What a week!

[SoundGuyDave]

What a GREAT week!

Eighteen months ago, I had an “incident” at Mid-Ohio, resulting in my S197 meeting some double-high Aarmco at roughly 100mph, and the damage was extensive. The entire right side of the car was mangled; right-front suspension was destroyed, the Panhard bar had shattered both rod ends, the main body harness had been chopped in half, the computer shorted and failed, the frame was bent, both right-side wheels were bent, the driver’s seat and seat mount were bent, and in general the car was a mess. Slowly (too slowly!) I was able to start putting things right, with a little help from my friends. Philostang was kind enough to do the body work and exterior and interior paint work, OG Racing came through in a BIG way getting me a new seat and mount, another buddy lent me his garage space to do the final assembly, and my checkbook and hands did the rest.

The final result turned out beautifully! After the final build, it was over to my sponsor, Elmhurst Auto Care, who has been a pillar of encouragement and support though the whole process, and who helped me do the final track alignment, corner-weighting, bump-steer tuning and pre-event prep. We mounted up some scrub Hoosier R6 tires that I had laying around (20 heat cycles? 30? 6? Dunno, but they were on the car all winter in the garage…), and I loaded up the car, “ready” for the next event.

October first, I took the fresh, untested car to the Hooked On Driving event at Autobahn Country Club, where I was acting as the C Group (Advanced) leader, where I had a great bunch of experienced track-rats and 40 instructors to “police” and “advise”. The weather was BEAUTIFUL with temps in the low 70’s and sunny skies, and I had a GREAT bunch of people in the advanced group, including a LOT of Corvettes that came down from the event co-sponsor, National Corvette Museum. Lots of big Chevy iron there, and I strapped in, hit the starter switch, took a deep breath, and headed to grid for the maiden voyage of the “new” car. The engine was pulling strong coming off pit lane, I hugged the left edge of the track all the way to apex of T1 (full course blend line), turned in, and…. WOW! I had to unwind and turn back in again. THIS THING TURNS!! The normal Mustang push that I had been experiencing prior to the rebuild was gone, and the steering input was immediate, positive, and with excellent feedback. I ran the balance of the first session at 60-70% gradually increasing pace as I reacquainted myself with the car, and on the fourth or fifth lap, I realized that I had gotten back into my old habit of rotating the car on entry and getting on-throttle before apex. I was back in the groove, and the car felt like it was part of me, rather than something that I was actively driving. If I wanted to go there, it/we went there. It was awesome. Once I knew that the car was solid, and that I was in the zone, I started taking some passengers out on Charity Rides, in both the intermediate and advanced groups. On the second session out, I found the first “bug” in the new build. The ABS had packed up, run into a corner, and sat there pouting. Of course I found this out coming into a braking zone, while transmuting about 5lbs of Hoosier rubber into a smoke screen for the cars behind me. SORRY GUYS!!! Hmmm. Gotta work on that.

After about three hours of track time, I realized that while I had been weaving in and out of traffic (politely!!), I had never seen ANYTHING growing in the rear-view mirror. I giggled a little bit about that! Then it happened. A black dot appeared in the mirror, growing slightly larger corner-by-corner and straight-after-straight. Slllooowwwly it resolved itself into a Corvette, and I will admit, it was burning up the track. For about a lap and a half, I was able to hold him off (THIS IS NOT A RACE!!! I said to myself!) until he finally got right up to my bumper, and I gave him the point-by, along with a courtesy lift. The ZR-1 slid by me, with a friendly wave and a thumbs up from the GM development driver onboard, and then it was my turn to try to hang with him, conscious all the time of the paying passenger in the right seat, who certainly got his $25 worth! After another half-lap, the checkers flew, and I came in for the final time that day. At the end of the day, I knew I had a car, and one with only one real issue, the failed ABS system.
The next day, the new vinyl came (I had to change numbers, since Endurance cars are limited to two-digit numbers), and I borrowed a code scanner from Steve at Elmhurst Auto Care. The scan revealed a rather peculiar combination: RR sensor fault, LF, LR, RF sensors missing. But it worked at the beginning of the day! I cleared the stored codes, and ran a self-test, and it all came up normal. Okay, that’s telling me that it’s either an intermittent (power or ground), or there’s a fundamental incompatibility between the stock 2006 Mustang GT ABS control module and the 2008 FR500S computer. I briefly checked the pin seating in the ABS connector, verified the ground point was clean and tight, then shrugged my shoulders. No time left to order a module, I have less than 48 hours to prep the car for the first event of it’s new life as a wheel-to-wheel car! I ran the wheels up to Elmhurst Auto Care to swap the toasted, flat-spotted mystery Hoosiers for some fresh, heat-cycled 275/35-18 R6 rubber, then changed out all the vinyl, and loaded up to head to Road America for NASA Midwest’s season ender.

