SCCA Time Trial National Tour at CMP.

It was hotter than 7 hells this weekend. Saturday was 96, Sunday was 99. Other than that, it was a fun weekend.

I ended up driving the G35 into the ground.

Tires? Done. The rears were pretty worn at the start of the event and were bad enough by the end of Saturday it was almost impossible to keep any kind of pace. Luckily one of the locals was coming up to the track Saturday evening. I had him bring me my last tire that had any life left in it and swapped it on Sunday morning. Saturdays Time Attack runs were in the 2:05 range. After the tire swap I got those down under 2 minutes. Lesson learned, next time it will be going out on a new set of tires. 

Brakes? Done. The Power Stop Track Day pads can take the abuse and never let me down. I had zero fade problems and there is plenty of life left in them. But, there is a substantial amount of uneven pad transfer at this point. I'll have to study the brake situation and make some changes. It's probably time for some cooling ducts and maybe a different pad. The car is heavy and the brakes are letting me know it.

It was hot enough that I even was fighting engine temps to an extent. After two or three hot laps I would have to do a cool down lap to give the engine a chance to cool off.  It never overheated, but it would go from just under half on the gauge to 3/4s.

Apparently RE71s don't particularly like the heat either. After 4-6 laps they were so greasy there was no reason to stay out and melt them down more. I usually made my hot laps, did a cool down lap and parked it. 

All in it was a fun time. I ended up in 5th in S3 out of 7 and 64th overall out of 98 for the weekend. Not great, but I was fighting the lack of rear grip all day Saturday and only managed one track sprint run due to fuel staving. The G35 burned 3/4 of a tank of gas Saturday. Note to self, fuel up the car Saturday night. 

I did get bumped from the advance to intermediate 1 after the first run group. There were almost 40 cars in advanced. All of them were substantially faster than several of us. They moved the 3 slower cars to intermediate to open up the advanced group and put us in a group with cars more equal to our speeds. It made life easier on all of us. Smart move from the event staff. 

Speaking of that, a big shout out goes to the event staff. They did a great job of keeping things moving. Everything happened on time. Good food was provided on Friday and Saturday nights. Well done and very professional. Thanks a bunch!

Another big shout out to my fellow drivers. All of you were outstanding to be on course with. I had zero issues all weekend. 

If you are considering running one of these, do it. It's worth it.

Sitting in grid. 

Braking zone for turn one. 

A little better shot of the car. Poto credit, Tradd's Photos. 

I saw you out there!, Looked like you were going A LOT faster than the 80mph you'd previously mentioned through the kink!

I was one of the others bumped from advanced, and I too made the mistake of showing up with pretty worn tires.  Car handled ok on them, but was WAAAY slow.  I think the combo of Heat+worn tires was a killer!

I had a great time at the event, and I'll def. be back.  My only somewhat negative comment would be that SCCA should provide a little more guidance to everyone on how to space themselves on the out lap in a TT event.  When the lead cars are running full tilt and already around before half of the field is even on track, that's not great for setting good times for anyone.  By the end of the second day it got better, but...

(I and the guy grid in front of me on a pretty reasonably paced and bunched outlap both got passed by the same driver w/o a point during session 1 on Sunday.  We both had to slow up for him on the first hot lap and both of us were past him by turn 8.  Not a big deal, but when track temp is approaching 140 deg, you only get one maybe 2 laps to run a flyer, and it never should have happened...)

Completely unrelated - I talked to one of the SCCA guys about how the run groups were established, and we pretty much agreed that there really no perfect way to do it, but short of strict licensing requirements(which is the opposite of their mission) it's better the way they do it by experience than by car class.  Even if it leads to huge disparities in car capabilities on track at the same time, it's better than a first timer in a ZL1 on track with a race champion.

I was there too!

In reply to red_stapler :

I technically won a first place trophy too, but I was the only one in my class.  Considering how slow I was, I didn't deserve it and left before the presentations on Sunday.  Congrats on the DESERVED win!

cbaclawski said:

(I and the guy grid in front of me on a pretty reasonably paced and bunched outlap both got passed by the same driver w/o a point during session 1 on Sunday.  We both had to slow up for him on the first hot lap and both of us were past him by turn 8.  Not a big deal, but when track temp is approaching 140 deg, you only get one maybe 2 laps to run a flyer, and it never should have happened...)

 

Red Miata perchance? I talked to him and he mentioned he passed someone on the outlap. I suggested he might want to wait until the green flag before doing that.

Toyman01 said:

cbaclawski said:

(I and the guy grid in front of me on a pretty reasonably paced and bunched outlap both got passed by the same driver w/o a point during session 1 on Sunday.  We both had to slow up for him on the first hot lap and both of us were past him by turn 8.  Not a big deal, but when track temp is approaching 140 deg, you only get one maybe 2 laps to run a flyer, and it never should have happened...)

 

Red Miata perchance? I talked to him and he mentioned he passed someone on the outlap. I suggested he might want to wait until the green flag before doing that.

LOL, I can neither confirm nor deny, but yeah it was a red miata...   Nothing to get worked up over, I wasn't setting any records anyway...

In reply to cbaclawski :

He's a good guy.  More used to a Lemons/Champ car race than a TT. 

I feel like they should go over spacing in the drivers meeting.  Something like "stay ~80 pct and bunched till turn 11, then go, one at a time, so everybody is on track, has space, and is at full speed for lap 2"

I can see how it is difficult with such a disparity in laptimes, and big attendance.  I don't mean to complain, I had a great time, and got a small taste of competition I don't usually get at track days!

(I also think it might be a good idea to assign grid based on class for the first session in each group before we have times.  It might have helped in that first advanced session that took almost the entire session to get sorted - I didn't get any "traffic free" laps, either from overtaking or being overtaken, and was then grid by the extremely slow time I did manage.)

So I had the opportunity to try out one of the Apex Pro gizmos.  It's every bit as cool as JG made it out to be.  I'd highly recommend trying one if you're trying to figure out where you're missing out on some laptime.  

In reply to red_stapler :

I didn't test it out on purpose.  I already have an Aim Solo 2, which I barely scratch the surface of what it can do.  I didn't want to NEED the Apex Pro!

One of the local guys tried it out Saturday and will probably be buying one. 

red_stapler said:

So I had the opportunity to try out one of the Apex Pro gizmos.  It's every bit as cool as JG made it out to be. 

Right?

It may not be the most comprehensive data tool out there, but it gets mad bonus points for ease of use and user friendliness. All the data in the world doesn't matter if it's clumsy and slow to access and hard to interpret.

Although, I would really, really like OBDII connectivity. If the unit could also give me a throttle trace it would be hands down the best thing out there right now.

JG Pasterjak said:

Although, I would really, really like OBDII connectivity. If the unit could also give me a throttle trace it would be hands down the best thing out there right now.

Agreed!  I think it'd be relatively simple for them to add an OBDII adapter into their software suite, and Andrew kinda hinted at something like that.

Photos from the weekend are up at https://traddsphotos.smugmug.com/2019-Time-Trials