Mike and Gary were signed up but did not attend.
I arrived with another new inner tube to repair the flat tire on the course lining machine. But was informed that the tire had already been repaired. The number of people who DNFed at Event #6 due to the unlined course, motivated the powers-that-be to put repairing the lining machine to the top of the priority list. They actually paid someone to dismount the wheel, install the tube, and remount the tire. Some industrial supply place has a miniature wheel mounting machine specially for working on the little torture devices.
The course design was done by someone who was unaware of the locations of all the holes and bad pavement, and the choice to use the course was not optional. This resulted in much irritation to all. Changes to fit the usable pavement angered the designer, which angered the crew, which angered the designer, and repeat.
We ended up with something very similar to the previous course, but with a crossover roundabout at the start, a wide box followed by a swerveum, a high speed end, and a wide finish with a kink to make sure you don't drive off into the sunset.
A swervum (not the official term, they made up the thing and I came up with the satirical description) is like a wallum, but with the line of cones longer than the gap to cross back and forth to the right and left. Ended up looking like a wall with gaps that you were supposed to swerve back and forth through. In practice, it was just a bunch of wide arcing rights and lefts.
Cloudy, humid, no rain.
It got warm enough for the grit to stick to the tires during third heat. Or maybe it was all the piles of gravel we had to drive through to get to grid.
The car seemed better than my driving. If I had about a dozen more runs, I could have gotten the time down a bunch more. I was not up to par on my fifth and final run.
The brakes seemed a lot better. I had the tail kick out a couple times and had to turn the rear shocks down some. The end was fast enough I was bouncing off the rev limiter or shifting up into third. Then stomp the brakes to slow down. It seemed like there was tire smoke coming from the front for a change, but I could not get anyone to tell me they watched and saw the front tires locked up.
Full on left-foot-braking seemed still to kick the tail out too much. A couple runs I mixed between right and left foot, and that worked best. I had one good run going and mindlessly shifted up into third as I accelerated through the first part of the course, and things went bad pretty quick.
It seemed like the brakes need a little more time to break in and bed a little better.
I think it's worth waiting and running the test-and-tune day to decide if I need front calipers with larger pistons.
I talked to the EP Honda Civic driver about his brakes. He is using a variation on the same front caliper with the 1.62 inch pistons. Two steps larger than mine. And his are specifically designed to bolt on with the 10.3 inch stock rotor. He said he had to redo the master cylinder and install a pressure reducing biasing valve on the _front_ brakes, because they were locking up quick and the rears were doing nothing. Opposite of my situation. So maybe 1.62 is too large.
Oddly, they use the 1.38 inch piston size with the 12 inch big brake kit...
I arrived with another new inner tube to repair the flat tire on the course lining machine. But was informed that the tire had already been repaired. The number of people who DNFed at Event #6 due to the unlined course, motivated the powers-that-be to put repairing the lining machine to the top of the priority list. They actually paid someone to dismount the wheel, install the tube, and remount the tire. Some industrial supply place has a miniature wheel mounting machine specially for working on the little torture devices.
The course design was done by someone who was unaware of the locations of all the holes and bad pavement, and the choice to use the course was not optional. This resulted in much irritation to all. Changes to fit the usable pavement angered the designer, which angered the crew, which angered the designer, and repeat.
We ended up with something very similar to the previous course, but with a crossover roundabout at the start, a wide box followed by a swerveum, a high speed end, and a wide finish with a kink to make sure you don't drive off into the sunset.
A swervum (not the official term, they made up the thing and I came up with the satirical description) is like a wallum, but with the line of cones longer than the gap to cross back and forth to the right and left. Ended up looking like a wall with gaps that you were supposed to swerve back and forth through. In practice, it was just a bunch of wide arcing rights and lefts.
Cloudy, humid, no rain.
It got warm enough for the grit to stick to the tires during third heat. Or maybe it was all the piles of gravel we had to drive through to get to grid.
The car seemed better than my driving. If I had about a dozen more runs, I could have gotten the time down a bunch more. I was not up to par on my fifth and final run.
The brakes seemed a lot better. I had the tail kick out a couple times and had to turn the rear shocks down some. The end was fast enough I was bouncing off the rev limiter or shifting up into third. Then stomp the brakes to slow down. It seemed like there was tire smoke coming from the front for a change, but I could not get anyone to tell me they watched and saw the front tires locked up.
Full on left-foot-braking seemed still to kick the tail out too much. A couple runs I mixed between right and left foot, and that worked best. I had one good run going and mindlessly shifted up into third as I accelerated through the first part of the course, and things went bad pretty quick.
It seemed like the brakes need a little more time to break in and bed a little better.
I think it's worth waiting and running the test-and-tune day to decide if I need front calipers with larger pistons.
I talked to the EP Honda Civic driver about his brakes. He is using a variation on the same front caliper with the 1.62 inch pistons. Two steps larger than mine. And his are specifically designed to bolt on with the 10.3 inch stock rotor. He said he had to redo the master cylinder and install a pressure reducing biasing valve on the _front_ brakes, because they were locking up quick and the rears were doing nothing. Opposite of my situation. So maybe 1.62 is too large.
Oddly, they use the 1.38 inch piston size with the 12 inch big brake kit...