Catch 22

Did the PCA at Road Atlanta this weekend. It was a roller coaster kind of a weekend for me.

First, even though I am from Atlanta, due to scheduling conflicts, etc., I had not been on the track since early '99 and boy did it show. I was totally lost on Saturday morning. No rythym and completely unaggressive. I wasn't scared (and believe me, it's easy to get scared at R.A.), just uncomfortable.

Being slow Saturday morning ended up being a double curse... as I started to get my legs back under me and started getting faster... I ended up in a situation where NOBODY would point me by. I was getting held up everywhere and could not get into any sort of rythym. I was getting my confidence back, I just couldn't put an unhindered lap together.
At one point this jackass in an E36 M3 ignored 4 (yes, FOUR) passing flags before finally pointing me by after the fifth one. This was in the instructor and solo advanced student group folks... I was getting NO respect out there. I was trying not to let it **** me off, but I was, uhhh, getting pissed off.

Finally, on Sunday morning I started getting my act together. The confidence came back and the usual aggressive tendencies came back with it. I started just plain driving the **** out of the car and folks started to notice. I started getting some of Adam's (phatS) favorite point-bys and was able to get in some fairly fast laps. The best lap anyone timed me at was a 1:47.7 which is a fairly respectable lap at Road Atlanta.
The front running ITS guys are turning 42s and 43s, so I have some work to do, but I'm happy with 47s for now.

As a side note, I STILL can't manage to get a decent top end. It just seems to run out of breath at 120mph. I can't figure it out, it should be stronger than that. The top ITA CRX Sis are doing a little better than that and the top ITS cars are KILLING that speed. Many are in the 130s.
As an example, I could easily pass my friend Sammy's 325is exiting turn 7 and put several car lengths on him, but by the time we got to the black flag station he had caught back up to meand was actually in a position to pass.
It simply won't pull in 5th gear. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero.
Any ideas?

Trey

Sounds like you had a blast. That track really is alot of fun. About your topping out problem, maybe changing your final gear in the tranny would help you. Just a thought.....

Catch 22

My car is a GSR with a 4.78 final drive. 4th gear redlines at 112mph.

This was my first time at R.A. with the new final drive and I almost had a little "incident" because of it.
With the stock final drive, I could flatfoot it in 4th gear all the way down the hill and through turn 12. I mindlessly tried that this weekend and hit the rev limiter just past the apex of 12. Anybody who has ever driven RA can get a pretty good idea of the immediate hand full I had when that happened... Left side suspension fully loaded, nice 4 wheel drift, 112+mph, and the engine cuts out.
I saved it, more of a matter of luck than skill.
At any rate, I now feather the throttle a bit just before I turn in to 12. That way I'm not hitting over 8 grand until track out.

madhatter

Well, you put in a different final drive, it puts you a little farther down for the 4-5 shift...
Scott, don't feel too bad. On that back stretch I was only able to break 130 when drafting. Without someone to tow me around, I was struggling to break into fifth at 122. (Yes, that was with a stock FD and full interior, but that is a big difference) In a crowd of IT racers, you are gonna get pulled right along.
Oh yeah, and at least you are at redline in 4th for turn 12 instead of 3rd like I was...


[Modified by madhatter, 8:59 AM 6/25/2001]

Hracer

Yeah, it does get frustrating not getting clear laps especially knowing that the guy holding you up is slower. I didn't have such a good experience with the PCA earlier at the Talladega event either, so that's why I'm doing the july 14th track day at R.A. instead.

Scott, what wheels and tires are you using? That plays a big difference in the "indicated" top speed. On the 225 Hoosiers dry tires, I can only hit 117 from the 200 marker and I think it's right at 120 if braking from the 100 marker (never looked) with the CRX. With a set of smaller tires, I would see 120 from almost the 300 marker. So your indicated speed on Hoosiers could be actually slower than your actual speed, as it is in our case. Drafting also helps pick up speed although I never saw an increase of more than 2-3 mph even if right on the bumper of another car for the whole straight.

The final drive you have may also play part of the problem. Holding 4th with the stock final drive should definitely give you more speed. But then again, now you probably have more revs going up 1 in 4th than you did in 4th with the stock final drive. Some tracks actually do not favor shorter final drives as we noticed with the CRX at Roebling.

Brett@SoloRacer.com

Ouch, hitting the rev limiter at the apex of 12 would not be fun. That turn scares me just thinking about it. Here's me in 12 with some sort of Chevy on my a$$

Catch 22

I agree with everything you said Alex. But my Hoosiers are almost the exact same outside diameter as the stock tires (195/55/15), so the indicated speedometer speed is pretty damned close. A friend in a Mitsu 3000GT VR4 was wasting my *** on the back straight and his speedo indicated a touch over 130mph.
I also sent Dave S. an email asking what kind of speed he's getting in his SSB GSR. I'm betting it's better than what I'm getting. If that's the case, I know for sure that I have a giddy-up problem.

I like the higher final drive at RA. The car definately pulls better up the hills at 1 and 5. Haven't been to Roebling with it yet.

I'm thinking the new rings simply aren't seated, maybe one is even worse than the others... who knows. At this point I just plan to run it for the rest of the year as-is and let Tom tear the motor down this winter.

Hracer

I believe that at the national race this April the winning SSB car, which was a GSR was turning 49s. It was on Kumhos and I'm guessing it has the stock final drive. Also, Mike Cottrell in his new ITS Del Sol vtec ran 45s at the last Pro-It, with the top winning ITS car in the 44s. It's true that Mike's Del Sol still has the untouched original engine, but then again he can also drive the wheels off any car. Don't forget to take into account the track conditions. The 41s and 42s that the ITS guys run happen only at the ARRC in cool November weather. So I think you're ok the way you're running now.


[Modified by Hracer, 12:28 AM 6/26/2001]

Catch 22

Thanks Alex.
I'm pretty sure Skultety is turning 49s in his SSB car and he's a mighty good driver. I hear he won the latest national at Daytona.
As it turns out I likely popped some 46s in there as well based on some videotape from a car that was chasing me, so I'm feeling better.

GSRMatt

I met Dave at Daytona, he was actually racing against the Contour SVT I was crewing for in SSB. I think he finished 2nd or 3rd, we came in 4th with some motor trouble. It was won by a yellow 99+ Miata. We did better in the Enduro after replacing a bad cat, leading it outright until our fuel stop where we had some trouble, ended up 2nd in class and maybe 5th overall.

Why not pay $70 (or whatever 3 pulls is worth up your way) and put it on a dyno to check for sure? I think GRM is actually hosting a dyno day up near you sometime soon, $50 for an hours worth of tuning. Sounds like it just hasn't run right since its been apart, some hard data would help you narrow it down.

Catch 22

I guess I could put it on a dyno, but I'm thinking it would just confirm what I already know.

Dave returned my email today. His SSB car is getting the same speed on the back straight as mine. Houston... we have a problem.

slow_civic

i had the problem of slow cars at the even i ran here in memphis. the track here has a drag strip with a long runoff that's part of the road coarse, so all the cars with more horsepower would pull away from me while on the other side of the course i'd catch up to everyone. this was very frustrating, so, i know how you feel.