Very light attendance today, something like 21 people signed up, two groups of ten.
The pavement was wet with puddles in the morning, some mist. The re-tarred (resealed) pavement was slippery as ice. It dried some through the day. I don't think we had sunlight for more than a few minutes and if it got above 75 degrees I would be surprised.
The course was a left turn start by the staging lane fence, through a couple offsets and a right turn by the drag tower corner. Four offsets and a box along the concession side fence, then a right turn back and a long left sweep back to the North East corner. And a five cone slalom down the highway side fence past the gas pumps with a very short slow down lane after the finish lights.
The course went over a dip and a hole where the old driveway/roadway runs diagonal from the entry gate out into the middle of the pit area parking lot, and they were not going to hear any suggestions to move the course away from the hole. So I turned my front damper compression completely off and the rears down to a half turn like I have them for driving on the street.
The brakes started out as installed, larger rotors on the front and rear calipers turned all the way down. When I hit the brakes while cornering, the front would dive and the car plow straight ignoring the fact that the wheels were turned to the side. I'm taking that to be a good indication that the fronts will now lock up. At the extremely short end chute after the finish, I was stomping the brake pedal and smoke appeared to be coming from the fronts as the car slid.
I backed the rear brake bias valves out one turn and then a second turn. The car was allowing me to steer with the brake pedal and balance the turning with the gas and brake.
I knocked the time down from 42 seconds skating to 38 seconds and shoving the car hard. I was able to do some of that "point the front wheels and hold the gas pedal down" stuff they always talk about with front drive.
I noticed the right rear had really light flat spotting in the morning, and then again in the afternoon after I rotated tires. Someone finally mentioned that the right rear (right side pointing toward almost everyone on the lot) was locking up at the finish. I turned the bias valves back up to one-turn-back-of-full-off, for the drive home. The tandem bias valves may become useful for more than just keeping the stock four channel system.
Should be worth the seat time from about four events, and if the adjustments hold up to Family Arena and the next couple events, it should be time and money well spent.
