http://www.sfrscca.org/Results/20031012/
Hi all,
This time
before I took the car out I had it aligned. We knew that the alignment was off
but it turned out to be very far off from the perspective of evenness side to
side. The final alignment was set to:
Caster 7.5
Camber 4
Total toe 0
Camber 5
Total Toe 0
This should
help the car drive more effectively and pick up a second or two.
We arrived
Saturday morning with a little more than an hour before practice. I turned one
good time during practice, 2:13.6. I had trouble shifting and had to cut
practice short. In fact I had so much trouble that I popped one of the retained
clips that holds the cables in place behind the shift lever. Thinking that it
was the retaining clip that had caused the difficult shifting we replaced it
and taped it in place.
Qualifying
was in the afternoon. We swapped the tires around and believe we fixed the
shifting problem. I got on grid early since I wanted to get a good run. (vid
will be up by then end of the week) After a lap I was having shifting problems
again. I dropped it in to 4th gear and motored around. I was taking it up to
6300+ RPM which is above red line and not the best for longevity. Amazingly
enough I was able to get a
For the
clutch problem I decided we needed to bleed the clutch. The symptoms had been
that as the car warmed up the clutch would stop disengaging. Pumping the clutch
did help but was not a practical solution for racing. After we bled the brakes
the clutch action did feel better. The race would tell us if we got it fixed or
not. I was gridded behind the two ITB BMWs and next to John Schmale. I
was hoping to get up to Tachi Callas but that probably wouldn't be easy since
he was running 2:12s and the cars in front of me were turning 2:13 to 2:15
making passing difficult considering the class battles represented by the BMWs.
It was a
typical slow start that rolled up to speed quickly right before the green flag.
Always interesting to determine which gear to leave it in for the start. I was
a bit slower on the start do to the fact that I had to shift just before the
green flag. I was able to get by one of the BMWs before the 2nd turn. The other
BMW I was able to get by between turn 5 and 6. We then had an ITA train made up
of Tachi, John Curtis, John Schmale, and me. This didn't last long as the first
locomotive decoupled and pulled away, leaving John C. pull us long. We had a pretty
heated battle going with the three of us. I tried on several occasions to get
by John S. but he can create a very wide car. He also tried several attempts at
getting by John C. also unsuccessfully. I was finally able to get by John S.
when he made a mistake entering turn 9 and missing the turn driving out in to
the dirt. I was able to hold him off and finally to make some headway on
catching back up to John C. who had worked on a gap between us while we battled
for 5th place.
It took
several more laps to catch back up to him. He missed the exit of turn 15 which
allowed me to catch up. At this point we started hitting traffic and it was a
matter of timing to keep up with John and not be held up by traffic. I finally
was able to get by when we went in to turns 14 and 15 side by side. Once by I
started pulling away and could even see Tachi in the distance. Unfortunately we
were close to the last laps and I would not have enough time to catch him. I
did turn a fast lap of 2:13.2 and as you can guess from the lack of a mention
to a clutch problem the problem did turn out to have been fixed. I'll post a
vid of the race by the end of the week.
The next
and last race of the season will be at the end of the first week in November.
Here's a link to the schedule: http://www.sfrscca.org/Calendar/Schedule/western_states_2003_schedule.pdf
Sunday
rolled along and we arrived at the track ready to race. I was gridded behind
two ITB BMWs with John Schmale (ITA) next to me. I thought I was ready to
race with Tachi Callas who had turned in a time of 2:12.285 but I needed to get
through 4 other cars, 2 ITBs , 1 ITA (John Curtis), and an ITS. A good start
would really make a difference. As we lined up for the start I was trying to
figure out what gear to start in. It turned out to be a slow fast start. As the
green flag flew I found myself having to shift up in to third and I lost some
ground to John S. but did manage to get by one ITB car by turn 2. I squeezed by
the 2nd ITB car in going in to turn 6 which left us with an ITA train. The lead
locomotive being the Tachi ITA car running in 3rd. John S.(John had passed John
in turn 1), John C. and me created the rest of the train. I made a couple
attempts to get by the two but was not initially successful of attempts to get
past. John C. was able to get by John in turn 2 on the 4th lap when
John S. made a mistake existing turn 13. (yes it can take that long (15 turns)
to take advantage of a mistake). So now it was John C., John S., and me running
together. With John and John now fighting for position I might have a chance to
get by. I was able to catch them lap after lap which meant I had a faster car in
certain parts of the track than
the two RX-7s. We could still see Tachi about a 1/2 a (long) turn ahead. If
they would only let me lead we could all catch Tachi. ;-> I almost had
Schmale in turn 14-15 but he "pushed" when I "hit" him.
(his words not mine ;->) He was successful in keeping his position but we
had both lost some ground to Curtis.
It was now
time to get past to Schmale so that I could work on moving up toward Tachi. It
was attack and catch up strategy. This is the strategy of really being
aggressive in to the turns to keep a competitor looking at the mirrors. It's
called "catch up" because if you don't intimidate them enough you've
blown your entrance in to the turn and you have to get back up to speed. So
don't try this unless you have a significant performance advantage. Anyway I
was successful, Schmale went off at turn 8 and I was able to hold on to that
mistake through turn 15. Then around the ?? lap Curtis made a mistake existing
turn 15 and went off. He kept it straight but did lose momentum and I was able
to catch him by turn 14 (in two laps as we hit traffic), where I was able
to complete the past on the exit of turn 15. I wave to as I passed letting him
know that appreciate that he gave me the racing room to finish the pass. He
waved back hopefully returning the gesture, and I assumed so since it was an
open handed wave. ;->
I could now
actually see Tachi a turn or two ahead. I was thinking there was a slim chance
that I could catch him. I did have some traffic problems when I accidentally
chose the wrong path to pass an ITC rabbit in turn 5. I took the tight inside
thinking that he would go wide. He didn't and I touched his bumper causing him
to spin. (I apologized at the end and he said he was learning. Very gracious.)
I continued to try to catch Tachi in the five laps I had left. I was not able
to but did have great race thanks to John squared. I'll have the race vid up by
the end of the week.
ciao
BTW: Next
race is the first week of November, here is the schedule: http://www.sfrscca.org/Calendar/Schedule/october%2011_12_2003_schedule.pdf