Flat Out at CMP
 

After a very, very long dry spell the opportunity was presented by Turn One and NASA-SE to drive flat out at Carolina Motorsports Park last weekend. Not only did I have the chance to drive flat out but I was actually able to do it in one of my cars. When long time track ho's say they have never even seen the "white FRC" and doubted its existence it is a challenge not easy to ignore. As in all things all it took was money. Turner Automotive sorted my engine ills, Khoi came through with some 8 heat cycle 275 A6s and Marc Younts got them mounted up for me. My front brake pads (Wilwood I think) were given to me by Wally, Josh and I used them on ZO6cool's car when we ran his car at VIR and Khoi then gave them back to me at CMP. Friends make running flat out at a track possible.

Thanks to Sylvia I was able to get Mike and the red ST2/TTS car out on Friday with Turn One. Thanks to Pat ZO6cool and TimZO6 also got on track. It was a good thing for us since we spent a lot of time adjusting shifter gates, bleeding the clutch and sorting the car since it had been parked since July. The fire extinguisher was ops tested on Friday and I can report it works as advertised. It is amazing how easy the extinguisher is to trigger in its rack and how fast you can exit a car in the fog of a fire extinguisher. I chalk it up as safety training.

As hard as it may be to believe I actually stayed, and paid for it, at the Holiday Inn Express in Camden. Unfortunately, I was punching buttons on my Blackberry when Khoi asked me "right turn" as we left the hotel parking lot Saturday morning and in the classic male response of "uh huh - long right" we went the wrong way. When I finally ground through my inbox, all those "flat out" facebook responses take time, I looked up and said "Dude where are we?" This resulted in a late show and compressed time to make the first TT grid. Did I mention ZO6cool has a Nav system in his tow vehicle? I did get the transponder in and checked the oil level but the tires merely passed the kick and light the fire test. Since I had not driven that car at CMP in over 3 years, had not driven CMP in about 6 months and had never driven 275s all around on a C5 I went out and drove sensibly, or not. Cold track, cold tires, and cold (not old, yet) driver make for interesting times. Understeer is not normally combined with oversteer but it does warm the tires up quite nicely.

I did get to really test the 275 A6s out during the course of the day. I learned on 315x17s, grudgingly went to 295x17s and now I am testing the waters with 275x18s. My FRC has the "Popp VBP Suspension" setup and is stiff. The 275s were as fast or faster then any other tire I have driven through the carousel and had great response through T1-T3. T8 was also as fast as wider tires. Braking and corner entry was good with the Hoosier A6s meeting the challenge but acceleration was wheel spin city and required a lot of throttle modulation. Acceleration issues were exacerbated by the stiff springs, and to some extent by the cold temps, but exit speed did suffer compared to 295/315s. In the kink I never really took it flat footed, or even with a little throttle lift, since the car slid left more with these tires. I know I left speed there but it was due to comfort and not wanting to challenge Tim's title of "CMP kink spinner". I really noticed the difference in the 275s at T12 and T14. It required a delicate touch to stay out of under/oversteer and I have no doubt a wider tire will carry more speed in those sections.

The 34 Time Trailers did great with a new track record in TTB (1:46.053) and no incidents of note. I did see a lot of spinning yellow and red cars in my rear view mirrors. Sperkins was driving flat out all weekend and showed us how it is done in a C5 at CMP. Driving flat out did have consequences since now the FRC goes into reverse intermittently and the diff has an ugly clunking sound. While I had a great time driving flat out apparently I am not as good as I could be since Khoi beat me by 0.5 seconds at the end of the day.

Mike took a wounded car on track for the Thunder race and concentrated on driving the car he had. It started out with 6 gears and kept them for a little while. It came out of gear easily always but resisted going into gear once it got warmed up. Having a fistful of neutral is never fun in a race and he managed to anchor 3rd place in class with a car that on some laps only had 3rd or 4th gear. The ST2 championship for Team Werner Law comes down to the Saturday race at Road Atlanta in December. I have a lot of cars to fix before then.

With the season winding down the search for next years car and class has begun. Any productive thoughts for Team Werner Law for next year? And yes Spec Miata :crazy:was discussed.

Sure...less time typing and more time wrenching..:leaving: I have got to get my camera working. We had several extremely tight runs showing off our ballet of drifters that would have made for great video...:(

Lot of SPEC E30 in NASA-SE :ack: :crazy:

Nahhh - fix what you have and drive flat out!

Newer race cars are the objective...

Jeff.. I can give you one piece of advise. Build the car for ST2 and forget about T1. If you want to run a SCCA race you can allways run STO.

This way you can replace parts with the best option not the legal option for T1. For example, put a light cluctch in the car and that is one less thing that you have to worry about at least for a year or two.

Brakes.. I am one one set of rotors for the last three years. they are now done but it's one less thing that I have to worry about at the track. You have seen me at RA 3 times now. How many times have you seen me bleeding brakes, etc?

Sometimes the complex setups take more initial thought but are a lot less trouble in the long run.

If it is the clutch we will be putting in a lightweight one. I will be testing at Roebling tomorrow.

Jeff,

This is all you need in order to drive fast. Couple of bags and you are good to go:


http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...xn/flatout.jpg

I'm bringing that to eat in Dec :lol::rofl:

Nice write up Jeff. I think you'd like the 275's better on a wider wheel, especially if they weren't heat cycled out loaners. Your springs might say otherwise though - I don't even pretend to know how your car drives with the high spring rates. Wouldn't it be nice to have money to burn to spend a whole weekend testing what tire works best for different setups...
If I make Atl, I'll probably qualify with old C91's on wagon wheels. That should be interesting. :lol:

I am basically researching for my TTB C5 build:D.

Had a blast at Roebling yesterday. The clutch in the ST2 car is the problem. Now I need to pick the best lightweight clutch/flywheel and get it in by Road Atlanta.

Spec 2 clutch and lightweight flywheel this past year has worked out well for me Jeff. However, you will probably have to put in the Tick clutch master as I did in order to get it to shift positively. I like it.

I have a Spec 3 (I think) in my FRC - it has not been trouble free for me. I think it is a stack up problem.