Events 9 and 10

M

Mike's Competition

It looks like Mike signed up, so I will have someone to run against.

No new goodies this time. I caught my steering rack leaking into the boots, discovered this was a problem for license renewal and inspection (which is due) and pulled the steering rack again to be rebuilt (2+ weeks wait for the shop to finish).
I discovered the unused tires that have been holding up another car, have in fact flat spotted and dry rotted beyond use, after putting them on the car for the inspection. Highway speed felt like 80+ MPH on a gravel road.
I hooked up the scan tool and read my throttle position, and found it was only opening to 44% with the pedal all the way down. The gas pedal gets disassembled every time the steering rack comes out, I have had the rack out three times and had not readjusted it after the beginning of the season. Not sure how out of adjustment it was for the last couple events, but my "stand on the gas and stab at the brake pedal" technique, may become more complicatedly involved, because the gas pedal is back to the terrifying eye-bulge feeling every time I mash it to the floor now.
 
Bill:

Jeff Osborne is co-driving tomorrow and Gary will be there Sunday. Jeff may give you some competition....we will see.
 
Good chase today.
The car would let me push a lot harder after softening the rear dampers, raising the rear tire pressure, and changing the front toe back at lunch.
Looks like my fifth run got me within .959 seconds of Mike. My sixth is not on the unofficial list, but I think I went on the wrong side of a pointer cone on that one.
The index works out to 81XX! A big step backwards.

I think I found the source of the bad toe measurement. The left front wheel bearing was making a rubbing noise yesterday, then it went away. After the event, I raised the car, shook the wheel, and there is some play.
I have no spares, the damage is probably already done, I'm driving on it, and searching for parts between Event 10 and 11.
 
Well I borrowed a throttle spring from Tim and I was able to get the front end back together this morning. Car handles more like a slot car now. Unfortunately I had a radiator hose come apart at a splice on the way home. I got it to the side of the road and called Shelley. I was only about 5 minutes from the house. I got the hose back on and refilled the tank, but it came apart again before I got home and the engine temp really spiked. I got it back down to 210-220, but I need to work on it tonight. Don't know if I'll be there in the morning now. If I'm not there, good luck to the club members.
 
TBULL said:
Well I borrowed a throttle spring from Tim and I was able to get the front end back together this morning. Car handles more like a slot car now. Unfortunately I had a radiator hose come apart at a splice on the way home. I got it to the side of the road and called Shelley. I was only about 5 minutes from the house. I got the hose back on and refilled the tank, but it came apart again before I got home and the engine temp really spiked. I got it back down to 210-220, but I need to work on it tonight. Don't know if I'll be there in the morning now. If I'm not there, good luck to the club members.
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Sorry to hear about you car problems. I hope you can get it fixed.

Today we had fantastic weather for racing. I could not find enough traction in the rear to be able to really push the car. I still had fun and sneaked by with a win by less than a second. I need to step it up tomorrow.

My co-driver really struggled with my Daytona and spun almost every run. Oh well. He had fun and is going to run his TA tomorrow.

Here is a video of the XP winning run:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF8AWFjjQJs&feature=c4-overview&list=UUd16s9zwPBUCB8EpK7OAzJA
 
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mmarshall said:
Today we had fantastic weather for racing. I could not find enough traction in the rear to be able to really push the car.
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Great weather to watch a race. Great weather to sit in a car and drive it around. Not great weather for the tire to stick to the ground.
Gotta figure out how to get the pavement temperature 120 degrees, and the air temperature 68 degrees...

Off to set up cones. They say we will have the flour spreader today...
 
You need heat for the tires to stick, with 30 second runs, you can't do that. Might be worth an investment for ya'll to get some tire warmers. Tire Rack has them, but you would also need a power source. That way, you could hit the course with hot tires from the start.
 
The weather didnt seem to slow things too much. Rick was kicking butt and taking names.

And Buttercup is off to the races..............

picture.php
 
itzdapig said:
If it weren't for one cone Rick would have taken all the boys down!
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Almost...man that was close!

My 2nd + 3rd runs were a 43.055 and 43.122 in my car. My fuel pump fried and I swapped to running Rick's roadster for my last 3 runs. My 6th run was a 43.236 in Rick's car. Had my car not broke I feel like I could have gotten into the 42's, but as fate would have it my 2nd run would have to stand for the day.