 

[SoundGuyDave]

Thursday/Friday

I got up to RA just in time to drop the car before dark on Thursday, then came back to the track in time for the 7:00AM instructor’s meeting. Friday was a test-and-tune day, and since I had not had my car race-teched yet, I registered for Time Trials, which ran with the HPDE-3 and -4 group. TT and -4 had open passing rules, but if we came up on a -4 car (no 4 in the window, no TT class on the bumper) it was no passing braking-to-apex. Simple enough! My only goals for Friday were to get some track recon done, scrub the mold release off the Hoosiers, and have fun with my student, a nice guy from Ontario with a 2008 BMW M3. Beautiful car! I wound up running four short sessions, coming in after 10-15 minutes, just getting a feel for where there was grip, and seeing what had changed from the last time I was at the track in June. Great fun, and the car felt phenomenal. I took my student out for a session, primarily to hammer home how “slow hands” make for a nice smooth weight transfer, and to let him “feel” what a corner taken properly was like. That was quite successful, and he improved rapidly from there! Towards the end of the day Joe Sullivan, my friend that I also co-own and co-drive a 1994 Cobra in Camaro-Mustang Challenge with, got up to the track, and I popped him in the right-seat and we went out for a “get acquainted” session. Assuming the car survived long enough, he would be co-driving the Endurance race on Sunday with me, so he wanted a little time in the car to see how I was approaching things. The ABS continued to glare at me from the dashboard, so I left LOTS on the table in the braking zone, and stressed to Joe that he would have to do the same to keep the tires round, since they were my only set (budget was blown by that point!). We parked the car, slipped the cover on it, and called it a night. Saturday and Sunday would be LOOONNNNGGG days, with lots of racing!

 

[SoundGuyDave]

Saturday

The day started stupidly early, with a 6:45AM instructor meeting, and then it was time to go to work. I got my car race-teched, got the logbook issued, turned in all the required paperwork, then went out for morning warm-up with the Lightning group. While I had built my car with the American Iron rulebook firmly in hand, I had run out of budget and time to build the appropriate power (9.5:1 rule, I was at 10.6:1), and as a result declared as PTB for the weekend. I was at the ragged edge of PTB for points (identical points structure as Time Trials, but wheel-to-wheel result based, rather than time), but was unfortunately the only car registered in class, so no real playmate. American Iron runs with the Thunder group (big-bore, fast cars), but PTB runs in Lightning, so I went out with a largely unfamiliar group (944Spec, SpecE30, Spec Miata, Honda Challenge, GTS-2, Factory Five, and this time, my buddies in Camaro-Mustang Challenge, or CMC for short). Warmup went well, and my little 281 cube motor pulled hard on all but the Factory Five cars. The GTS-2 cars were running an even pace with me, at least until their tires got warmed up and their aero started to come in, then they just checked out. I did have a Honda Challenge car all over me for a while, dropping back on the straights, and catching me in the braking zone. Remember the failed ABS? I was adding around 150’ to the braking zones at the end of the big straights, and 50-75’in the slower corners… He was killing me there. After the checker for warm-up, I grabbed a bottle of water and then went out with my student (same from Friday!), and we started to get into the groove. I had given him a bit of homework, and it was paying off big. His line was much more consistent, and his braking was MUCH better. Gotta keep working on that line, and then we’ll talk about taking the car out of fourth gear!
Soon, it was time to roll out for the Lightning qualifying session, which was gridded based on warmup times. Historically, I’ve done well on the Q sessions, primarily due to my Time Trial experience. This time was really no different; I went out, ran the out lap hard to get heat in the tires, then laid down a nice clean flyer while I still had clean track. That damn Honda was right behind me the whole way!!! I wasn’t worried, since I was running solo in class, though. Formality complete, I went back out with my student, and we really got the whole accuracy and consistency thing together. Next session, we’re going to start shifting!!!!
After a quick lunch, I topped off the fuel tank (still have no idea how much gas I’m burning over an extended run!), checked the lug torque (fine) and checked tire pressures (also fine), then headed to grid for the first of two thirty-minute sprint races. At the head of the pack were the Factory Five cars (FF), followed by the GTS-2 cars, then me, and directly behind me was the Honda Challenge cars, then the assorted “SPEC” classes, and bringing up the rear, my CMC buddies, who do a standing start. Grid rolled out behind the pace car, setting a nice 65mph “let’s get there” pace, we all did our warm-up nonsense (weaving to scrub the tires clean, sharp accel and braking to get heat in the tires and brakes), and then did the traditional panic stop and dart to the outside bit as we came around The Kink, and the pace car slowed to 35mph for the race start. We all formed up between T12 and T13 to the side-by-side formation, and I noticed that that Honda Challenge car had lined up right next to me! God the buzz-saw from his exhaust was giving me a headache… Oh well. We came around T14 onto the main straight, the pace car peeled off, and the pole-sitter took pace control, which did pick up to around 45, about 5200RPM in 2nd gear for me… Perfect! We crested the hill on the main straight, and the green flew. Plan A for me was to simply boot it, stay inside for T1, and hope that the GTS car in front of me didn’t do anything stupid. I immediately pulled away from the HC car next to me, and glued myself to the ass-end of the Porsche 968 with the Cessna wing right in front of me. Coming up on the braking zone for T1, I knew that because we weren’t running at full pace yet (I was only doing 125 or so in 4th gear), I could extend my braking point a bit, even WITH the ABS failure, and gave a thought to putting a nose inside of the GTS car. Wrong. Somebody up front (FF car maybe?) had a spectacular lockup, huge smoke screen, and everybody checked up to avoid carnage. I stuck to my Porsche buddy ahead of me, hugging the inside edge, and the Honda to my outside darted past. WAIT, WHAT’S THAT ON HIS BUMPER?!?! He was stickered for BOTH Honda Challenge AND PTB!!! If he changed classes, that means he’s beating me!! MUST KILL!! With the GTS cars still not warmed up, the FF cars starting to pull away, and the HC (or is it PTB?) car to my outside, I was a bit trapped. There was a gap behind the HC car, so I pulled into it, and put the hammer down through T3 and the long straight leading to the dreaded T5. T5 at Road America is brutal… You start at around 137-140mph before hitting the braking zone, which is downhill, until you reach the tightest corner on the track (50mph-ish left hander), then run uphill to T6, where the ideal braking point is on TOP of a hill crest. Diabolical. I quickly ran out of 4th gear on the straight, and elected to ride it out on the limiter for 400’ or so, rather than shift up to 5th with it’s pathetic 0.68 ratio. Early braking (gotta save the tires for Sunday!!) let both the GTS car and the mystery Honda get a lead on me, so I focused on getting as clean a line through T5 as I could.


