Vorshlag 2011 Mustang 5.0 GT - track/autocross/street Project

[saunupe1911]

Great thread and posts

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Project Update for Sept 23, 2013: When I started to finally write this last piece of the Miller event coverage, on Monday Sept 23rd, we had just gotten back from yet another NASA event (TWS), so I was already 2 weeks behind. And it took me a week to get all of this written down, after looking at results sheets and watching the in-car videos from 9 sessions I drove over the 4 days. In this installment I will talk about our actual racing experience that week at NASA Nationals... finally! I will start with how they do things at NASA's "big show" event, which differed ever so slightly from the dozens of regional NASA events I've done in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and California over the past six years. For the most part it was a bit more serious, but no less fun.

Impound Is Important

I'm going to talk about Nationals impound, as it had a bearing on my final finish placing. The way NASA runs their all of their road racing and Time Trial classes is pretty unique compared to other clubs, but I really like The NASA Way and I have said so many times. Sure, there are some quirks, but I learned a lot at this event and understand the various classes better than before.

One of the biggest differences in NASA is their proclivity to measure not just chassis weights but to also measure horsepower output in most cars & classes, with an actual chassis dyno. I have written letters to other clubs asking them to MEASURE HORSEPOWER instead of relying on some quaint "gentleman's agreement not to cheat" nonsense, and not rely on poorly written rules or very outdated displacement-to-weight formulas - that have been proven to be ineffective for 40+ years. Still, even with continuous dyno testing and weight checks, NASA is always investigating new ways to keep racers honest. Now they are even looking at GPS based data loggers going onto race cars - looking for spikes in acceleration past what the car can physically do at a given power and weight. They were testing a new black box data logger on a few cars which we've started to see in Professional Racing circles. Look for this to go into some of their race groups in the next season or two, hopefully. I totally support this type of active policing in racing... 'cause racers naturally will try to push the boundaries. This isn't the NSA or Big Brother, this is "let's keep everyone honest" type of thing. Good stuff.

Anyway, NASA's current techniques to police classing include 2 main components: weight checks on scales (virtually ALL classes) after qualifying and race sessions, and measuring horsepower on a chassis dyno for most classes. So many classes within NASA have some "power-to-weight" component that checking the cars on a dyno is common practice, and at Miller they didn't hold back. They must have checked hundreds of cars on the dyno that week. Qualifying races, random TT sessions, and the top 3 in almost every racing class got checked at least once. There were 3 dynos on site that week getting a steady stream of business (it was a constant background noise), but one "official" dyno was used for all NASA Impound checks (a trailer mounted DynoJet). The others were being used for tuning and verification before the final Championship races began. Most of the W2W classes had a big final race on Saturday or Sunday that determined the Champions, whereas raced over 4 days to get our one best lap (which was unique).



It seems like common sense to me; if you want to keep cars competitive and legal, you weigh them and dyno them often. NASA officials even had racers at this event put evidence tape on OBD and other computer ports or "any aftermarket switches within reach of the driver" to show that they haven't been tampering with power levels or tunes while on track, too. And for TT this is extra important, because we raced over FOUR DAYS and 9 sessions that counted (+ one Warm Up practice session on Thursday morning, used just for gridding purposes). We could make changes to chassis and aero set-up all week, but if we wanted to make computer/tuning changes we had to go to Tech and the TT Director to ask permission, first. I brought an SCT tuner with the ability to alter timing and RPM on our car but I never messed with it.

On the first day, I heard that 3 or 4 American Iron cars were popped for blowing dyno tests, and a few people were whining. But they warned us, every race group, that they would be dyno testing a lot of cars, and they did. And I'm GLAD they did. I wish this happened at more Regional TT events, too (I have seen race groups have the top 3 finishers dyno'd at a few NASA Texas Region events, just not ever in TT). Sure, dyno testing is a logistical hassle, especially for AWD cars, but it is a necessary tool to help keep everyone on a level playing field. The future black box real time monitoring could be even easier, when the technology gets good enough (and cheap enough).


BMW E46 M3s are becoming increasingly popular in TT3/ST3/GTS3 classes

So this isn't the official racing procedure verbatim, but what I observed on how this worked in the Time Trial group. First, we had to be on grid in your assigned spot before the first car went out on track. Late to grid? Too bad, you lost that session. Why? They didn't want people popping out of the hot pits into the fastest part of the track and messing up other people's laps. NASA Texas has started to do this, too, and it is a welcomed change. Next, if you came off track before the end of the session, you went to Impound. Period. No tweaking the car on the hot pits, no going back out to finish the session, nope. Same reasons as above - coming back out on track during a hot session was dangerous and interrupted the flow of the racers, who are gridded in the order of their lap times (fastest to slowest). Also, they split the large TT contingent into two race groups that never shared the track at the same time: The "Letter Classes" (TTB-TTE) ran in Race Group C and The "Numbered Classes" (TTU/1/2/3) ran in Race Group H. It was nice for the faster TT guys to not have to worry about catching the E cars on lap 2, which can happen when all of the TT classes run at once.

