Really fun weekend at Road Atlanta. A good bit of RX-7's and RX-8's. Saturday went well and I took 1st place in TTS with a time of 1:35.4 in the first session of the day. The car had more, but I was working my way into the new set up and feeling it out. My new coilovers didn't come in so I was way undersprung. This was also my first time at Road Atlanta in 7 months. I wanted a 1:33 so I decided to save my tires for the 1st morning session on Sunday morning.
Sunday the track God's made me work for my Ho Ho. First session out was the only session I was going to be able to make my goal of 1:33. So as I am pulling onto grid, another car is in my spot(3rd overall) so I just go ahead and pull into the 1 spot since I figure A.R isn't running since we are less than 1 minute out. I yell at Mark Nunally to let him know to pass me when we go out, but he says don't worry about it. Nothing but clean track, air, and opportunity. So after the warm up lap I take off and am doing my usual 85%ish lap before I do a couple as hard as I can(normally my 3rd lap is the fastest). As I am going down the back straight, I bang 3rd gear off the reve limiter(new traqmate dash is reading half the rpms... at 6000rpm's, it reading 3000rpm's)... I knew better. It walked the serpentine belt and cut my upper radiator hose spewing water onto my windshield. I back off a little, cross the start/finish line and am met with a black flag. I was expecting it since I knew I had a little water coming onto my windshield...
I pull into the black flag station and he informs me that my transponder isn't working. f@#k... I forgot to put it on. That lap was a 1:38 according to the traqmate and would have been good enough for 1st in TTS if I would of had my transponder on the car. I pull in and wait for the next session of the day. I will now have to grid last since I didn't get a time in the first session.
The second session I try to go out last. I wanted to sand bag on the back straight and try to get 20-30 seconds behind me and the last car. Didn't happen. I had a couple cars pull behind me and could not get them to pass. F@#k it, lets have some fun and carve through some traffic. Man of man, what a fun session, I was passing people everywhere. I passed a guy on the outside of 10a, in the esses, turn 5, etc... I was having an absolute ball and was really excited to see the video later. I was running low 1:40's with traffic and maybe a 39. Well, as I was just about to turn into turn 7, I hear a POP, and as I turn in, the car snaps to the right/inside of the turn. I cut the wheels left and only ended up spinning half way around(thanks to alot of luck)... which put me sitting backwards in the middle of the track staring right at a C5 Corvette. After a few cars dodged me, I was able to work my way behind one of the walls so the session wouldn't have to end early. In the process, an MR2(I think) came around the turn and went off track as I was trying to get out of the way. He drove right back on though. Soooooo, I drive the car off to the inside after the session is over and getting the go ahead from the corner worker... next to the skidpad. The tow truck driver gave me a lift back to the paddock. I grabbed one of my other wheels/tires and my jack and put them in the bed of my truck and went back to change it. Not real sure what caused it. It could of been rubbing on something in the fender well, but I doubt it. My other 17in A6 on the passenger side have no marks/grooves. I also checked my tires yesterday afternoon and their was nothing. My 18in tires are the exact same dimensions as the 17's and they also have no marks/grooves on them after 3-4 days at the track on them. I think I prob. hit some debris on the track. Once again, I was thinking that I'd like to see the video and see what happens.
You can't keep a good man down... or I'm too stupid to quit. I threw my 6 year old R6's back on in the heat of the day and prob. sweat out a gallon of water in the process and had just enough time to throw my suit back on and drive the next session. I almost sat it out because I thought I might need to rest after sweating so much and not eating lunch yet, but I wanted to have some reaction time(aka the next session) if something happened and I didn't get my time that session. Once again, I went out at the back of the pack and fought through traffic. I made a conscious effort to slow down since I was going from a really sticky set of tires to a not so sticky set of tires. I was keeping my eye on my speedo/time on the traqmate I only needed to beat a 1:42.4 to get first. After a couple of laps of pacing I got a 1:42.2. I went and got the timing sheet for the session to confirm the time and to confirm the other guy hadn't picked up any time. Back in first... and let me tell you... that was the most hard earned TT "lap" I've ever ran... haha. So I ended up getting first today by the skin of my teeth, but at this point I'll take it any which way I can get it. We had 6 in class again today so we were one shy of getting 2 hoosiers for 1st place. I'm good with 1 though.
So back to the video... I picked up the traqdash this weekend. I talked to the traqmate representative at the track as he was there with discovery parts and he told me that I just needed to put my camera into standby and when the traqmate starts timing, the camera will start recording... not the case and I don't have any video's from today because of it. Really bummed about that. I was really looking forward to editing video's this week My video's from yesterday didn't really turn out either. I'm going to have to play with this stuff between now and VIR next month so it's good to go.
Big thanks as always to Dan(Chadwick) at TweakIt for installing my new accusump after my old one was recently damaged and mounting my tires for me on a ridiculous time line.
Just talked to Matt at Penske and my coilovers are starting to come together and should be done soon if Indy Car teams will stop calling... I'm the low man on the totem pole.
I'm hoping before the UTCC to have the Penske's on, a new front splitter, maybe a rear diffuser, and the fire suppression system installed. I'll prob. have some pictures soon as well.
11-20-2011, 02:39 AM
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