The GTS cars started to come alive and check out, and I focused on the Honda. I dogged him though the carousel, hinting at an outside move to see what he would do… Yup! He slid a half-car to the outside, potential blocking move, so it’s very possible he’s thinking “position” in a PTB battle… Okay, now I know I need to get by him, and NOW. I powered through the exit of the carousel, almost bump-drafting him through The Kink, and then popped outside through Kettle Bottoms and got my wheel next to his door. Now, I have “right to the line”, and he can’t move over to block, he has to leave me room. 4th gear was pulling hard, and I slid by him, dropped down in front of him, and hit the hooks (later than I wanted) for T12. I knew that if I could hold him off until the top of the hill on the main straight, I would check out, and there would be no drama unless I made a mistake. I went through 13 slightly defensive (1/2 car off my ideal line towards the middle of the track), ditto 14, and then proceeded to check out. One lap down, probably 8 or 9 more to go… Hit my marks, focus on nailing the line, keep the speed up. I quickly pulled away from him, and put it in “cruise control,” catching back-marker GTS and FF cars along the way. The more traffic between me and the Honda, the better!
A couple more laps, and then one of the SPEC944 cars decided that ejecting his oil pan drain plug would be a good weight-reduction move. I came screaming out of T12, and got set for T13. My normal line through T13 is fairly aggressive: It’s an uphill, blind-apex left hander, and I go in fully track-right, with a 50% throttle lift to plant the nose, start turn-in, then nail the gas hard to get rotation, and shoot over the hill, sliding left-to-right onto an access road, then recovering back onto the track itself. This particular time, I did the lift, turn, mash, and started to rotate. Perfect! Then the car KEPT rotating. NOT perfect. Hmmm… Add more gas to get the rear planted? Nope, I’m at WOT already. Countersteer? Nope, didn’t do ANYTHING. Oh, well. I resigned myself to imitating a gyroscope, and just rode it out (like I had a choice!) into the grass on the inside of T13. There is concrete there to hit, but I honestly wasn’t worried, based on my trajectory when I hit the oil.

Finally stopped spinning, refired the car (little rough there: hot motor and, I don’t think returnless fuel systems like spins), got turned around, and got back in the race. I had no idea what went by while I was playing sit-and-spin, so once I slid half sideways through 14 getting the oil off the tires, I lit my hair on fire and drove! Half a lap later, the double-yellow came out; full-course caution. For the HPDE-types, this means take it back a half-notch, and focus on hitting your marks. For the race group, though, this means only one thing: CATCH UP! So, I put the hammer down, and prayed that whoever I caught had the same thought process. Coming out of T12, there was a corner worker frantically waving the debris flag. “Gee, thanks!” I though. “You mean there’s OIL down in this corner? Really?” Eventually, I caught up with a Miata, and started to worry. Was he catching the pace car, or was he just buzzing along making more noise than speed? I closed on him cresting T6, and saw him frantically waving his arm inside the car. AWESOME!!! That’s racer shorthand for “back it down, things to hit ahead.” And no, you NEVER use this to competitive advantage! It could only be (and was) the pack behind the pace car. Two laps later, they had removed the 944-of-the-empty-crankcase AND cleaned up the oil spill (quite well actually!), and the race resumed, with only the Miata between me and my HC/PTB nemesis. I got a great jump on the restart, went past them both, and cruised to the finish. In the end, it turned out that the Honda did NOT change classes, and was running in HC2, so was no threat to me, but the added adrenaline allowed me to push hard enough not only to take the win in PTB, but also to set a new track record! With the caution laps, though, I STILL had no fuel consumption data to use for the Enduro, though, which could be a problem come Sunday. With the caution laps, I burned 6 gallons.

Went out with my student again, and started working on shift points. It was weird! Hopping from a race car to a street car that was SOOO SLOWWW (relatively), and then discovering that he carried more speed into T1 than I did! Gotta get a different trans! My student was coming along beautifully, hitting his marks, and now with the shifting, starting to carry more speed, so we revised braking points as well, which he promptly started nailing.

Second race: It started very much the same way as the first race, but this time with no stress about a potential competitor. I could just focus on hitting my marks, keep out of trouble, and hopefully get a solid fuel run in, to start calculating stint length and fuel stop quantities. I ran to plan, there were no cautions, and the only drama came at the very end of the race. After the white flag (last lap) was out, I came screaming through T13 again, and caught up to a pair of Miatas (Miatae?) battling for position going into T14. I COULD have stuck a nose in and ruined their race, but elected to back off, figuring on making the pass up the hill to the checkers. At exit of T14, the Miata on the outside was at the very left edge of the track, and his competitor was close enough to reach over and shift for him… Woo-hoo! 25’ of clean track-width! I powered out of T14 a touch too aggressively and twitched the rear end a bit, losing a bit of ground, but eventually got the power down, and pulled to the right of the two battling buzzsaws. I got my front tire even with their rear tires, and they started drifting to the right…. Hmmm… I got my right-front tire even with the passenger door, and they STILL kept drifting right…. HEY! Don’t you see this Nimitz-class silver brick over here? I drifted right to avoid contact, until I had two tires in the grass (at 110mph), and looking ahead, could see where the grass ends, and the pit road concrete comes in… I have right-to-the-line here, but you can be right and wrecked, or you can back out. The car got all kinds of squirrely off throttle with two in the dirt, but I collected it, pulled behind the chew-toys, and crossed the line. I did briefly consider getting a running start and seeing how far I could punt one of them, but fortunately sanity prevailed. Another win (solo in class, ho-hum), but more importantly, I now had a clean, full 30-minute run to do fuel calculations with!! Uh-oh… I burned a bit over NINE GALLONS on that run!