Once TT racers came off track we were held in Impound until a TT Director released us, usually not until the session was over and everyone was in. We couldn't jack with the cars in Impound AT ALL. The driver could stay in his car and have ONE helper CHECK tire pressures and tire temps -or- he could exit the vehicle and do it himself. That was it. No dropping tire pressures, fiddling under the hood, or any funny business. And if you wanted to check tire pressures you had to ask a NASA official first, and they observed. Why? We were told because some folks have gamed the system in the past and dumped tire pressures in Impound down to 10 psi or less, then if they were dyno'd... yep, the numbers would be much lower than normal. So if you were caught dropping tire pressures in Impound then they gave you a dyno chit, aired your drive tires up to 40 psi, and off to the dyno you go. Automatic dyno check. Another sensible measure and fewer chances for shenanigans.


"A dozen ways to skin a cat" - here are two very different approaches to a TT2/ST2 build

Over the week my car was weighed 5 times, which was about average, but never was quick enough to warrant a dyno check. I was sweating it all week, as was everyone. Many of the faster TT guys' cars saw the dyno 1, 2 or even 3 times that week. How they dyno'd TT cars was simple. First, a TT director called down to Impound with a list of cars to by dyno'd and/or weighed ("If you drop a lot of time and move up to the front of the pack, prepare to be dyno'd"). If you were called out to be Dyno'd you got a "chit". Every car getting dyno'd was weighed first, which was recorded, and if it was not greater than your stated weight you got a session DQ. Same for anyone just getting a weight check. The closest to minimum I got was 21 pounds (3791 lbs with driver on a 3770 lb stated minimum) but I was often 50-60 pounds over, depending on fuel load. I saw some competitors get within 1-2 pounds, and several go under. We all were issued a decal that had to be posted on the side of the car with our declared minimum weight, max torque and max hp numbers, as shown below. Many of us made changes to this after we talked with TT officials, too.

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Left: After conferring with TT officials, instead of assuming my car would dyno low at altitude, I revised it to the latest tested number

So if you got a dyno chit, you went straight from the scales to the dyno, 50 feet away. Nobody could touch the car but the driver, and you couldn't open the hood or do anything else. Once it was your turn the dyno operators took the car from you, used an elaborate series of ramps to get it up onto their mobile Dynojet trailer, strapped it to the rollers, and got some fans going on the radiator and opened the hood. Once the engine was up to speed in the 1:1 transmission gear they asked about redline RPMs or rev limiters, then did three back-to-back dyno pulls. Vrooom.... vroom.... vroom. Didn't take 60 seconds. Then if your car made more than your claimed dyno number ("popped dyno" or "blew dyno"), even by 1 a hp, you got a session DQ. Then the NASA TT directors would calculate your latest dyno and weight number, and if that ratio was over your class minimum, ALL of your previous sessions times back to your last successful dyno/weight check were thrown out. This matters for later, so keep this in mind.

Now that I know how this works I would have ASKED for a dyno earlier in the week. Because a successful dyno/weight check means your times up to that point are SAFE. Just like when we come in from a TT session early, to "bank" our times. Why? Because if you have a 4-off or a spin during a TT session, you lose ALL of your times in that session (session DQ). It has happened to me twice in the past 6 years (spin or off during TT), and it sucks. So when you know you have a good lap time in the books (from watching your onboard lap timer), most of us come the hell in! Again, this matters for later.

They had similar procedures for virtually every NASA race group, but I'm sure there were small differences I don't know about. In any Championship W2W race, for instance, if a driver blew minimum weight or blew the dyno, they were DQ'd and everyone moves up a space in the standings. So everyone was watching the dyno all week. And yes, even at 4500 feet of elevation, they use an SAE correction factor to correct for that. And it was huge, close to a 20% correction! I'm used to seeing 0-2% corrections here in Texas, sometimes even negative 1-2% for SAE. So you couldn't just rely on "the elevation will soften my numbers", no sir. You have to factor that in. I was a FOOL for not getting a dyno check before the event started and for not ASKING for a dyno during the event. I got lucky, I guess, but if you were in the top 3 during the week you saw the dyno, trust me. I wasn't in the top three until.... well, the very end. I'll get to that.

Race Coverage - Day By Day

I don't know if I mentioned this earlier but the course being run for the week of Nationals for ALL race groups was the 3.0 mile "Outer Loop" CCW, and there were no HPDE groups running at Nationals. This 3 mile course is the fastest configuration of the 4 possible track layouts at Miller, and has many high speed turns and a LONG 3500' front straight. There is some elevation change in a couple of corners, but for the most part it was like most other desert tracks I've run: flat and with few visual markers. This meant many corners looked identical, which confused me a bit. I have never run this track before and struggled all week, learning the layout. And we fought all week to find balance with the set-up...



