:. Racing .:. 2005/07/23 - Time Trials #3
Results: HERE
Always use Fresh Rubber
What's this? A day where Jake hasn't drastically modified his car since last time, in an effort to find speed?
Yes ladies and gents, the impossible has happened - I actually raced the same car twice in a row.
Well...sorta.
Radical Rental
After the previous trials, I rented the Radical to Steve Ott, who needed to get some National finishes in order to qualify for runoffs this year. We did a two day national, and he got both of his finishes. One thing that certainly opened up my eyes - MAN can that guy drive! Just watching his lines coming out of Kamikazee - boy does he push much harder than I do. Practice and skill, I'm sure. Quite a mark to shoot for! Anyway, in his first four laps, he set a 1:08.4 - 1.3 seconds better than my best, and later during the race, set a 1:07.8 - a full 1.9 seconds faster than I was able to go. Durnit! Now that's embarassing!
My Race
So, It was my turn again to see how I could do in the car. As it turns out...not real well! The car had tremendous understeer the entire day, and generally felt lacking in grip. Further, since we were limited to only 20 minute sessions, it was hard for me to get a rhythm going to try and start pushing Kamikazee (where I feel I'm losing the most time) a bit more. Compounding these short sessions were oil temp warnings (260+), meaning that the dual radiator setup is not going to cut it during truly hot races.
So, what did I do? Not much - just a bunch of high 1:10 times, with a few 1:10.5x's thrown in for good measure. I think the tires were just *DEAD*, and that's as good as I could do with them. [ As an aside, Steve did a 1:09.5 CCW on them, albeit with the improved 400/550 setup, so assuming CW is a bit faster, he's still 1.5 to 2.0 seconds quicker...]
Misc Notes
As the car was truly horrible, there's not a lot to observe about setup. One observation is that I was running a HUGE amount of rake - nearly 1" - in an effort to get the car to turn. With heights of 2.5" and 3.25", I noticed that for the first time, putting power down out of corners was a real problem. This could be attributable to shagged tires, or the rake, but an interesting thing to have felt nonetheless.
Regarding ride heights, I was able to get the car to around 2 3/8" front ride height, and that just avoided scraping under the worst bumps. that's still fairly high height, so stiffer springs are going to be installed so I can get ride heights back down on this sucker.
Lastly, I turned the bump up to 3 on both ends of the car, and that seemed to feel pretty good, so I'll leave it there for the time being. We'll see how it does...I still don't quite understand shock tuning...
So, not a lot to report, just fun driving, and absolutely not a single hiccup from the Radical. Based on the tire wear, I need to take some camber out of the alignment, but that's about it! On to the next race, and some fresh rubber!
NEW CHANGES:
Media:
|