Another day at the track, Not to shabby... Options

[campbellcj]

Another gorgeous SoCal day in the high desert. In the morning it was mid-30's and a bit windy (brrr), but after the sun came up and the wind died down, perfect.

I beat my personal best at the Streets of Willow by .7 secs. We were running counter-clockwise today, which is generally thought to be a bit faster than clockwise. In my case, it definitely was. I used 5th gear all the way down the front straight and was well over 100mph even in my "slow" car. In timed runs, I was a bit slower than my fastest pace of the day, but was almost identical to my timed runs from the last event -- which is pretty good news I suppose (consistency).

Other than my crappy Kumho tires, which I bought full-tread and am now having squirming, greasiness and marble/migration issues with, no drama with my car. It pulled hard and hooked up pretty well all day. I still may have a brake bias issue but it could be the tires too -- the car feels great under power but is very squirrely under hard braking.

Oh yeah...I did miss 1 shift, grabbing 2nd instead of 4th for a split-second. Fortunately I reacted very quickly and didn't fully engage the clutch; no detectable damage...whew.

There were at least 4 new lap records set today, including the overall track record of 1:09.6 set by John "Otto" Williamson in the "Rudy" white 914-6 beast. The car recently returned from some dyno tuning at Jerry Wood's shop, and is also sporting new JRZ's and a few other tweaks. It is scary fast -- he says there is a lot left in the car, and plans to see a 1:07 lap by the end of the year. (Bear in mind that's 15 seconds a lap quicker than I'm turning in a 2.4/four car - yikes). Congrats Otto... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/clap56.gif)

Nope, I didn't win my class. The only other car was not a POC regular that I seriously doubt really belonged in my class. My car is maxed out on mod points, and this guy had a bigger engine (easily 70hp on me), more brakes, more tires, and ran about 4-5 secs a lap quicker than me all day. Oh well; he's not running for championship points AFAIK. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool_shades.gif)

[J P Stein]

I assume you finished 2nd in class,eh?

Are these time trials or actual racin'?

[campbellcj]

Yep, 2nd out of 2 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif) Even with ~100 cars (5 run groups) the class breakdown is fine enough in POC where many of them have 0-3 cars.

Actually today was a little bit extra "interesting". There were gobs of students invited by Pacific Porsche (the old Vasek Polak dealership) to drive their new 986/996 cars. Most of these guys had brand new cars and zero track experience. I was asked to instruct and politely declined...shortly thereafter, there was a near-mishap between a 993tt and a Boxster "S".

There was also a pair of young furrin' guys with a modded 996tt. Apparently it had a light switch throttle/turbo setup; prolly 500hp or so, who knows. First time these guys had ever driven in a performance setting (not even autox). Holy schmoly. Good thing those cars have some serious BRAKES.

This is time-trial stuff. POC has 3 types of events. This is the "slowest" one, although as I mentioned, I was doing about 105 (indicated) and some cars (Otto) significantly more. He said he was at the top of his short 5th gear, turning 8200 rpm's (in a 3.8RSR powered 914), at the end of the front straight...woohoo