Like we do for every NASA TT event, we made our own maps in case they didn't hand any out. They had great maps, though

I will break up my "race coverage" into the 4 days we had to get our best lap time. Every session from all 4 days of Nationals counted for TT, and you only had to bag one fast lap in one of the 9 official sessions (the Warm-up session was the first of 10, really, but it didn't count towards times). Some days we had 3 sessions and some days we had 2, which I will explain below.

Results: http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/N...Championships/ (TT3 was in Group H)

I missed one session due to rain and another where we had to work on the car, but ran every other one and thankfully had no DSQs (a spin or 4 off will net you a DSQ). I had some close calls, and came in early to "bank" a good lap time when I noted a decent time on my AIM Solo display (which was extremely accurate all week, matching the official transponder times usually to the hundredth place).

Day 1 - Thursday

TT had our first mandatory meeting of the week at 8:30 am this day (one of 9 meetings we had that week), where we went over the basics, then TT1/2/3/U (Group H) had our first "Warm Up" session at 10:30 am (TTB-TTF ran in a separate run group all week - Group C). I went out in this session on those well worn R6 tires we brought on the grey wheels and fumbled my way around the track. Car was LOOSE at speed! Aero balance felt terrible, and any corners over 80 mph the car wanted to be sideways. The slow speed corners felt fine, but it was a complete handful everywhere else. I thought we had this sorted at our ECR test, but that track's fastest corners are probably sub-65 mph. Some of the corners here at Miller I was entering at 100-150+ mph. Scary fast, and I was working on my lines and my "testicular fortitude" in every session. I stayed out in the Warm Up for the entire time and had a best lap of 2:10.804 on Lap 5, and a 2:10.9 on the lap before, neither of which was fast. The quickest TT3 car in this session was a red E36 325is, which had an S54 3.2L M3 engine swap and good aero, driven by an old autocross buddy Chris Mayfield. He ran a 2:06.448, so he was fast right out of the gate. Ken Smith in the yellow ST3/TT3 C5 Z06 ran a 2:09.306 in that session (and was broken down on the side of the front straight, then came on the hook), with two faster TT3 cars between him and Mayfield. The Miller track crew did an excellent job and was doing "hot tows" all week (towing cars in with rolling local yellows, while keeping the racers going). I was only 5th fastest out of the 11 cars running in the TT3 class (at this point - we saw 12 different TT3 cars by week's end), and well over 5 seconds back... yikes. TT3 was the largest TT class of the event, by a good margin over any other (here's group C).


Print-outs showing results from Day 1's 3 TT sessions: The TT Warm up, TT Session 1 and TT session 2

In that Thursday Warm-Up session I ran so many consecutive hot laps that I saw some warmer than anticipated engine temps on lap 6, even with the lowest ambient temps of the day (high 70s). On Lap 6 the temp gauge shot up to maybe 3/4 of the range from "C" to "H", which is warmer than we ever see in this car. It was not that warm outside yet, so I chalked it up to the thin air here at 4500 feet of altitude and maybe still having an air bubble passing through the newly set-up cooling system (I added some distilled water in the pits after this). Talking to other drivers they were seeing the occasional warm temp readings, too, and I was told by many "high altitude racers" to be on the watch for this at Miller. I took a cool down lap and stayed well out of people's way while coming in, and with a 3 mile course the cool down laps can take a while. Within 30 seconds the engine temps came back to the "middle" of the range. This happened two more times during the week, saw a warm temp after too many hot laps that was corrected in the first cool down lap..



Navigating the "Attitudes", 3 S-curves right in a row with some wide, tall and nasty curbing

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So, as with all NASA TT events, the times from this first "Warm Up" session on the first day only count towards our grid positions for the first "official" TT session, session 1. We checked air pressures hot and they were WAY higher than I thought they'd get up to, so we bled off 8-10 psi from each tire, from hot. We had an 11:10 am TT meeting where we did roll calls and listened to Greg give us the latest session DQs for spins, offs, weights or dyno (which were not printed on the individual session time sheets, strangely enough). Someone in the group also asked "what is a 4 off here", as there are some rather WIDE curbs at Miller - in some places more than 25 feet of paved but painted curbing. The biggest section of track in question was the "Attitudes", Turns 8/9/10, which are S-curves in rapid succession that also fall down a hill. Apparently this section was a bit controversial, and some race groups were seeing a handful of drivers really pounding over the curbs, some catching 4 wheels in the air and short cutting Turn 9 altogether (just going straight over the curbs/gravel and leaving the track). After some discussion it was ruled that the white painted line was to be considered the edge of the track and as long as 2 wheels were still "touching the paint", that was allowed. Tons of latitude but no more "cutting a corner". If we were 4 wheels over the paint it would be a "4 off" and a session DQ.


