Well, at least the car is in one piece. I got to figure out a lot of interesting suspension/tire bits and pieces.

The car was understeering in practice/qual on saturday, so I made a BIG change for the race, since I was behind anyways. Well, I went too far the other way, and the car was a huge handful. It was super sensitive to dips and camber changes of the pavement. I mean REALLY sensitive. Like full throttle out of turn 3, no lift, full throttle down 4, and the rear end walked out bigtime. I don't know how I gathered it up to keep from crashing or going off. Todd Reid got a good view, and so did the boys from Rosen. I dialed it back after that. The rear end was still checking out at T10. It's really a shame that I didn't have video for all this.

The problem wasn't just that it was oversteering. It was the way that it was doing it. Every little dip and camber change meant a big change in the car's attitude. Anyhow, I was just happy to survive Saturday's race in one piece.

The car was so damn loose, that I decided to screw around and enter the drift contest I did it at the last second, so I still had my Hoosiers on, and the car was still setup just like it was for the race. The contest was in the carousel, which was a horrible spot for me to try to hang the rear end out. Now if it was T10 at 90 mph or T4 at 110, no problem Anyhow, all I got was a little oversteer, and I had to get the car hauling to even get that, so I pretty much just blew through the back section in no time, deafening everyone in the process.

On to Sunday! Now that everything was all screwy on the car, I had no idea what to do. My back tires were shot, and the car was still a handful. I went out in practice to try and figure it out. I think I've finally got Hoosiers figured out. That's the good part. The bad part is that after practice, I realized my front pads were totally gone. Uh oh. I looked around for my spare Hawk Blues, and all I found were my old *** Porterfield R4S. Sheeeeit. I grabbed the wrong box from home

Todd and a few friends helped slap them on, and off I go to try and rip off 1-2 good laps. On about the 4th lap, I was going full bore for my hot lap, but caught traffic. The people watching from the grandstands probably heard me shout very loud obsenities I knew the pads wouldn't hold much longer. The pedal was getting a little long despite having nearly full pad and week old Motul.

Okay, so I try again at a hot lap, and at the end of the straight, someone parked it perpendicular to the line on the track. Fawk. I hit the brakes as hard as I could and bailed off to the left, which is a runoff road to a skidpad. Well... Here is where things get real fun. So I took the first left off the skidpad, and I see the track. A red Civic hatchback went by, and I thought it was Chad or Jack. Great, I have no idea why I can't see a corner worker though. That was question #1. Question #2 came when I pulled out onto the track. No one was around, and I had [bold]NO[/bold] ******* idea where I was. Question #3, WTF is the curbing suddenly unpainted? Question #4, how the hell did I end up on the Jefferson circuit? That's right, I managed to make it to the other circuit. I didn't know both tracks were connected by the skidpad. Oops.

Well, it didn't matter how I qualified, cuz my qualification times got DQ'ed for managing to make it out onto the Jefferson during the time trials

The pedal got real soft on the runoff road. At that point I thought it was just the street pads. So I got back in, and managed to find some Hawk Blues that Jack was selling because he uses something else now. Great! On go the new pads, and a quick brake bleed. Hmm, funny, what's this fluid on the driver's front shock? Oh ****, did I blow a shock? Well, I'll just go slow and get some points I thought. Onto grid I go.

I realized that I had forgotten to pump the brakes to get the pads up against the rotor, so I did that at my spot on grid. Uh. Why's the pedal going to the floor? Uh, why did the brake light just come on when I just filled up w/ fresh fluid? Wonderful. I pulled off and had a friend check the bleeder nipple. It was tight. The caliper seal had blown, and that's what that fluid was, not the shock.

So instead, I got to watch my first ever ECHC race. I gotta say, the view from the driver's seat is much better Congrats to Alex and Adam this weekend. So much for a strong showing at my home track.

Warren

 

Did you remember to pay the $99 entry fee for running on "the little track"?

Edit:

And that is a very good thing. It's probably cheaper to chase down braking/handling issues than fixing BIG dents.


[Modified by slowSER, 7:16 PM 6/30/2002]

 

Hey warren its ok...at least the car is in one piece and yes those mirrors do OwN AlL

I am working on the pics right now...

 

More than once I've heard people say " I went so far off, I nearly ended up on Jefferson...."

That is beautiful man.

 

sorry to bring this up in your topic but its an interesting question i think
you mentioned you didnt have the suspension set up correctly, is somthing like the TIEN EDFC allowed in the honda challange? (its an in car suspension adjuster, only adjusts the shock absortion rate but still)
heres more info
http://www.tein.com/edfc.html
i highly dobut it would stand up to that kind of abuse anyway, but just wondering

 

Not legal.

As far as the suspension not being setup correctly, it would have been a lot easier if I didn't have to take DRASTIC measures because of the understeering tendancy of higher fronts than rears.

I'll have that fixed by CMP.

Warren

 

Sorry that it got ya DQ'ed man, I heard that JJ found it quite amusing and tried to charge you for the school. You shoulda heard the corner workers calls over there "Uh control, a white Integra just pulled out onto the course from the Skidpad" WTF?? "Uh control, there's this white Integra and it doesn't have an instructor in it."



[Modified by Dragon, 2:42 AM 7/1/2002]

 

Warren,

So, uh, when are you gonna get around to telling us the full story? What is this drastic stuff?

Scott, who has never experienced such surprises save for the occassional tire going off.....

 

Tough man, sorry to hear of the problems. Guess you know how I felt at CMP...it sucks!!!

 

i figured
thanks
good luck next time.