Final Preparation & Tweaks

Jason is getting the car all ready for the Runoffs and we are implementing the final adjustments that will hopefully give us quicker lap times.  One area we know we can improve on is the gearing.  We had to guess at our gear ratios last time out as we had not yet run at Laguna with the new engine.  It has a higher redline than the old stock engine which therefor affects the gear selection.  For maximum speed, you want to approach redline in top gear at the end of the longest straight.  Also, you want to get really hooked up as you accelerate onto that straight after rounding the last corner.  If you watch the Laguna video you can see we did neither of these things last time out.  In addition, the redline indicator lights at the top of the steering wheel were off as we had just received it back from being repaired.  Consequently, I was shifting by ear and short shifting a fair amount of the time.  All of these final tweaks will help us find tenths of a second around the track.  Cumulatively, they may add up to a half second or more and give us just the edge we need to win.

Jason about to reassemble the gear box with new gears.

Jason about to reassemble the gear box with new gears.

Laguna Seca Race Results

Start of Race 2

Start of Race 2

We made it through the race weekend with 2 solid second place finishes in class P1 which also translated into second overall in both races.  This was no easy feat given that 50 plus cars (in 7 different classes) were on track in my run group in each outing.  There was lots of great on-track racing and we raced cleanly with no contact or race damage despite passing loads of cars and witnessing plenty of other incidents.  With so many cars on track at the same time, clear laps with no traffic were few and far between.  Also, the track surface, for whatever reason, was quite slippery most of the weekend and lap times across the board were significantly slower than our last outing here.  At the start of Race 1, I got massive front brake lock-up right away and struggled to keep it on track a couple of times while dialing back the front bias.  By the time I got that sorted out, my chance for the overall win was over unless the leader made a big mistake too.  Everyone was head scratching over the difficulty in finding grip.  Finally, in Sunday's last race and after trying some different wing settings, we achieved a personal best lap time of 1:23.584 versus our previous best of 1:23.8 back in June. Just like in our last show down at Laguna, the winner of both races was my friendly nemesis Chris Ferrell in his light weight Stohr.  He is an extremely talented driver, reigning national champ in the old DSR class, and extracts more speed and grip from his 1,000 cc engined Stohr than every one else.  The good news is that we closed the gap to him just a bit when comparing each of our best lap times and we were racing him hard all the way to the end of Race 2.  Still, it will be a tall order to upset him in the championship Runoffs next month.  We seem to be in good position versus about everyone else that raced this weekend in P1 as many of them will also be here next month.

WARNING THIS VIDEO CONTAINS THE UNEDITED UNCENSORED HARD CORE VERSION OF SUNDAY'S RACE--For Serious Race Fans Only

IMG_6608.JPG



2nd Test Day Success

Yesterday, we ran the Norma at another private test day at Thunderhill.  Out of the gate, we tried another big swing at a set-up change just to see what would happen and this time we missed it.  But, we learned something valuable from it and then went back to our last test session set-up and started from there with minor tweaks.  The track conditions were tough with high winds all day long plus, later on, high temperatures too.  By the end of the day, we had improved the balance of the car and, once again, it is really fun to drive and faster than ever!  So now we are ready for our next big outing at Laguna Seca the weekend of Sept. 12-14.  This is the last double regional race weekend before the National Runoffs at Laguna on Oct. 10th.

The entry list for all classes is well over 300 race cars now.  My run group containing 7 different classes has totally filled up and has a waiting list.  56 cars are scheduled to be on track at the same time.  P1 has 10 entries in it alone so this is going to be a preview of the Runoffs.  Having 56 cars on track at the same time can be a recipe for disaster so wish us luck.

Test Day Success

Yesterday we ran the Norma at Thunderhill with the new motor and some other recently completed upgrades.  Without disclosing everything, let's just say we went faster than ever before and knocked over 2 seconds from our previous best lap time.  Before the Runoffs, we are going to do one more test day and then a regional race at Laguna Seca in mid Sept.  Hopefully, the improved performance translates into similar gains on the track at Laguna as well.

Dyno Downer

Coaxing the horsepower and torque numbers we want from the Honda 2 liter K20 motor has become a lot harder than originally envisioned.  While our engine builder was finally able to gain some nice improvement in both amounts over the stock motor, it's not nearly what we hoped for.  We do believe our gains will improve track times and maintain reliability.  So for now, we are going to put this new motor in the car along with our other suspension upgrades and run a private test day at Thunderhill later this month.  The engine builder is going to work on finding a different cam profile to hopefully give us some more oomph.  It's not like they don't know what they're doing...they've built Indy 500 race winning engines.