Above photos by Brian Smyer

I was staying off the curbing in almost all corners, as the bumps were making the already very loose car even more twitchy. Like the picture above, where my car is already sideways after just touching two outside wheels on the paint, is what would happen. So I stayed off the curbs on almost every lap. I tried to take a bit more on the last day, with some negative consequences (video of that in a lower section). Other drivers were a lot more liberal with their curbing, though. And it likely helped their times - I just couldn't see jumping them like that and doing the "4 wheels in the air" thing. I would have ripped the splitter off and done all sorts of damage to our car. In the AI circles I heard one driver admit that cutting Turn 9 was worth a full second on his lap times, and there were a few of those guys really getting a lot of time using the curbs. Amy was there and if I would have broken the car on the curbing she would have KILLED me!

Just watched my TT session 1 video, which began on Thursday at 2 pm, and it was 20 degrees hotter than the TT Warm Up. At least this time we were gridded better, but I still had to deal with several passes, and the car was SUPER loose in the first 2 laps. I was finally figuring out where to shift, what gear to be in for each corner, pushing some still-early braking points, and just beginning to get a feel for where I was and where the apexes should be. I took a good number of laps in this session and dropped down to a 2:09.039, with my fastest lap on Lap 1. I spent the rest of the session trying different lines, braking points, etc. In Session 1 Ken Smith really picked up the pace and moved into the lead with a 2:05.099, with Mayfield right on his tail at a 2:05.753 time. Steve Nagel found a lot of time and dropped to a 2:07.284 and 3rd place in his white E36 M3 with aero and a claimed 310 whp, nearly 2 seconds quicker than my times.



The third and final TT session for Thrusday was TT session 2, we started at about 5:30 pm (about 30 minutes behind schedule) and ambient temps were up to 94 °F when we started. It was so delayed and so hot that attendance was pretty sparse by the time we finally got released from grid. After 2 false starts for this session we finally heard the reason for problem - Mark Baer had a pretty bad crash in his GTS BMW going into The Tooele Turn, T11, and they had to air flight him to the hospital for observation, tow the car in, and do some quick repairs to the armco.


Smith (left) and Mayfield (right) traded the TT3 lead all week, but nobody else could seem to catch them

As I recalled after watching my video of this session, I was still pretty lost on 2nd half of the track after Turn 7, where I was confusing Turn 11 with Turn 13, and I still couldn't get the entry speeds up into Turn 7 (Witchcraft) or my line right into Turns 8/9/10. Really struggling to grasp this track layout, and there was a lot of gravel on the track from people going off and on at various corners. In my video I noted that the car was using about 5 gallons per session, and I was seeing "155 mph" on the speedo (probably more like 150mph) as I was braking into Turn 1. The car was still a loose mess at speed, and Amy and I were running out of things to change (tire pressures, wing angle, and some other things). I nearly looped the car going into Turn 3 on my 2nd hot lap, so took a cool-down lap and then another hot lap on the now well worn R6s. Just touching one of these monster curbs was setting the car into bump-steer convulsions. My best lap was again my 1st lap out, and nearly matched my previous session at a 2:09.054. Mayfield slowed down to a 2:05.574 and Ken Smith was in the 2:05.927 range, with Nagel slowing down to a 2:10.5. The higher ambient temps were hurting everyone and I was 4.5 seconds back from the class leader, not making up any ground.

My outlook was pretty bleak that night, but we had our lone good meal in Tooele (The Brewhouse) with Doug and Stuart Maxcy of Maxcyspeed. I drank away my sorrows and dreamed all night about turns like Witchcraft and the Attitudes, that were straight up kicking my ass.


Day 2 - Friday

After some dismal driving on Thursday I had planned on doing some work early Friday morning to the car and going out on the R6s again in the first session with some set-up improvements. Then Ryan and Brandon missed their very early flight, so it was just me and Amy again, and with too much to fix we skipped the first TT session of the day. During that time we replaced a leaking caliper bleed screw, dialed in 2 degrees more angle of attack on the rear wing, re-tightened the splitter mounting screws (several had loosened up), reset air pressures, and went out in session 2. Turns out we neglected to add enough fuel, so I was worried about fuel starvation. The left side tires were more abused than the right, which surprised me as there are more left hand turns than rights... but a lot of the high speed turns are right handers, and those tore up the appropriate side.


Left: Grey wheels = old R6s. Right: The fastest AI car was a World Challenge Boss 302R, which ran a 2:07.860 in the final race

At this point we had been weighed twice. 3791 lbs was the lightest and as high as 3836 lbs with a lot of fuel. Brakes looked good - the Carbotechs were wearing very well for the abuse I was throwing at them. I have never braked this car this hard, from these speeds, this many times in a row. Some say our upgraded GT500 14" rear brakes "are worthless" compared to the stock 11.5" rear discs, but I disagree strongly. This car was the heaviest in the TT3 class, had one of the highest terminal speeds into Turn 1, yet I could brake as late or later than anyone else. In some cases I was braking nearly 100 feet later than some TT2 and TT3 cars. The brakes just flat worked, flawlessly, all week.

