Robert R1

Good luck this weekend Bill. Here's to no "bump drafting" help from mustangs this time around

tjZ06

Hey boss, long time no chat! I happened to be at Laguna Seca this weekend too, but just watching. A good friend of mine was running his 997.2 GT3 Cup car in the Perelli Cup so I came down to spectate. I was the RV up in the Corkscrew View RV area outside of 9 (literally the only RV up there). I had fun watching your battle with my buddy's teammate with this 991 GT Cup on Friday:



I was watching on Sat too, the announcer mentioned your car was smoking then retired. I hope he was wrong? Got a pic of you chasing my boy's other teammate too (this one's a 997.2 Cup):



I'm sure you know about the Cups, but I was super impressed with how long you held off Jesse in the 991 Cup. The 991s have a bit more power, are a bit lighter, are lower, wider (especially in the front, to improve turn-in) have INSANE brakes (see below), and have an even faster paddle-shifted sequential. The black 997.2 is also paddle shifted (my buddy's 997.2 still has the stick, but is obv sequential too). Now I find out you were having shifting trouble and doing that well!?!

991 Front:


Rear:


-TJ

tjZ06

Camp:


My view from the captain's chair, perfect for having breakfast and coffee each morning, lol:


You can see me up on the hill:


My boy's Cup:


-TJ

redtopz

Thanks Robert! That's another reason this tranny is scary because you have to nail the 2-3 shift after the green to not get rear ended.

Hey TJ, those are some awesome pics! Looks like you had a great setup at Laguna. I know very little about the porsches but I raced with a few last year in GT2. I would love to drive one of them someday. My goal was just to go out and do some lapping and make sure my car was all set for next weekend, but then I started tangling with a couple cup cars and that GT1 vette and I switched to 10/10ths race mode... That one cup car and the GT1 vette mowed me down the straights. I got to the front after a few laps and held it I think until the last lap when I hit some traffic in T3 and put 2 wheels off and the 991 outgunned me to T4. It was fun, but yeah my tranny is messed up and really hurt me coming out of T11 especially. Abel Chevrolet found a worn 3rd gear and it needs a new synchro, gear, and blocking ring. Not sure why this tranny didn't work from day 1 when my other RPM trannys have been great. The gear is on backorder so it's going to be a few weeks until this tranny is fixed.

So now I'm going to have to run my spare tranny for the champ race, but at least it shifts OK.

JRL

Good luck, Bill!!
I will try to come out sunday and watch you guys .

redtopz

Thanks John, I thought for sure I would be cheering for you this year in TT2! We need to get your car back out there asap. I'll have time to help after nationals are over. See you Sunday!

This has been a really tough past couple months with all the work involved in getting the car prepped in addition to all my work at the farm right now and dealing with this drought. This is a tough sport when you're an amateur working on your car in your spare time. My failures in racing have been largely due to my failures as a mechanic over the years. Or just with parts failures in general, but I guess that's racing as they say. Fingers crossed everything stays together this weekend. I've done everything I can to make sure it does. Huge thanks to my sponsors for making this car so competitive and fast! TC Design, Synergy Motorsports, Abel Chevrolet, Essex/AP brakes, Hoosier Tires, Wolf Vinyl. They have all put in a significant amount of work, parts, expertise, and labor to make this happen.

I just finished swapping in my spare tranny today and Abel was 'able' to fix my leaking diff seal and the car seems to be running fine now. I went out on some back roads and bedded in these new AP brakes. Holy crap this car stops now! I dialed in a little more rear brake bias. Made my Costo run tonight for beer, coffee, food, snacks, etc and tomorrow I'll load everything up and head to the track. Looking forward to getting out of this 100+ degree weather here and spending the weekend in the low 70's at Laguna Seca.

BTW, here is some live video streaming coverage of the event:

https://livestream.com/nasa/

Live timing here: https://racehero.io/orgs/nasa

RichieRichZ06

Good luck Bill, kick some *** this weekend.

folsomlarry

skxf430

Congrats Bill!!!!!

JRL

Great job Bill!! You were flying, really fun to watch you getting it done. Put a full lap on the class

Robert R1

Nice work Bill! I was rooting for you to lap the field

RichieRichZ06

Congrats on the Nation Event win.

redtopz

Thanks guys, it was definitely one of the rare and unusual weekends where everything went my way. It was great to see all the hard work and effort pay off. John, thanks for coming out to the track. Where did you watch the races?