Back to my student’s car; and I just had a great ride! He was smooth, nailed his marks, told me what he did wrong before I told him, and was completely aware of traffic. Great judgement, too, waving off a couple of point-bys that would have been iffy to take. At the end of the session, we chatted, and I offered to let him solo the next day, provided that his first session was as good as the one just completed. We were both looking forward to Sunday!

Saturday night was the NASA Midwest season-ending banquet and awards ceremony, and was great fun, with praise heaped upon the champions, and dire threats of “wait until next year!” uttered frequently. Sunday would be a fun day of “play” races, culminating in a three-hour endurance race, one that I was looking forward to more than anything else in the weekend!

 

[SoundGuyDave]

Sunday

Sunday started with a late (7:15AM!!) instructor’s meeting, followed by my student’s first session of the day. We went out, and I cautioned him about the cold track (38*F during the meeting, barely over 40 when we went out), so he cautiously felt out the corners for grip, and we reviewed flags and emergency procedures, while I kept an eye on his line to see if the conversation would throw off his concentration. Nope! Perfect! We picked up the pace, and I had HIM talk ME around the track for a lap, and he nailed all the salient points, a full corner ahead of where were on track. We pulled in, and had a nice long chat about judgement, focus, vision (keep those eyes UP), and I agreed to let him go solo for the next session. As always when I do this, I meet the student on grid prior to release for a quick status chat, inform grid that he’s legal to go solo, and then hang around grid so that if he gets nervous for ANY reason at all, I can hop right in with him.

Meanwhile, it was time for warm-up sessions for the race groups. With the Enduro firmly in my mind, I sent Joe out in the car so that he could get some seat time in it, and see exactly how it differed from the CMC car we shared. It was kind of neat watching your car go by on the main straight, and mentally comparing notes on shift points, as well as drinking in the exhaust note (snarl would be more like it!) as it flew by in triple-digit speeds with the pedal WELDED to the floor! God, I love the sound of a V8! Joe had fun in the car, and said he got a pretty good feel for it, so we just topped it off with fuel, and gave it a quick once-over. I had fresh brake pads with for all four corners (courtesy of Andrew-Racing.com and Jay Andrew’s sage advice and free trackside delivery!), but we elected not to swap them. The Brembo fronts were still plenty meaty, and the rears, while a bit thin, looked decent enough to make it through the day. Would this bite us in the ass later? Dunno, but damn, it was just too cold to work on the car! We did wind up swapping out the fronts on the CMC car, though, since Joe toasted them in the second race yesterday.

I met my student on grid for his second session of the day (first solo session!) did the dance with the grid workers, and watched him drive off down pit road… It really is a bittersweet experience, combining pride in your students accomplishments with sadness that you won’t be in there with him, sharing his triumphs. As part of the “fun day” theme, NASA had arranged for the corner workers to call in the car numbers of those that they saw execute a particularly perfect corner, and I am proud to say that my student was called in for both T1, a high-speed right-hander at the end of a VERY long straight, as well as T6, a slow blind-apex left-hander over the top of a hill. That was absolutely a great job on his part! Three laps or so into the session, I saw him coming down pit lane, and I immediately jumped the wall to be with the black-flag marshal, so I could find out what happened. It turns out he had caught a conga-line of cars, and just wanted space, a trick I had showed him back on Friday! I had a goofy grin on my face when they finally released him just ahead of that same conga line.

Next up for me was pure fun: A persuit race! Based on the fast times from the races on Saturday, NASA gridded us all the way down pit road, and then gave us a timed release onto a hot track. The cars wound up ALL jumbled up, nobody (but the grid marshall!) knowing when they would be released, or how many laps down we would be when we WERE released! The idea is that if everybody runs right on their times from the previous day, they will ALL cross the finish line on the same lap, at the same time! AWESOME!!!!! First car out was a FF roadster, then it looked like a potluck dinner. I got sandwiched between a 650HP AIX S197 driven by a former national champion and a flippin’ Daytona Prototype! Great fun, and we were all pressed to drive hard, never knowing if the pass you’re making or letting by is to gain a lap, or is for postion. Small frustration: I shaved over a full second off the track record (that I set Saturday!), but it didn’t count for the record books, since this was NOT a points-paying race! Aargh! 2:37.696 is pretty respectable! In the end, I finished mid-pack, but had an absolute blast.

I checked in with my student, who was just in his glory running around Road America, and then Joe and I got serious about prepping for the Enduro. I filed all the paperwork for the race, re-classing as American Iron (same “E0” enduro class as PTB, but I can run a lighter weight), and we pulled out ALL non-essential things from the car, like 45lbs of passenger seat, seat mount, side brackets, and harnesses. Plus an unused ziptie and four maple leaves that found their way into the spare tire well. Ounces count, dammit! With the reclass, our minimum weight had dropped from 3330 (I scale at 3338 with 3/8 tank and me in the seat), to 2973, which we had no chance to hit, but it eliminated any weight concerns at all. My evil plan was coming to fruition! Sneakily, I had corner-weighted the car previously with exactly this setup, and had done the alignment like this as well. A quick wipe of the windshield, top off the sippy-bottle, stuff the gas tank, torque the lugs, and check the pressures, and we were as set as we could be for the enduro.