Bill took 2nd with a 43.429 but ran a 43.266 with one cone penalty.

Rick was amazingly fast today! He ran a 43.171 but just barely clipped a cone in the 1st slalom which made it a 45.171. He took 3rd with a 44.394. Had he been 2" to the left in that slalom he would have taken 2nd. Very nice driving Rick! I am amazed how quickly he has moved up to give Bill and I some competition.

Thank you Rick for letting me jump into your car to finish the day out. It took me some time to get used to it but I very quickly found I could drive fairly fast in it and stay very controlled. With six runs I think I could have gotten Rick's car into the 42's also. Without the understeer his car will be really fast...just need 2 more tires.

Here is a video of my 43.055:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_3fmJUQViY&feature=c4-overview&list=UUd16s9zwPBUCB8EpK7OAzJA

And a video of my 43.236 in Rick's car with Rich along for a ride:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycmUgXFpMdc&feature=c4-overview&list=UUd16s9zwPBUCB8EpK7OAzJA
 
Looks like they changed the course to stay out of the loose stuff or do they change it each time anyway? Call me impressed Rick :D
 
We are supposed to run a different course each event. The idea being that the drivers are all allowed to walk the course before driving, but no one has driven the course previously. The pavement condition leaves narrow pathways that can be used, and the best use of the limited pathway leaves a very small number of variations on the same layout. With two events on a weekend, they also try changing a few things to make the course different, but without the work load of a completely different layout. All of those things lead to people complaining that we always run "the same" course.

Not sure if the official results were finally sorted out due to the Cobra car swap chaos.

Glad to see I managed to move closer to Mike. No way to tell if that was due to the mechanical or not. Like I said earlier, my car seems to be the biggest fan of Mike's Daytona. Whenever he has a mechanical, my car never takes advantage, and usually reduces performance in the exact proportion to Mike's car. Not sure if the bad left front wheel bearing was a problem or the root of the sudden oversteer/spin issue. And I am not sure if the oversteer/spin issue might be related to either pavement temperature or changing driving style with more left foot braking. If its the second, my setup has been for momentum induced slight drift (right foot braking), and has to go back a big step to normally understeer with left foot brake induced slight oversteer.

Not feeling very confident with everyone behind me moving up closer. Chasing one insane car is bad enough, chasing three is going to cause ulcers.

The pavement temperature was 7 degrees warmer on Sunday afternoon, than it was on Saturday afternoon. All our times would have been much quicker if we had run in the afternoon.

Based on extremely rough math, it looks like I have to beat Mike by .9XX seconds at event 11 to get the points championship. I hosed the first two events (also on cold pavement) with incorrect rear tire pressures.
 
Bill I calculate closer to 1.6 seconds, but then I don't really understand the points all that well. Anyway it was fun to run closer to the competition and have some pressure to perform.

I need to try to get my car ready earlier in the season so we have to compete the whole season. Waiting until the last half of the season makes it tough. I don't think any of my winter mods this year will make me show up so late. Also next year we may both be trying hard to out run Rick. He and his car are very capable. After driving his I am starting to think maybe the shorter wheelbase makes for a better autocrosser. The original Daytonas were the same wheelbase as the AC roadster, but FFR lengthened their version.
 
You guys don't have to worry about me, I'm just a part time conebasher. Just doing it for fun, do want to get my front end to turn better and work on brakes but pretty happy with where I'm at.

Rick

P.S. It is fun to put pressure on you guys.:)
 
What we need is a 16 or 18 event season. It doesn't start getting close until event 10 or 11, and then there are not enough events to take back the momentum of a come-from-behind run to the championship like Mike keeps doing.

And someone to come in and kick all out butts is another thing that will throw a wrench into everything. If Rick starts playing the part of Ned with the V8 RX-7, walking away with all the points and leaving us with nothing usable toward a decent total...

...on second thought, Rick needs to run 2 or 3 seconds faster than Mike at event 11, and it won't matter how I finish, as long as I get one run without a DNF. Or Gary, and we're overdue for Gary to kick all our butts like he has done before.
 
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