I have a lot to download. Things I learned that I can pass on and feedback on parts/items that I think were beneficial in making my car perform so well. But here's a brief summary for now:

1. The Essex/AP brake kit was freaking amazing! I'm really glad I decided to install them right before this event even though it was a bit risky to make that change at the last minute. These brakes are in a different league from anything I've had before. Pedal always at the top and firm. Zero fade over 40 minutes of hard racing at Laguna Seca. No heat checks in the rotors and tons of pad left after 3 days. They still look like new. Brakes were easy to modulate and very consistent. Didn't have any issues getting into ABS.

2. Synergy LS2 was perfect. Plenty of torque and power and again very consistent over the entire weekend pulling the same trap speeds from start to finish with good oil pressures and temperatures. Looking forward to uncorking this engine and running it full power.

3. Definitely glad I swapped trannys for this weekend instead of risking running my new tranny with a bad 3rd gear. That would have definitely not worked out well. The stock gearing was not ideal, but it was reliable.

4. Had an interesting conversation on Saturday with the ST2 guys about tire pressures and the Hoosiers. We were comparing notes and some guys seemed to lose grip faster than others so we started checking pressures. Out of 4 pressure gauges, none of them read the same number and the spread was up to 6 psi on the same tire . This is why you get a good consistent pressure gauge and you set your pressures based on testing and tire temps/grip and not based on other people's recommendations.

5. Even though you have a crappy race weekend you can still learn from it and make the next one better. My failures have led to learning, which has led to making improvements, which leads eventually to performing better or winning. Last year I put a lot of effort with TC Design into improving my driving and car setup and in particular to learning Laguna Seca. It didn't pan out so well last year at the Runoffs after getting punted at the start, but that time and effort paid off this year.

JRL

[QUOTE=redtopz;1590191904]. John, thanks for coming out to the track. Where did you watch the races?

I was at T4, inside the track, at the end of braking zone watching the corner exit from behind, my favorite spot. You were smooth, fast and laying it down lap after lap, just kept pulling away, great stuff!

redtopz

[quote=JRL;1590192387]Cool, I actually just adjusted my LR toe right before the race and it helped keep my rear planted better in turns 3 and 4.

Here is a video from my friend Amir in his ST2 turbo Supra starting in P4. It's nice to see some different cars out there other than corvettes. He had a solid race going until he ran out of fuel with a couple laps to go. He's running E85 and his tank just wasn't large enough for a 45 minute race. He's still sorting the car out and only has a couple weekends in it so far.

redtopz

Here's my in-car vid from Sunday's final race.



Here's the start from my buddy's Boss 302 mustang running ST2. In SCCA they give the mustangs more power to equalize but ST2 is strictly power/weight. I think the newest generation mustang with the independent rear suspension should be equal with a corvette at the same power/weight ratio.

FredSM

Way to make it look boring, Bill!!! LOL. Textbook smooth. And I could use this for my line video. Congrats. I'm glad I'm not the only one who bothers to shift through 3rd on the way to 2nd in the brake zone at T2. Mild debate amongst me and a few friends. Their argument is, what's the point when 2nd is your destination? Just seems to be a rhythm thing with me. I also think there is more risk in over-reving in 2nd without hearing it smoothly slip into 3rd first. They argue its just one more chance to screw up a downshift. And so it goes . . .

FM

redtopz

Thanks Fred! I've been thinking about the downshift and heel/toe thing lately and looking at my data. Like you, I've just always rowed down through the gears so it's a habit now. I can skip gears in races when I hit traffic, etc with no problems but when alone I still like to hit each gear on the way down. However, since nobody heel/toe rev matches perfectly all the time (more important in some cars/clutches than others), I think if I were to start over I would focus on braking perfectly and then just prior to turning in, downshifting to the desired gear (skipping if necessary). I think that would lead to optimal results (and consistency). I might start to make that transition and see if I can make it muscle memory. Hope to see you at the corvette HOD day.

redtopz

http://www.speednewsmag.com/Sept2015.html

Made the front cover of the NASA Speednews magazine! Article on the ST2 race is on page 55. .

JRL