Joe and I, as well as team-mates Randy Johnson (to whom I lost a regional championship in TTB by a margin of 0.001 second!) and Jeff Jorgensen (instructor extrordinaire, and one who was personally responsible for any good things Joe or I did, and was blameless for any bad things!), sat down to work out stint lengths and fuel stop strategy. Based on all the consumption numbers we had collected over the weekend, it looked like we had a thirsty bitch on our hands, somewhere around 15 gallons per hour! Assuming a 45 minute stint, that worked out to 11 gallons per stint, or a total of 47 gallons of 94 octane for the fuel budget! With 14 in the tank, we brought eight 5-gallon jugs to our pits, and planned on a 10 gallon fill for each of the first and last stops, at :45 and 2:15, then a slightly longer stop for the second stop (1:30), targeted at 12 gallons, to leave a bit of reserve to account for slosh with the saddlebag tank. Joe wanted me to run the first stint, to get us into rhythm and get a solid start for position, so that would give me first and third legs, with Joe running second stint and the anchor leg. Since our driver-change could be done faster than we could fuel the car, it only made sense to put a fresh driver in the car whenever we could. We were still talking fuel strategy when the 5-minute whistle blew. OOPS! I hurredly threw on my balaclava, helmet, DefNder head restraint, hopped in the car, buckled in, and put my gloves on while Joe got the window net up, and then Randy noticed we had a VERY large wasp flying around inside of the car! We were still trying to figure out what to do about that when the one-minute whistle blew, and I just said screw it! and fired up the car… The pace car rolled out, followed by the string of cars on the pace lap. As is tradition for me, I helped heat up the rear tires by MASHING the gas as soon as I hit second, with massive wheelspin, kicking the ass-end out about 30* and in general making a hell of a lot of noise! Great fun! I also noticed that the sudden acceleration bounced the wasp off the rear window, knocking him senseless! Ha! That’ll teach him to try to be ballast in MY car!

