:. Racing .:. 2003/12/29 - Road Racing
Results:: New Times: 1:19
Writeup/Notes:
Ah, the great fun at the end of the year, the free Second Creek track days.
This day started out somewhat poorly - I got halfway to I-25 before remembering I needed to swap in the PFC pads and the brake ducts. Oops. After doing that, I finally arrived at the track at my later-than-usual 1:00 or so, but fortunately, hardly anybody was there, making the whole day relatively traffic free.
I started pretty slowly, still pretty wary from the autocrossing incidents from earlier in the year. I took Jason Miller out for a few laps - stint#1 below - to get a feel for the car with the new shocks and other parts, running mostly 1:22's and 1:23's in the process.
I went out 2 other stints, and had no problems with the car - oil around 250*, coolant never more than 220*. Tires didn't go 'off' due to heat like in the summer, and in general, it was a lot of fun. The car felt absolutely awesome with the new shocks - great control, no body roll, just a very, very solid feel. Purely guessing, I ran the compression at 4 front, 2 rear, to get a bit more authori-tay on roll-control at higher speeds. I'll do some reading to figure out if that was a good thing or not later.
The true highlight of the day, and I wish I had gotten it on tape, was going back-to-back-to-back many laps with Paul Rask in his '95 Eclipse on Hoosiers. Our two cars turned out to be so evenly matched, we did no less than 5 1:19 laps sequentially, each one trying to gain on the other. Previous to that, the stopwatch recorded several more 1:19's broken by goofed up stopwatch clicks. Absolutely amazing! So, I'd say the vette as it stands, with me driving, is definitely a solid 1:19 car on street tires, without any horsepower upgrades.
Paul definitely had the horsepower advantage on me, and I definitely had better braking capability, and the cars seemed pretty even in the twisties. What fun racing competitively like that can be! I don't feel I'd be very good, unfortuantely...heh.
No major events or breakages this time (unlike last time with the rubbed-through water-line - oops.), just a lot of fun. The only troublesome note is the reappearance of the ABS computer failing in mid-run - perhaps a heat-related issue? It usually goes away with a cycling of the ignition, but still, it is not something I want to keep worrying about. I will have the dealer examine it soon.
Looks like I didn't get my last SC time in September written up, but these 1:19's are a new best, I believe, going in the clockwise direction. With luck I'll have a chance to challenge my Eclipse's 1:16 number next year after a few modifications, maybe even some race tires. We'll see!
NEW MODS: (since last SC Racing)
- Penske Double Adjustables
- T1 Control arms
Media:
- Movies: (warning, they are 16-70MB in size, ~3-6mins
- Stint 1, set 1 - 61MB first set of laps out, taking it easy
- Stint 2, set 1 - 12MB chasing an STi briefly
- Stint 3, set 1 - 28MB third time out, ABS computer fails, oddly.
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