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...
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.