The pace lap was absolutely normal, including the panic-stop and assorted evasive manoevers when the pace car slowed to race pace in Kettle Bottoms, so I cinched my harnesses just that little bit tighter, took a final sip from the drink tube and spit out the bite valve, and concentrated on the cars surrounding me. To my left (I would be inside again! Yay!!) was a 944Spec with a driver attempting to iron-man the event (3 hours straight, no driver change, one fuel stop) running in E3, and ahead were an assortment of BMWs with the odd Porsche and Daytona Prototype thrown in for good measure. We came around T14 two-wide in perfect formation, and took the green flag. I had a good start, just leaving the 944 in the dust, and clinging to the back bumper of the M3 ahead of me. Since most of the cars ahead were in the ES and ESR classes, I had no fear when they started to pull away, bit by bit. I focused on just hitting my marks, and picking off the odd E1, E2 and E3 entry as I came up on them. Endurance racing is radically different than sprint racing when it comes to passes… Out-of-class passes, like my E0 Mustang passing an E1 CMC car, need to be done as quickly, and as cleanly as possible, so that neither of you lose momentum relative to the other cars in your class, just like in a sprint race. IN-class passes, though, become a whole different matter. While the pass should and will be defended, there is none of the frantic urgency to make the pass, like there is with a 30 minute sprint race. You have HOURS to make it happen, and most frequently, the best approach is to lay back until you can make it cleanly. When you have cars of radically different sprint classes all competing in the same endurance class (E0 is comprised of NASA classes AI, PTA, PTB, HC1, GTS3, World Challenge ST,etc.) you get a LOT of differing build philosophies. My car, for example, while PTB legal, was built with AI in mind, so I have entry-level AI suspension, but I’m 35HP short and have no aero, which is what allows me to run PTB… After the first two laps or so, I just settled into the groove, and started clicking off laps. Consistency, and taking care of the car are the key to endurance racing. The race is three hours long, and if you burn up the car too soon, you’re not running at the end. Leave too much on the table, for too long, though, and you’re too far back to make a run for the checker. It’s a fine line! After the first three laps, once the field got sorted and into the groove, I started knocking out laps. A string of 2:41’s, then picked up the pace a bit, running a string of 2:40’s. Then I caught a car, and pushed it a bit to time the pass for a straight, and turned in a 2:38.6, made the pass, and slid back into the 2:40/2:41 pacing until the crew flagged me in for the first fuel stop and driver change. As I exited T14 at 95mph and cut right for pit entry, it occurred to me that pit lane speed limit was never discussed in the driver meeting… Hmmm. Historically, it was always around 35mph or so, so when I approached the cones defining the start of pit lane, I hit the hooks and overshot my speed target, entering into pit lane around 25mph. Oops. No biggie, I slowly upped the speed (trying not to be obvious!) and got it to around 30mph, then pulled right and stopped in our pit box, which was the first one in the line. I quickly loosened the shoulder harnesses, popped the buckle, slid the seat back, and in the mean time, Joe had opened the door and dropped the window net. Jeff and Randy were rolling with the fueling, so I popped out of the car, and Joe slid in, and I helped him get settled (loosen the laps a touch, slide the seat forward, tighten the laps, click in the shoulders, snug them down) while I gave him the change-briefing. T14 was getting a bit slick, watch for blowing leaves in the Carousel (like ice!), you need to use 5th gear 14-1, 3-5, and 11-12, we’re getting a hint of high-speed understeer on entry, etc. I knuckled Joe in the shoulder, got the window net up, closed the door, and hopped the pit wall while the second 5 gallon jug gurgled empty, and then Joe was off, dusting the rears leaving the box, and screaming for the track-out point. Less than 3 minutes later, he was back in… Too fast leaving pit lane! Turns out that the pit speed limit was 25MPH, and the grid crew gave me a pass on my 30mph entry, but weren’t going to let Joe get away with 69MPH on exit! 1-minute stop-and-go penalty, oh well. Over the next 30 minutes, we watched FIVE other teams get hit with the stop and go, so at least we weren’t the only ones! After that, though, the word went out on the radios (Gotta get them for next year), and no more violations were assessed. Once Joe got out with no black flag, he settled down into a nice, consistent 2:42/2:41 pace, gradually dropping into the low 2:40s as he got comfortable with the car.
At the midway point, it was time for the second fuel stop, and to put me back in the car. Because it’s my car I obviously had a lot more experience getting in and out than Joe, and I was in, briefed, buckled, net up and door closed as Randy and Jeff were starting to dump the second can of fuel. Disaster! Roughly 3-1/2 gallons into the can, we were stuffed. NOBODY was expecting this, and we barfed about a half-gallon of gas all over the pit stall. Dammit! Randy took it personally, like it was his fault, but nobody knew that Joe short-shifting into 5th gear would save so damn much fuel! Oh well, off I went, at a sedate 25mph, until I hit the cones at pit out, mashed the gas in second and used the rear end to wave goodbye to the crew as I went back out onto the track for my final stint. During the change-briefing, Joe had commented that the high-speed push I was beginning to notice was getting worse, took a quick peek at the brakes and tires, and found that the left-front was starting to show cords at the outside edge. I would have to baby it a bit in the right-hand corners (Ouch! T1, T3, T7, Carousel and Kink are all high-speed, high-load rights, T12 and T14 are medium-speed rights, and remember that T14 was getting slick already!) I took it easy going around the rights, to see how bad it was, and it wasn’t bad, but it was noticeably understeering compared to the equivalent left-hand corner. Coming around T14 (wow, slick!) I received the expected black flag, and pulled in to serve my fuel-spill 5-minute penalty. Sitting in your pit box for five minutes, while the other cars are flying by lasts an ETERNITY!!!! Sitting there, though, let me kind of formulate a strategy for taking all those lefts… Easy entry, easy to apex, then squeeze the throttle out. Slow, in other words. Chatting with Joe, we arranged to swap the left-front with a scrub Hoosier that I had, and that if they saw me coming in early, it was because the tire was letting go or undrivable, and to prep for a tire change. For our class (E0-E3) we’re allowed to either rotate two tires, or change one, but not both, on any given pit stop. So change one was the plan. We also agreed to do the change regardless on the final stop. It would cost us time, since the rules do NOT allow any work to be done on the car while fueling. Therefore we would have to fuel the car, do the driver swap, THEN change the tire. Oh well. Our goal was to finish the race, nothing more, so that would be fine. Once the 8-1/2 hours were up, sorry, I mean the five minutes, I was released, and sedately pulled down pit lane at 25mph, then went out to battle the track for another 40 minutes. Having to baby the tire really cut down our lap speeds, and I turned in a string of laps dropping slowly from 2:49s as I felt the rate of degredation in the tire, eventually settling into a 2:44 pace. It felt like I was out there forever… And ever… And ever… One lap, as I drove by the pits, I actually looked over to see if the guys were playing cards, or if they forgot about me!! Hmmm…. Must just be me, but it sure FEELS like I’ve been out longer than 40 minutes. I finally got the “C’mon in” flag from the crew, and pulled down pit road for the final time. I stopped in the box, Joe and I swapped, and I found out that they had extended my stint to around 55 minutes, figuring that if I was off-pace, I wouldn’t be gulping fuel like I had been. Given the short final stint (started the pit stop with less than :30 to go), and looking at the left-front, Joe and I agreed to save the tire-change time and just ride it out, figuring we wouldn’t have enough time left to make up for the lost laps from the tire change. Joe was also in conservation mode, running a short string of high 2:40 laps, essentially driving HPDE-style square corners (stop, turn, accelerate to minimize load on the left front), until we saw the white flag fly, then he just opened it up some, and turned a 2:44 final lap, with Jeff, Randy and myself standing on the outside pit wall applauding as he blew by us to take the checker. We did it! We finished! With a car that had never seen a lap in anger prior to the start of that weekend. The final results: First place in E0, plus a new track record! Also, 3rd Place overall, only three laps down from the second-place ES BMW. If we didn’t have those penalties (six minutes total, plus two extra trips down pit lane), we might have been able to take second overall. Any way you look at it, though, I’m very proud of the way the whole crew performed, and the event went better than my wildest dreams envisioned.
My original plan was to trailer the car home and bring it back to Autobahn to run tomorrow’s LAPS, Inc. event there (where I was again instructing), but given the need to change out the brakes, plus the corded tire, and since Joe, Jeff and I will be right back at Road America the following weekend with MVP Tracktime, I just left the trailer and car at Road America, and I went down to Autobahn without a car. Again.

 

[SoundGuyDave]

Monday, again!

