Well I've driven at Summit Point now off and on since about 1992 and this weekend was the first time I've gone all four wheels off there. First session out in the Advanced group, we got the opportunity to warm up the track. It felt about 10 degrees to me - but I hate the cold so.. Anyway. Rock hard race rubber in cold weather with too much air in the back tires didn't do much to improve on my boneheaded maneuvers to recover from a spin. A few laps in, not quite completely warmed up I overcooked (could anything be termed overcooked in that weather?) turn three - Scott Willard probably got a nice view of the whole thing too as he was right behind me. As the back started to come around I applied a generous amount of power which managed to void any remaining grip I had in the back of the car. I've done this before in three and always managed to power out of it before, but didn't happen.. Second move was to lift too quickly when I realized I lost it, appropriately causing the car to hook up pointed towards the trees on the left of the track.

I had alot of time to think in that moment. First was, "gee - I wonder what the tow bill is going to be to get back to Virginia Beach? This is going to be bad.." I was visualizing the crumpled metal of the front of my car and hood - thinking that this just wasn't gonna be good at all. I managed to straighten the car up a little as I approached the tree line so I was headed again towards the flag station before four. As I noticed all those boulders ahead of me (I had no idea there were so many outcrops of rock over there!) and started to hit them tossing the car up in the air - I thought "Hey, it's a good thing I unplugged that airbag!" I finally stopped just past the flag station before four, wondering just how badly I messed up my car.

I was able to drive back to the paddock without any problems fortunately. I found twigs and leaves in the car, and stuck to the door handle.. scratches on the roof of the car from hitting branches. After getting it up on jackstands, and prying all the mud and grass away from the steering rack and k-member, as well as removing peices of rock embedded into the suspension.. all appeared well aside from a majorly thunked k-member and several dents underbody. Steering rack hoses were bent up pretty badly, but nothing leaking. I even managed to bend the oil pressure sending unit up without causing anything to start leaking or breaking.

The rest of the weekend went much better - with no more detours! I had a great time, and thanks to all the NASA officials and workers for keeping a watchful eye on us all!

dale

 

What happened to the WRX???

 

Well - several things made me come to the decision to get rid of it. I had made alot of mods to it - in the end it was putting down about 285HP at the wheels (dyno'd at TurboXS). It was the EGTs that were hauting me... I ditched the UniChip and went with a LINK ECU in an attempt to make things better. It helped, but seeing 1750F on the EGT gauge on the back straight at VIR just gave me the heebie jeebies.. THAT and coupled with the fact that car had NO power except in about a 1500 RPM power band. Sure it was fast, but no fun to drive around town unless it was spinning 6000RPM. So let me list the reasons

1) EGTs
2) Very expensive to modify
3) Everything has to come from a AU or JP on a boat
4) Poor power curve
5) Very expensive to modify
6) Difficult to work on, everything is inaccessable.
7) See 1 through 6

I guess I have always been a fan of raw power, having been in a Mustang for years and years.... so it's what I went back to. And it's CHEAP! (well, relatively speaking).

dale

 

Dale I have talked to you a bunch online but never met you, I had no idea that I was paddocked next to you! Should have stopped by and said hi
beautiful mustang by the way!

the reasons you list (in addition to reliability) are the reasons my turbo and boost level will stay bone stock forever.

 

Your car looked very sexy (excellent choice), good thing you didnt mangle it too badly on the rocks (or yourself for that matter). What happened to you is probably the best learning experience possible - scared, but no damage.

 

Thanks.. I was gonna say hi.. but we usually seemed to be going different directions.. though I think I spoke with just about everyone else over there in your little group. I seem to recall seeing you in my rear view mirror a couple times

dale

 

Stangs are cool, and cheap, and easy to own. Not as fun to toss around as Hondas, but cool nonetheless...I have always wanted to get my mom's GT out on track.

 

Dale will just never get away from Mustangs in the long run, is what it really comes down to.....

How ya doing, Dale? I haven't seen you in forever!!

Karen

 

Yeah i saw homeboy coming back on the track really slowly right ahead of me in the carousel (this was when my car was still in one peice)... I got really worried when i saw how off-line and slow he was going...

