bean wrote:
Congrats Craig! What was your feedback on the car after this year's event? (I like reading about your analysis of the car's behaviour on course.)
Rabin
There's a reason I have to buy Matt presents...Every time I race, I want to change something and I end up chewing his ear off over email debating the merits of various changes. If I posted all that here, I'd have to ban myself
. I've had a number of physical challenges over the past month and was just glad that I was able to make the grid for practice on Saturday. I've had a neck issue, my back has acted up and I'm currently dealing with dueling Achilles tendon issues that are leaving me quite literally on the limp. So doing little things like changing my tires and vital fluids (oil and trans) was about all I could do on FRIDAY evening...out on the wet gravel.
I swapped my tires front to back from last season - the BFG's are almost done but the CDN dollar is also worthless so I have to run these for a few more events. They are a 340 TW, so really the wrong compound. Last year when I first put them on they were night and day better than what I was running and I had more tire than driver, we've now switched that up and it's really easy for me to overdrive the tire.
No other changes to the car were made over last year. The rear end is waiting on Kaplhenke to get off his backside and actually machine the parts (which I paid for in Feb) - so no rush there I guess. Engine has been flawless and a fluid change is what's needed every time the trans starts to feel like I'm shifting a box of wrenches. It just keeps getting better as the parts wear in.
Day 1 - Practice Event - test and tune. Set the pressures to 50 PSI and left for the track. Consulted my notes from last year (if you don't have a race diary, you're not serious) and dialed the pressures in - 49 front, 47 rear is enough again. ± 2 psi makes a big difference and I found that when it is cold there is no need to reset pressures between runs. So set and forget when below 20° C. Re-read my notes concerning driving. Ran pretty good, didn't even care to look at my relative ranking. It's practice. I need to work on wringing it out in first gear (the reason for the rear swap) as I launch at 3.5K RPM and just break the rear tires loose a little out of the start box...then you're on the cones and running out of RPM. Grab 2nd too soon and you kill speed (it will bog), get it right and it's worth about 2 tenths. Usually, the shift point is in a slalom. That sucks. I did manage to shift into 3rd at the finish and klicked over the line at about 140 KPH.
I'm trying to race with a nearly empty fuel tank as well this year until I get the fill neck issue sorted...I slosh significant amounts of fuel out of the car as the bottom lip of the fill neck is just worn out from years of use. I have the part - don't have the time to fix it. That was better (like almost on R) - less fuel lost and fewer complaints about how much my car stinks in the grid. Boys - race cars stink like gas!
Main event - The Nissan GTR has been replaced with an uber sweet 2012 911 Turbo (first white car I haven't hated), so he's out of Street Mod...leaving behind the BMW's noted above. They're both rookies and one of them is tragically on bags. Yup, a stanced BMW...racing. Well, props for trying kid. He's getting lost every run (think fast...not an attribute of a BMW driver that bags his car). So I take him on a ride so he'll get a look at the track. If I was a douche, I wouldn't have taken him as DNF is a DNF. He was surprised how fast the 242 is - "Better tighten down that seat belt..." my last comment before thrashing it around the track.
Anyway, they weren't really very close and were hitting cones like that was the objective. It's a rookie mistake - the cones are the LIMIT of the track...they aren't the track. I tell him to think about where he wants to put his car and why. Probably lost on the poor kid. If you drive a 240, you have to focus on being very precise and every detail counts because I can't unleash the fury of Odin and squirt between elements. That's all she's got Capt'n...
Track was very technical with tricks at each stage. I loved it - lots didn't as it wasn't as fast as practice. No 3rd gear heroics.
So what needs to happen - tires for sure. The rear should help build boost in 1st and speed in second. I still feel I need caster to gain front end grip in turns. We have three consistent elements - two turn arounds and one sweeper. The front end will just wash out or understeer (which are sort of the same thing, but I think of them as different as different as in the understeer condition while you may be pushing (and sometimes you generate it) i.e. generating too much front tire slip angle, so you've exceeded the grip of the tire, the tire is still with you and if you modulate the throttle or tap the brake (weight transfer) you can get it back under control. When it washes out - you're probably going to spin.
Just found my caster - I somehow got my ball joints on backwards.
One year...many hours thinking and this afternoon, before I broke out the parts cannon and sawsall, I just checked and FRACK, I did do that - in my own defense (this is not a defensable mistake) I think I had that front suspension apart three times last year alone and it was always a rush to get to a race. I've got a month to correct it - so no problem.
So I spend a lot of time trying to dance with the limit of grip on the front. When I do my course walk, that's part of what I'm thinking about - how to load the tire progressively in these two elements to best effect for maximum grip. It does seem like many competitors are looking for the fast line, I'm looking for the efficient line.