After a VERY short night after a long drive, I found myself at Autobahn Country Club with LAPS, Inc. for my fourth consecutive track day. Despite being in the low 40s, at least the sun was shining, and the wind wasn’t gusting 15-20 like it was in Wisconsin! I drew a novice student with a seriously built Nissan 370Z. Vortech blower, air/water intercooler, Stillen BBK front and rear, etc. Chatting with him, this would be his third track day, but the first on a BIG track. 2 minutes before grid released his group, he informed me that his TPMS was showing low on the left-front (oh, boy, here we go), and asked what he should run for tire pressures. I told him to bump 2psi above MFGR recommended, and we’d feel it out from there. We got to grid 5 minutes after the session started… Autobahn full is 3.8 miles, 18 corners, and a lot of technical sessions, so on our first stint, we set out with the following goals: Line, braking, throttle, in that order. He said he had run the south half once before, so I figured that I could assess his abilities on the first half-lap and go from there. After the second corner, I knew I had my work cut out for me. VIOLENT control inputs, throttle-induced traction control activation nearly constantly, poor line, the works. I got him whoa-ed up a bit, and started developing a line with him, simultaneously trying to smooth out the control inputs. At the end of the mercifully short session, we had a LOOOONNNNNGGGG chat in the car before I cut him loose to go to class. I talked about smoothing out the control inputs, making the corners an arc, rather than a sharp angle, and going easy on the throttle (he was putting down something like 475HP to the rear wheels). We also talked about the importance of developing and hitting his marks (turn-in, apex, track-out) and how control inputs affected the weight transfer and subsequent loading of the tires. He went to class, where I knew he would be getting much the same info, but I really wanted this driven home.

10 minutes before the next session, I got my gear on, and went to his car. Where was he? Oh, well, I’ll just hang out here. 5 minutes to go to grid release, he comes by and explains that he has to get gas, because if he doesn’t run a full tank, he’ll get fuel starvation, blow the motor, etc. Okay, I said, grab gas, and I’ll meet you here… We went out 5 minutes late again, but there was an immediate improvement. He was starting to actually do what I told him to, and even began to comment that my way wasn’t nearly as rough on the car as the way he was doing it before! Excellent, we’re starting to make progress! Now that I had some cred in his eyes, we started programming the lap: landmarks, lines, brake points, throttle points. Towards the end of the session, he hit his first good corner! “Did you feel how easy and smooth that felt? How the car wasn’t working hard at all? Did you see how we caught up to that Corvette through the corner instead of after it? THAT’S what we want to do on EVERY corner!” “Yeah,” he said, “I think I see what you’re getting at…” Checkers came out, we went in, and had another looonnnggg chat about the feel of that corner versus the others, and how slowing down (hands, feet) makes you go faster. This is when I learned that his previous instructor (may he rot in hell!) was teaching him to slam the nose of the car down, pitch it into the corner, then pile on the throttle on the way out. I’m picturing the autocrosser from hell, here, and no, the last guy was NOT an instructor for LAPS! Once I described the physics behind the two approaches, it was EASY to see how “my” approach was necessarily going to be faster than “his” approach. I got big compliments from the student for patience with him, when he realized he was doing “everything wrong,” and he even told the LAPS heads about how he thought I was an awesome instructor. Cool, bonus points for me!

Third session, and he was on time! We gridded up, then went out, and he really buckled down and got to work. It was a real pleasure hearing the “Oh!” as we hit a corner well, and I called for more throttle, instead of my (previously) typical “easy on the gas” chant. He kept going faster, and faster, the more he smoothed out, only bobbling once in one of the technical sections when he got confused about which one it was, something EASY to do on that track! About 12 minutes in, I thought I noticed a wisp of steam or something coming out from the heat vents on his carbon hood, and I took a quick peek at his gauges, all normal. Two corners later, just as he was catching a 328i, it was definite, we had issues. I calmly told him to back wayyy down, and pull offline, I think I saw steam. When we slowed down, it was certain: we were burning something. 20mph all the way around to track exit, keeping an eye on the temp gauge (him) and the mirrors looking for fluid trails (me) we got off the track, and started investigating. Whoever installed the supercharger kit was an absolute hack. Nosing around, he had the electrical connector for the MAF rubbing right up against the radiator, and had routed one of the air/water intercooler hoses under a machined edge of one of the supercharger support brackets. Under the vibration and engine rocking on track, it had very neatly sawn through the top of the intercooler coolant line, and that was what was hitting the hot engine and flashing into steam. He was done for the day, but was still excited about what he had learned, and would be coming back next year for more! Excellent, job complete! Or was it?

Since I had no track car with me, I was hanging around in the paddock idly watching the advanced group zipping around, when that distinctive sound of tires slipping, then going sideways caught my attention. I glanced up to see a BMW M3 exiting the left-hand carousel that connects the north and south tracks with the tail out, and getting further out. Oh, this isn’t good. The rear kept slowly rotating as the car drifted further and further in towards the Aarmco on the inside, then finally snapped around, and started to wag back out in a typical tank slapper. That’s when I noticed the “X” in the windshield, and realized it was a fellow instructor. Amazingly, impossibly, I could see him inside the car calmly looking up at the rearview mirror, AND see his hands working the wheel. He was actually STEERING the car, trying to keep it off the Aarmco, while sliding backwards! In the end, the physics won, though, and there was that sickeningly distinctive “Crunk” sound of metal hitting metal, at decent speed, then the scraping sound of sheetmetal sliding along the Aarmco. He came to a rest maybe 100’ from me, up against the rails, pointing the wrong way, and only 50’ short of a track exit opening, with an ambulance sitting right there. Rather than driving counter-course with high-speed traffic exiting a blind curve right in front of him, he just backed up all the way to the exit, backed around the corner, and then struggled to get the car turned around. About 5-6 people (myself included ran down to see what help we could offer, and sure enough it was a fellow instructor that I know from two different groups. His bimmer hit the Aarmco on the right-front wheel, and bent the tie-rod into a U, resulting in roughly 3-1/2 yards of toe-in. Other than that, minor scraping on the front fender, no quarterpanel involvement, and light gouges on the rear fascia, where it wraps behind the wheel opening. Banzai! Great job fighting all the way! He had driven to the event, so one of the other instructors (Ken, who let me build my car at his place) ran home to grab a trailer, and I covered my buddy’s student.