Just watched my TT session 4 video and I was pushing hard yet only managed another 1/2 second gain, down to a best of 2:08.537. Heavy cross winds made for major buffeting in the car on the higher speed sections, and the high ambient heat (2 pm, high 90s again) baked the track, overheated tires, and made for generally slower lap times. Only five TT3 cars went out this time, with Mayfield and Smith skipping the session entirely. Nagel went out in the white E36 and put in a best of 2:08.324, which was over a second slower than his best time from the first official TT session on Thursday. I was within 2 tenths of Nagel, everyone was slower, but I had found another half second, so that was at least a little encouraging. The R6s felt really awful and the car was still very loose at speed, and once the tires got hot after my 1st lap it was loose everywhere. I pounded out 5 laps (3 hot laps + 2 cool downs), well after almost everyone else had come in, and saw another 2:08.8 lap in the closing lap, but my first lap was again my fastest.

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TT session 3, Session 4 and session 5 time sheets from Friday

For the Friday's final TT session (TT session 5) we we removed the Grey Forgestar 18x12's with the well worn R6s and slapped on the white Forgestar set with the the used set of Hoosier A6 tires. Clouds were rolling in, temperatures were dropping, and at the beginning of this late afternoon session it was down to 88°F. Amy and I had to swap wheels without any power tools, so it took a while and we barely made it to grid in time. Then we had another long delay on grid, as had been the case several times previously.




During this grid delay Brian Smyer shot the pictures above, as well as several others that he put into his blog post. "I fell in love with this mustang from Vorshlag so thought I would share a few images from Miller Motorsports Park" Brian also got some great images out on track, which I have scattered through this post (anything without the Vorshlag watermark was taken by him). Good stuff. After he took the above two pics the clouds rolled in and it started to look like rain again. Winds picked up, and many of the cars went out on sticker tires in this session, thinking it might be one of our last dry times for a bit (storms were predicted to roll in hard for Friday night/Saturday).

I left a gap to the rest of the field on the out lap, because I had been catching several cars gridded higher than me on the 1st and 2nd laps out, time and again. This session looked like the best conditions we had seen all week, and I had what I thought would be faster tires and some clear track ahead. I got a good run out of the last turn and pushed the revs in 5th gear down the front straight. With the higher AoA on the wing I only saw an indicated 150 mph into the braking zone (down from 155), but it seemed to stop fine. As I'm rolling into the throttle exiting Turn 1... the rear tires washed out, lots of counter steer, no help. I put 2 wheels off on the exit of T1 at 100+ mph and blew the lap. Took a cool down lap and tried to set up to try again.

After my 2 off I had let about 6 cars that were behind me go by, after I had gathered it up. So my next hot laps involved getting held up by virtually all of these cars as I re-passed them. The tires quickly felt greasy and the car was oversteering more than it had all week. My 2nd lap was only a 2:09.031, on the A6 tires. I knew I was in trouble and took another cool down lap, where I let a few of the same cars back around me, trying not to impede their laps. Started another hot lap, it was looking better on predictive timing, then exiting Turn 6 and I got blocked by two of the SAME cars that I had pointed by on my cool down, including one of the same cars that had blocked me on my previous hot lap. Very frustrating, my session was blown, the A6 tires were now overheated, so I threw in the towel and came into the pits. In that session Mayfield was 1.5 seconds quicker than his previous best, down to a blistering 2:04.170. Nagel ran a 2:07.808 as well, so it was a good session to get a fast lap in. My 2 off and subsequent blocked laps blew the session for me, but the tires never felt very good anyways.

After this session we buttoned up the trailer, left the Mustang out in the rain, and headed to the airport through a sandstorm to pick up Ryan and Brandon, who finally made it to SLC by about 4:30 pm. This was the night we switched hotels and the better accommodations, free drinks at the bar, and a good meal in SLC raised our spirits.

Day 3 - Saturday

We arrived at the track at 7 am and got to work on the car. We had a new game plan - don't wait until Sunday to put the sticker tires on, as the weather was too unpredictable and any of the next 4 sessions might be our last chance at a dry track. So Ryan and Brandon had the scrub A6 tires dismounted and the lone set of brand new "sticker" 315/30/18 A6 tires went on ($130 mounting charge from the Hoosier guys, ouch). Ryan tweaked the front swaybar, dialed some wing back DOWN, and I went out on track. It was 71 degrees, still very windy, but sunny and dry. Track was green from rains the night before, but I went out and pushed it hard anyway.

