft in TT session 2 and left him stranded mid-track when I was off getting fuel, so he was out (they had to black flag the session to get him out of the way, so I never would have made it back for a hot lap after fueling, in any case). I still needed to get a good lap in, as John's early 2:27 lap was still leading the TT3 class. I wanted more than the 2:24 I had from Day 1, and knew it was in the car, if only I could get some clear track and put a lap or two together.
Luckily, with being in the number 1 grid spot and setting the pace on the out lap, bunching up the field, I had 100% traffic free session. I only took two hot laps in TT session 4, and both of them were fast enough to win and reset the TT3 track record. I managed a 2:22.753 and a 2:22.798, both laps a solid 2 seconds ahead of my Day 1 times (which shows how poorly I drove on Saturday). After seeing those laps I called it a day, knowing that the A6 tires were likely going to slow down significantly for lap 3. We had only 4 entrants in TT3 on Day 2 so there were no tires for the winner, oh well. Should have put one of these laps together on Day 1 - my own fault for jacking around with 2 very different sets of tires, and sharing a car for the same class, limiting our seat time.
NASA Texas Lap Records (only updated "semi-annually")
http://www.nasa-tt.com/Texas_Track_R...6_articleid/11 - this doesn't even have the January 2013 event updated yet, so of course the March event isn't in the books.
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