Lime Rock Park!
My Memorial day started at around 4am. I had hit the sack early knowing I was in for a long day but I was too excited to sleep. I am pretty certain I lay in bed for the full 8 hours and didn't sleep. I remeber the dogs jumping on me, I remember my girlfriend getting in bed, watching the clock hit 12, 1, 2, and then i was up at 4.
Car was packed from the night before and picked up a friend who races in the spec racer cars and we cross George Washington's bridge and make our way north to LRP.
Pretend this is us driving to the track and not in pit lane
TL;DR The Results!
http://www.imgracing.com/Results/Detail/Laps.aspx?DriverID=80&RaceID=42
As you can see I got in a good number of laps, all were fairly low traffic. Any of the longer laps are me pitting in to give myself some space and/or cool the tires.
More Details
So I ran the car on 245mm dunlop SP600
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Dunlop&tireModel=SP+Sport+600&partnum=44WR8600 which I did not pay for and therefore didn't really care too much about. They were by far the weakest part of the car this weekend. Quick to overheat if you didn't baby them and drive super clean, and also quick to overheat after a couple of quick laps.
My Raybestos ST43 front pads on the stock rotors and stock calipers with some ducting were solid. In fact it was too much brake for the tires. I had to be really smooth on the brakes to prevent lockup. In the rear I ran some hp plus Hawks just so I would be in the same temp range as the Raybestos.
Here's the video of the fastest lap of the day, please ignore the awful awful quality. I set my phone to use low quality to record this and it was just too darn low:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubjK3jSLf94
There is a pretty cool action bit at the very end of the video that might surprise you
Car Setup
First session out I was just getting my bearings, setting tire temps and suspension details.
I had the tires at 28psi front and 29psi rear when "cold" which really means "not hot" since they weren't cold at all.
The Koni's I set two turns towards soft starting from full stiff on all four corners.
I started my day with only a bit of 25% fuel load and filled up after the first session using LRP's $6.50 for 93 oct pricing!!! 10 gallons and -$65 later I ran the last 3 sessions on that tank load. Using approx 25% of the tank each session. I forgot to reset the trip computer but I like to check my MPG at least once for all the cars I take on track. Oh well, next time.
Making Friends
There was a really cool looking '12 Boss in white with black stripes at the event so I went over and said my hellos. He was new to the world of road courses but had a buddy there to guide him. We got to talking and I noticed his engine bay included a front strut tower which my engine bay lacks. He was kind enough to allow me to borrow it for one of my sessions. I am not sure if it made a big difference but I did set my fast time with that bar on there... I'm going to chalk it up to the track surface getting stickier though. However I wouldn't say that the front bar is useless when you put big sticky tires on there.
Almost Murdering a Lotus
Last session of the day there was an Exige who had been trying to break into the 59's all day long. We were on the back straight and I didn't want to slow him down. I kept right and gave him a big early point by, however I let the car wander into the grass on the right hand side. Immediately the car shot me left, into the passing Lotus. Heart in throat I jam on the brakes, the overpowered ones which you have to be careful with and immediately lock up. Thankfully the Lotus has passed cleanly by but now I'm locked up and headed for the left side armco!!! I quickly let off the brakes and straighten up the car. Other drivers later commented on how nice and thick and diagonal (that is a weird work to type, di-a-gon-al) the marks I left were.
Casualties: two front tires, flat spotted enough that the ride home was bumpy. Rears were fine though.
The Skidpad!
Taking a break in the middle of the day they turned the skid pad's sprinklers on for us.
They didn't make it easy that's for sure. Partly wet and partly dry the best I could get was less than 3/4 of the way around while "drifting" ... I kept gaining and losing traction and it was very hard to hold a full lap.