I was gridded behind Nagel and gapped him hugely on the out lap, so I wouldn't catch him on the first lap. Since he was running Yokohama slicks that took several laps to heat up he was a good bit slower for the first 3-4 laps in every session, and I still caught him by Turn 6 on the first hot lap. Got a little held up into T6 but took the pass on the exit. What freaked me out was his brake lights didn't work almost the entire week (they were operational by Sunday), so I had to gauge at when he got on the brakes, which was a bit earlier than me into T5 and T6. After I got around him it put me on a bad trajectory into T7 (Whitchcraft) and I got a little bit of curb into T8, and again into T11, which really caused the car to bumpsteer hard. I knew the pass and both subsequent curb touches had cost me some time, but I still managed a 2:06.6 on my first hot lap with the new A6 tires. Dropped two full seconds on my first lap on stickers, with tons of mistakes and delays... man, I was regretting only bringing that one set of new tires! The previous 2 days felt like a big waste of time, now.



Time Trial Results for TT session 6 and 7 on Saturday

On my second hot lap in this session I was on a flyer when my foot slipped off the brake pedal downshifitng and braking into T6, and I almost had an off. I managed to gather it up, with the left front tire getting way out onto the outside curbing mid-corner, and of course that lap was blown. At that point I wanted to "bank" the first 2:06 lap and started a cool down to then come into the pits... but I changed my mind at the last second and went ahead and took a 3rd hot lap. I had already turned off the video so I don't have details but apparently I got fairly clean track and managed to drop 3 more tenths and put in a 2:06.356. Considering that these were A6 tires, with which I almost always put in my best laps on the 1st lap and they fall off a cliff after that, I knew the car had more in it. After that 2nd 2:06 lap I came in to bank it. This new time briefly pushed me into 3rd place in TT3, ahead of Nagel. Most everyone was faster in that session and Nagel dropped a good bit of time on his 5th lap, and jumped back ahead of me back into 3rd with a 2:05.562. Mayfield dropped another 9 tenths to a 2:03.170 and finally jumped ahead of Ken Smith (who had a 2:03.3 from TT session 3) for the TT3 lead. In this session Smith had put in a 2:04.110, with the rest of the class was 2 seconds behind me in 4th position. The two tight battles in TT3 were between Mayfield and Smith for 1st in the 2:03s and Nagel and me for 3rd in the 2:05-2:06 range.

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That picture above is from the grid before Saturday's final TT run group, session 7, which began at 3:45 pm. As you can see the bad weather really rolled in and the rain was eminent, and we even felt a sprinkle or two in grid. I had no windshield wipers (pulled them for less drag!) so I applied two coats of RainX to the windshield prior to going out. I was hoping to drop another 2 seconds, to maybe "get in the hunt", but that was a bit optimistic. I had watched some previous in-car videos and noted several of my driving mistakes, so I tried to clean up my lines, and again - my first lap was going to be the most crucial.

I dropped back a bit on the out lap and tried to gap Nagel, but I caught and passed him again in the braking to Turn 1 on the first hot lap, which threw my line off for this high speed corner, and my entries into T2 and T3 were slower. Rest of the lap was relatively clear and was a 2:06.6, with a pass and several compromised corners. I went ahead and took a 2nd hot lap, where I caught and passed a TT1 Corvette on the main front straight, then got held up a little by a TT2 Subaru early braking into T1 (so many cars brake early there). He pulled ahead in Turns 2-4 but I caught him a bit in the heavy braking into Turn 6. For the rest of this lap he stayed ahead and pulled away on the main straight. Hot lap 2 was a 2:06.111. I had a little more gap to the TT2 Subie so I took a 3rd hot lap in the row.

Braked a little late into T1 (155 mph) and got a little sloppy, then borked the high speed Turn 4 a bit, too. Felt like the rear tires were getting greasy, and they were. I watched the predictive timing off and on through the lap, and and it was only showing a 2:06.3-2:06.4 towards the latter 1/4 of the lap. The rear tires were really overheating by Turn 12, car was getting too loose, so I bailed on this hot lap right before Pit In and came into Impound. The 2 tenths improvement was at least something but I was still a 1/2 second behind Nagel's previous 2:05.5 (he ran a 2:11.3 in this session).

I guess because of the weird weather, higher winds and darker visibility only 2 cars dropped time in our class - I ran a couple of tenths quicker at a 2:06.111 on my 2nd lap and Bezard dropped from the 2:08s down to a to a 2:07.5 in his E46 M3 to close up behind me in 5th place. Smith was slower at a 2:03.9 and Mayfield was a second slower at a 2:04.1. So on only my 2nd session on "sticker A6" tires I was still dropping time, but I still felt there was more left to drop still.


