THSCC at VIR North
This weekend was all about driving – no racing, no instructing, just a chance to focus on the nut behind the wheel. My tires weren’t up to the task (three of six were corded at the edge, and the other three were close) so I asked the guys at Long Road Racing if they could help me out. Fortunately they had a set of BRG R1s sitting in the scrap pile about to go to the dump and Glenn graciously offered them to me. Two were flat spotted but the other two seemed ok, Glenn insisted they were toast but beggars can’t be choosers. I also purchased two used but decent 888s (even though I hate them) to round out the set, I figured I’d put the tires BFGs up front and the good 888s out back since understeer was safer than oversteer.
Saturday morning I went out with my instructor (I was in the solo group but wanted someone to ride shotgun in an effort to improve my weaknesses) and the car felt terrible – just bouncing all over the place, the front and back ends felt like two different cars, only managed a 1:55. Turns out I didn’t bleed enough air out and they were over 45 psi hot. Drained 5-6 psi out and went out for session #2, car felt MUCH better and I ran a 1:51.1. Amazingly it didn’t understeer at all, in fact it oversteered more than ever but felt wonderful, just a delight to drive. Guess those free tires were better than anticipated! Third session I went out solo (my instructor said he couldn’t teach me anything which was a little disappointing) and promptly flat spotted the RF tire braking for turn 1, ending my session:
e30 braking fail from jason tower on Vimeo.
The removal of 200lb on the right side of the car may have contributed to the lockup, along with new PFC06 pads that don’t modulate as well as the PFC01s I had been using, and the lack of ABS certainly didn’t help either. Most disappointing was that I’d have to switch to my crappy backup 888s which meant losing the wonderful balance I’d achieved with the BFGs up front. Oh well, such is life – I put the 888s up front, added two extra pounds of air in the back to loosen it up a bit and went out for my very first time trial. Here’s how that went:
e30 braking fail redux from jason tower on Vimeo.
Un-smegging-believable, I did it again. So that session was also completely shot. Time to regroup and hope for a better day tomorrow.
Sunday morning found me with a mixed bag of tires: two decent 888s on the back, a tired 888 on the LF corner, and a near death R1 on the RF corner. Not a recipe for success but that’s all I had to work with. First session I went out and the car felt better than expected so I pushed it a bit and got a 1:50.0 lap, nearly two seconds better than Saturday’s best. Second session wasn’t quite as fast but more fun, traffic was heavy but fun, got some good video:
spec e30 vir north – fun laps from jason tower on Vimeo.
Third session I enlisted a fast and capable Jason Franklin to help me find some time, he made a few suggestions and together we turned a 1:49.8. I was quite happy to break into the 40s as the end of the video shows:
spec e30 vir north – coaching from jason tower on Vimeo.
Last run of the weekend was the Sunday time trial, I was still a little hesitant on braking after Saturday’s misadventures but everything else fell into place and I ended up with a best lap of 1:48.7 which made me very happy:
spec e30 vir north – time trial from jason tower on Vimeo.
That’s still a couple of seconds off the fastest Spec E30 guys but given my tire condition I was pleased with the time. Furthermore, my traqmate data showed a theoretical best lap of 1:47.9 which means that with fresh tires and a little more consistency I should be able to hang with most of the front runners.
All in all a great weekend – terrific weather, friendly people (including Michael Czeiszperger of sponsor Web Performance who did his first HPDE in a Mini Cooper S), and a solid car. Coming up this weekend – the first group to run at the brand new NCCAR track in Roanake Rapids!
2010 Season, Video | jtower | 
April 6, 2010 00:02
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