Mike telephoned the other night to ask what went wrong at Event 10. It wasn't my best event.
It was supposed to stop raining. Well, it wasn't raining when I left at 5:30, but started a few minutes after I got in the car. There was standing water on the Family Arena lot when I got there, and heavy drizzle coming down. Off and on through the morning, it looked like it might clear up. First heat was wet. Second heat less. Third heat damp but no standing water.
I did not change tires when I got there and wanted a good excuse not to expend the time or energy. No one ran on R Compounds through first and second heats. The CP cars sat on their trailers and those drivers borrowed Subarus. Jeff Osborn was the only person changing tires. He said the radar showed the rain was over. I thought a little. My options were my 8 year old bald street tires, hard as a rock, or my 2 year old V710s, not nearly as hard. I went with the race tires.
The course was pretty typical. A fancy four box slalom into a bunch of left and right widening sweepers up the East side of the lot. Then a 280 degree left hand turn around sweeper at the far end. Some wide offsets and then a short slalom into the finish on the West side of the lot.
The pavement was slippery. It was pretty much like a one million square foot skid pad. It would have been a really good learning experience if we each had 25+ runs to learn balance and control. But for racing, it was kind of like the Asteroids arcade game: turn the knob to change the direction the vehicle is pointed in, then hold down the thruster button and wait for it to build up velocity in the direction the nose is pointing.
My car felt OK up to about 3/4 speed, but it would four-wheel-walk once I got it pushed up to the speed I had to run to turn a competitive time.
I was not having a good time with that 280 degree left hander. I was diving too deep and hard into the beginning, then cutting back too sharp to keep from sliding off into the far corner of the parking lot. I would get it turned in only to find I was heading sharply into the second apex cone, about 1/3 of the way through the turn. Followed by slowing down, turning back out, and accelerating to get back up to speed. I finally got it worked out on my fourth run, only to come out of the long sweeper too hot, and spun going into the offsets. I got it right on my fifth run and then the tail jumped right and then left going into the same offsets and scrubbed off several seconds to recover.
Jeff Osborn did remarkably well. Joe Floretta did pretty good too, he was complaining that his street tires were narrower than his race tires.
I am going to have to revisit the extreme summer tire / Street Touring class tire issue. The really sticky treaded tires were the quickest for this event.
Maybe less camber for wet surfaces also. There was no rollover on the tire shoulder.
It was supposed to stop raining. Well, it wasn't raining when I left at 5:30, but started a few minutes after I got in the car. There was standing water on the Family Arena lot when I got there, and heavy drizzle coming down. Off and on through the morning, it looked like it might clear up. First heat was wet. Second heat less. Third heat damp but no standing water.
I did not change tires when I got there and wanted a good excuse not to expend the time or energy. No one ran on R Compounds through first and second heats. The CP cars sat on their trailers and those drivers borrowed Subarus. Jeff Osborn was the only person changing tires. He said the radar showed the rain was over. I thought a little. My options were my 8 year old bald street tires, hard as a rock, or my 2 year old V710s, not nearly as hard. I went with the race tires.
The course was pretty typical. A fancy four box slalom into a bunch of left and right widening sweepers up the East side of the lot. Then a 280 degree left hand turn around sweeper at the far end. Some wide offsets and then a short slalom into the finish on the West side of the lot.
The pavement was slippery. It was pretty much like a one million square foot skid pad. It would have been a really good learning experience if we each had 25+ runs to learn balance and control. But for racing, it was kind of like the Asteroids arcade game: turn the knob to change the direction the vehicle is pointed in, then hold down the thruster button and wait for it to build up velocity in the direction the nose is pointing.
My car felt OK up to about 3/4 speed, but it would four-wheel-walk once I got it pushed up to the speed I had to run to turn a competitive time.
I was not having a good time with that 280 degree left hander. I was diving too deep and hard into the beginning, then cutting back too sharp to keep from sliding off into the far corner of the parking lot. I would get it turned in only to find I was heading sharply into the second apex cone, about 1/3 of the way through the turn. Followed by slowing down, turning back out, and accelerating to get back up to speed. I finally got it worked out on my fourth run, only to come out of the long sweeper too hot, and spun going into the offsets. I got it right on my fifth run and then the tail jumped right and then left going into the same offsets and scrubbed off several seconds to recover.
Jeff Osborn did remarkably well. Joe Floretta did pretty good too, he was complaining that his street tires were narrower than his race tires.
I am going to have to revisit the extreme summer tire / Street Touring class tire issue. The really sticky treaded tires were the quickest for this event.
Maybe less camber for wet surfaces also. There was no rollover on the tire shoulder.