Click above and skip to 5:57, where they spend a minute on our Mustang

One difference from this year's NASA Nationals was the "SpeedcastTV" coverage. There were cameras up on man lifts at a number of corners around the track and they were showing video live online at www.speedcasttv.com/nasa. There were also two announcers giving color commentary on the live video feed. They had a director who would tell the cameramen to switch from car to car and they'd stay with them for 30 seconds or up to a minute. The linked video above shows some footage from TT session 7, and at the 5:57 mark they cover me driving the red Mustang. One of the announcers was even a follower of this very forum thread and a fan of the car (thanks!). They talked about the car for a minute, which was cool.

Saturday night was a lot more upbeat, as I was at least within a 3 seconds of the 2 drivers who were trading the class lead (closest I had been all week) and I was only 1/2 second out of a podium position. We had 2 more sessions to go on Sunday and anything was possible. But it started to rain as the sun fell and it rained pretty much all night. We knew this meant another green track (no rubber down) for Sunday, so it might all be over for fast laps in TT. We had no more tuning tricks left up our sleeves so it was all down to the track/weather conditions and my driving on Sunday. Great...

Day 4 - Sunday



It rained all Saturday night so we were treated to a wet first session on Sunday, with drops still coming down. Only 7 drivers from the entire H group of Time Trial racers took to the track, but they got some extra SpeedcastTV time, so kudos to them. I skipped that session, as I didn't bring any rains and didn't see a point, with 8 other dry session's worth of times to fall back on. Don't need to stuff the car off track, either. So we waited for the 9th and final TT session, which began at 2:45 pm, and it was the last race group to run the entire week of the 2013 NASA Nationals. The track was green but dry, temperatures were down to 79° after the rains had blown through, there was a good wind again (which dried off the track quickly), and it looked pretty much like the best conditions of the week.

In the last TT meeting before this session we were told by the TT Director, "If you go faster in this last session, be prepared to be dyno'd". The top 2 in TT3 had already been dyno tested more than once this week, but almost nobody else in our class had, including me. We had all been weighed many times, and as far as I know there were no under-weights. We were told if we weighed under, or dyno'd higher than our claimed numbers, we'd get a session DQ. They would then take our weight and divide by the power test number, and if our ratio was under what the class allowed, ALL times prior to that would be thrown out, back to our last legal dyno/weight check from this event.


Final two Time Trial sessions were run on Sunday. Session 8 (at left) was raining but Session 9 (right) was dry and fast...

I went out on the same fresh-ish Hoosier A6 tires that we installed on Saturday morning (I saw more new sticker sets in this last Sunday session than in most others), with several heat cycles now acquired on them. I was sitting in 4th place out of 12 in class, 6 tenths behind Nagel in 3rd, with the two of us gridded side by side. We talked before going out and agreed to a point-by on lap 1 if I was closing down on him, like we had been doing most of the week, since he doesn't get tire heat until lap 4 or 5. He knew I was close to his times and was pushing to pick up some time cushion, too. He had a sizable crew with him including spotters with 2-way radios to communicate his and my times during the session. I really wished we had radios at this point, because I would have no way of knowing if he went faster. Amy and Ryan told me to STAY OUT THE ENTIRE SESSION, to make sure I got the most out of the car, but I knew my best lap would likely be my first. We fueled up heavy to give a bit more range and out I went.

Last TT SpeedcastTV video: http://www.speedcasttv.com/nasa/#/races/358

If you watch the above video it gives you some good action in TTU and TT3 during this session. The Godzilla GTR in TTU dropped 2 seconds in this final session and leaped into the lead by nearly 2 seconds over the Subaru powered Radical. That car's 1:55 lap times for a full bodied car were amazing. In the 9th TT session Nagel had dropped another tenth down to a 2:05.454, but spun it on course and on camera, late in the session - at approximately 21:20 on this 2nd linked Speedcast video, you can see him sitting crossed up and stopped on track. So that spin caused a session DQ and his new 0.1 second faster time was thrown out. So we have to look back at his previous best of a 2:05.562 from TT session 6 on Saturday. That was the mark I was looking for... mid 2:05s. So when I ran the lap below, I didn't know if I had beat him or not.

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[Fair]

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In-car video from the final TT group, Session 9, where I ran my best lap of the week!

My best lap was my first hot lap, once again, with a 2:05.579 - or 17 thousandths of a second back from Nagel! I stayed out and ran 3 hot laps in a row, which you can see bits and pieces of in the Speedcast video or in my in-car video, above. Nagel gave me the point right before the start-finish and I got a mostly clear track ahead of me for my first lap. I caught the TT2 Subaru again in Turn 4, T5 and was maybe held up a tick braking into T6, but he started pulling away from me after Turn 7. Watching my lap I was talking to myself and yelling at the car the whole time, might have left a few tenths out there, but I was on the ragged edge and tracking out to the curbing on most corners. When my lap timer said 2:05.59 after my first hot lap it was too close to call. So I went out in lap 2 looking for a tenth. I keep saying that on the video, "I just need a tenth... I just need a tenth!"