RJ - who thinks summit in november sucks

 

Hey, Dale....Joe here (with the green 240sx)

Did you get any video posted of your "fun ride"? Glad that nothing major was hurt, and that you still got to run the whole rest of the weekend.

joe

 

I wish. I figured, first run of the the day on Saturday - nothing eventful will happen... nope, no video.

dale

 

Dale and I walked out to that turn later and he was very surprised how far he had gone off track. It is amazing how much ground you cover in a short period of time at track speeds. I also had my first off ever in an HPDE type event. In a Saturday session I over shot breaking on turn 5 and put 2 wheels off on the outside of the exit of the turn. On Sunday I had my most "exciting" moment in all my years at Summit Point as I had a failure in the left front suspension at the kink at the top of the chute. I turned and the car went straight. I barely missed the tires and concrete wall. I managed to limp the car around to turn 7 where I pulled into the access road. I found a spare bolt and fixed the car just fine to drive home.

 

Glad to finally meet you, Calvin....and I'm glad my brother didn't scare you too much!!!

I had my most exciting moment on track ever too. Only as passenger/instructor. I think Mark summed it up in another thread - but as we went into the chute, there was a yellow, and traffic was almost stopped. A big lift before the car was straight, and we went tail left. Mark caught it, it came back right, and I saw the back of a yellow ITR WAY too close. Mark caught it again, it came back left. We started to really spin then as we left the turn heading for the embankment, and the white M3 parked in the dirt (reason for the yellow). I don't know how, but as the tail swung, we missed the M3. It was DAMN close. Came to rest just a bit off the dirt berm - way inside the carosel. PHEW! Worst thought, was thinking of wrecking not only the student's car - but someone else's at the same time.

Glad you got the 7 back together tho!

joe

 

That was a really a hairy scene. Did anyone have a chat with the first driver that slowed down so much when Channing went off? I know I would have liked to but I'm not sure who it was. BTW, I was two cars back from you, Joe.

Joel

PS. Now YOU are building a race car too? I think I'm gonna be the only NASA instructor left thats NOT racing. Maybe its time to start hassling the Advanced drivers about stepping up to instruct?

 

Since Bob bought the 240Z I suspect its not long before he goes over to the Dark Side too

Joel

 

what what whaaaaaaat? man, you need a hybrid CRX with a 220 whp B20/vtec!
$1500 crx
$3000 suspension and wheels
$5000 motor
whipping by everyone on the track... priceless.

 

I didn't really notice what car was in front of the ITR that was in our face. After seeing the ITR butt, I looked for the opening and prayed that we made it there.

How close were we to the ITR, and to the M3 in the dirt, since it sounded like you had a good view? I could have sworn we were going to hit the M3. I even braced for it.

As for the race car - yeah, I think I wanna try my hand at it. We'll see. I just hope that NASA doesn't fully yank all of us racing from instructing. I can see Dan's point - but I'm just as worried about my car running in the instructor session as in a race.

joe

 

I was thinking about trying the instructor clinic in february, however i'm not sure if i'll be back on track at that point.

RJ

 

Glad to see you made it in here, Calvin.

I'm glad that all of you with incidents this weekend come out of them as well as you did. I, of course, don't like to hear about these at all, as I'm still a somewhat wet-behind-the-ears student. (First time at Summit Point with some very fast cars around me in Intermediate. Hope I didn't hold too many of you up!) They are definitely what keeps me on the conservative side. The only one that I witnessed was the white BMW/Mark's 240 spectacular off in 5. I don't think I saw any yellows at all when I came down through the chute in the car behind Mark's. This incident was a result of just being there at the wrong time, before the T4 flagger had time to react. Very frightening for me to watch, but I'm glad there was no real harm done, aside from a 'grassy' interior. Anyways, I had a real hoot this weekend, and I look forward to VIR in February!

Thanks, Calvin for all the great instruction!

 

I may sign up for that. I'm on the fence about instructing at this point.. other people driving makes me nervous

dale

 

i'll have to see how i feel in february. I may want to go back out on track for a few events in the "intermediate" group.