500HP AMG Mercedes. Need I say more? Ken had done an outstanding job with this first-timer, and I just picked up where he had left off, working on smoothing out control inputs, and gently chiding him for early throttle application or early turn-in. The day ended, Ken got back with the trailer, and we loaded up the bent Bimmer, and I swapped vehicles with Ken, and drove the other instructor home, came back to Ken’s place (100 miles round-trip), then hopped in my daily-driver Focus, went home, left a trail of clothes from the back door to the bedroom, and was asleep a half-second before my head hit the pillow.

Long week… Five track days over a week, almost eleven hours of track time, three race wins, two track records (and improved one “unofficially”, three novice students, two check-off rides, one day as advanced group leader, and a contribution to the Karma pool. That’s what racing is all about!

 

[weather man]

Thanks for sharing the great story!

 

[Jeffk]

Great read. Those are some nice tracks too. Wow.

 

[frank s]

Marvelous stuff. Thank you for the opportunity.

 

[Mr. Q]

great reading your experience!! thanks for taking the time to write out this mini-novel, lol!

 

[Random Asshole]

Pictures speak louder than words

Here's some pics from his first shake down. I was thoroughly impressed with the craftsmanship on that cage. I think it's safe to say it would be "Steve Poe approved".

I believe this was the session with Dan. He had trouble comprehending how what you were doing was physically possible.

 

[testfire]

looks like alot of fun. cant wait to get my stang so i can start again.

 

[mikeyfitz]

Badass man!

 

[jymontoya]

Great stuff. Thanks for sharing!

Any word on the ABS issues?

 

[SoundGuyDave]

No, no word yet... That'll be an off-season project. First step is to tear the multipin connector down, reseat all the pins and add dialectric grease. I MAY run hard-line wiring to each corner with Deutch connectors to positively eliminate wiring as an issue, as well. After that, I'll probably swap modules out to either the FR500S or the BOSS302S module. If that still doesn't work, I'll just sit and cry for a while...

 

[kevinatfms]

dave, what grille are you using? how do you like it with the cowl hood? any flutter or issues?

R/A, i may have sent you a pm asking about this....LOL

 

[jymontoya]

No, no word yet... That'll be an off-season project. First step is to tear the multipin connector down, reseat all the pins and add dialectric grease. I MAY run hard-line wiring to each corner with Deutch connectors to positively eliminate wiring as an issue, as well. After that, I'll probably swap modules out to either the FR500S or the BOSS302S module. If that still doesn't work, I'll just sit and cry for a while...

I just re-read where you had a stock 2006 Mustang GT ABS control module and the 2008 FR500S computer... I BET that's the problem. Either get a stock computer, or a FR500S ABS module... There are known compatibility issues between the two.

 

[DUFUS]

dave, what grille are you using? how do you like it with the cowl hood? any flutter or issues?

R/A, i may have sent you a pm asking about this....LOL

BTW, what's the advantage to the cowl hood in this application?

Dave, please post a pic with the driver's name decal (if it's still there) above the door...

 

[SoundGuyDave]

Dufus: Your wish...

Kevin: It's been a while, but IIRC, it's a Shelby Terlingua grille, hard as HELL to find, but was the most open-mesh one I could find. Somebody with fab skills could EASILY cut a stock grille down to just the frame, and add expanded-mesh, and save the $helby pricetag.

I bought the Steeda Race cowl hood when it was the ONLY thing out there that was lighter than stock. First, the good: It does drop IAT significantly, and it IS very light. The bad: with the amount of airflow that I'm getting through the front (Mishimoto radiator, FR500S air deflectors boxing in the inlet, no AC condenser, essentially unrestricted lower grille area), it does try to lift quite a bit. If I choked off some of the frontal area, I'm sure it would be fine (was for years), but for now the plan is to go over to the Tiger CF heat-extractor hood. Dufus: The cowl itself is open to the engine bay, and pulls high-pressure cold air from the base of the windscreen down into the engine bay. It works, and works well.

JMontoya: THANK YOU for the info!! That makes pretty good sense to me, and was one I was a bit suspicious about. I think this confirms it. Have you heard of any incompatibility issues with the 2008 PCM and the BOSS modules? I run Hoosier rubber which would be close enough to the BOSS302S Continental tires to make that a perfect fit, if I can get it to work...

 

[DUFUS]

OK, I guess I was thinking of a enclosed CAI/box in which case a cowl hood isn't doing anything wrt AIT. Unless I'm confused.
Anyway, sorry for the stupid question, Cole.

Now I'm reading quotes from that gem at imdb. off to youtube next...

 

[hunterwiley]

I *think* that to use the FR500s abs module, and probably the Boss module, you must use the GT500 ABS pump. Neither will work with the GT pump. I don't think it matters which ECU you use, as it doesn't interface with it other than to send error codes via the can bus two wires. My car has the GT500 ABS pump, the FR500s ABS module, and no ecu at all...

I'd be interested in what steering shaft setup you used... it looks like a 3/4" round shaft, did you just weld it to the stock shaft at the firewall u-joint, or what?? I opted to keep the stock setup on my build, but might consider something else.... Looks like a nice build!
Ed