Exiting Witchcraft I pushed it a bit too hard and took the S-curves (attitudes) with a bit more curb than the car could handle and got it very crossed up. Kept it on track, barely, then cooled down for a couple of corners and went straight into hot lap 3. Tires were getting greasy and loose at the high speed corners in T2/T3/T4. Predictive timing was only showing low 2:06s and I was getting very, very frustrated. I needed to push it hard to find that tenth but could not afford to have an off. After 3 hot laps, where I noticed lap times slowing on each successive attempt, I packed it in, assuming I was probably only hundreds of a second slower than 3rd place.

We all got into Impound and they started weighing and dyno'ing a selection of cars. I was eventually weighed and was still 40 pounds heavy. Before they could finish with all of us, were told to leave our cars and head to the trophy ceremony.




NASA did a great job and each podium finisher in every racing class got champagne, a trophy, pictures with the Toyo Girls, and many of the contingency winnings were handed out right there. GoPro 3 Black edition cameras (just for running stickers), cases of Royal Purple, driving suits, and on and on. Time Trial had some of the more lucrative payouts, surprisingly. Mayfield had arm fulls of goodies and he had a smile a mile wide. Big congrats to him for the win and TT3 track record at Miller in his first time to NASA Nationals. It was close, with his final TT session 9 time dropping to a 2:03.052, and Smith in second only 3 tenths back at a 2:03.328 from earlier in the week. Nagel rounded out the podium in 3rd.


Left: The Official TT Final Results. Right: Nagels car sitting in Impound awaiting a ruling, after blowing the dyno. Twice.

But the fat lady hadn't sung her song just yet. After the trophy ceremony we headed back to Impound and the cars awaiting dyno runs and weight checks stuck around until our cars were released. Mayfield's BMW dyno'd clean and went to load up. Nagel's white M3 got weighed and dyno'd since he was in the top 3, which was apparently that car's first trip onto the rollers all week. But it blew the claimed maximum power number on the dyno by nearly 10 whp. They did the 3 pulls and then his team argued about the shape of the dyno graph on one of the first pulls. So they pulled it around in line, got it up on the trailer, strapped it down and dyno'd it again, 3 more pulls. Ryan watched the second set of pulls and it failed again. Meanwhile I'm drinking a few beers and just hanging out at Impound, awaiting the outcome. Several TT directors met, they checked his most recent weight and dyno numbers, recalculated his class ratio, and it was also over the limit. Hmm....

The National TT Director Greg Greenbaum was busy with a protest and an appeal from another class entry (Super Touring Corvette) that took over an hour. After that was decided (it went all the way to an Executive Appeal and a NASA Board of Directors), he came to decide what to do with Nagel's dyno issues. Apparently since it blew both the dyno and ratio, all times back to a previous good dyno were to be thrown out. And since he didn't volunteer or have another a clean dyno earlier in the week, there was nothing to fall back on that was legal, so all of his times were tossed. If the ratio had still been good (power to weight) it would have just been a session DQ, which was already a DQ for the spin anyway, and he would have held onto 3rd. Greenbaum said "yep, he's DQ'd for the entire week, you are now 3rd place". Yep, just like that.

I talked to Nagel, and he was rather cool about it "Hey, I don't tune it, I just drive it". We shook hands, he congratulated me, then he went and got the 3rd place trophy out of his trailer and handed it to me. Man, that was rough - I felt so bad for him.... but not bad enough that I didn't take that trophy! Does an inherited win feel as good? Heck yes, when the cars were thousandths of a second apart and the other car didn't make dyno. We worked our asses off all year, and built a heck of a good TT3 car, that was both quick and legal. It was also a street legal car, with A/C, emissions, tags, interior, NAV/radio, the works. Weren't too many (any?) of those on the podium that week in any TT class. Probably for a reason!


Left: One of the TT Directors congratulates me on 3rd place. Right: It wasn't a podium ceremony, but I'll take it,

While I was awaiting the Impound ruling, Amy, Ryan and Brandon had pulled the front end off, loaded up the car, got the 21 tires with only a qualifying run I scavenged from Hoosier's trash pile secured, and we rolled out for our 2 day/25 hour return trip around 6 pm, with Ryan and Brandon with us for the return trip. These Hoosier scrubs will keep us in R compounds for HPDE and test laps for months to come!



Wanted to give a shout out to our paddock mates from Minnesota. These guys are part of a ChumpCar team that were at Nationals to support one of their driver's, who ran some World Challenge races in the past and was now running a Honda Challenge Civic in PTC (should have been PTD - long story). These guys have been friends for years and were having a lot of fun. Photographer Brian Smyer was hanging around with this crew, too.


At right is the Best Team Photo.. EVAR!

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