I was doing DE1 there this weekend. I was wondering where you guys track out on C1? It wasn’t until session 3 on sunday that I realized I was going in way to slow. I was apexing late but staying in pretty tight until 2. Road Atlanta is definitely an awesome track. I was told I should be in DE3 on session 2 of saturday but there was no room to move up. I just registered for DE3 at VIR in july. Hopefully they won’t move me down to 2. I hope to be doing TT at RA in August and then comp school at NCCAR if all goes well. I barely made it home sunday night. My temp got up to 3/4 just before I got onto I-95. I pulled into a gas station and pissed a puddle out of my water pump, the one spare part I forgot at the house. After I let it cool I was down 5 quarts. I filled it up and managed to make it the next 110 miles back home. I was also down on power when I left and louder than usual. I thought maybe it was broken rockers but they all look fine. I may get my brother to build me a motor which I’m sure will be spectacular.
Road Atlata Race Results
As you approach T1 get all the way over on the left. You’ll see how the track’s left edge starts angling in towards the turn earlier then your turn-in point. Figure out how to use every inch of that track width to not only get your turn-in point outboard, but to also get your car rotated a little early. That is to say, since the left edge of the track angles in towards the turn, if you car is parallel to the left edge, then your car is already rotated towards the turn a little.
At speed your turn-in point will be a little on the early side. This is because there isn’t much traction before the turn’s apex so the car will drift a fair amount early in the turn. It will take some time to build up enough confidence to go in fast.
There is tons of traction as the road pitches up just after the apex. There is a fair amount of traction in the up hill section aftwards. So when your heading for the apex it should feel like you’ve early apexed the turn and can’t possibly survive. Then the traction just after the apex should come to your rescue and make it all work.
Stay away from the last foot or two of track width at turn exit. Rubber worms tend to accumulate there so the traction can be iffy. You do want to track out, just don’t intentionally track out all the way to the left side gator.
Sorry about the engine. You could probably get by with a headgasket, waterpump & gasket, and a carefull check to see if your head made it thru unscathed. Might has well have the head refreshed too. If you really want a new motor, I’d consider getting a junkyard motor and putting it in. Cheap and not too difficult. Having a non-M20 specialist building a motor is an iffy proposition. I speak from experience.
Gents,
I had a great time driving the “Fish Tank” in my first weekend of Spec E30 racing. It was awesome meeting all of you; I appreciate the warm welcome and all of the tips and tricks especially from Robert, Chuck and Scott. Racing on Saturday didn’t go all that well for me, but I’m pretty happy with my showing on Sunday. The “lucky bump” moved me from 6th to 4th. Unfortunately, both Robert and Laura got around me before turn one. Yeah, not too impressive on my part… After completely falling asleep on the last lap restart, I managed to catch up to the back of the pack as they duked it out in the esses. I tried to pass Laura in 7, but just couldn’t make it. After, faking a inside pass in 10A, I positioned myself on the inside in 10B, we raced up the hill, and I just completed passing Laura while crossing the finish line in 5th position. That last lap was the most fun I’ve had in a long time and I can’t wait to race again. I’ll see you guys back at RA in August. Thanks again!
Laszlo wrote:
[quote]it. Luckily I got back on track in 9th and worked my way up to 7th enjoying an exchange with Fred over the last 3 laps.
Lets see some video!![/quote]
I’ve got good video (well, it’s good until the part where you get back past me and disappear into the distance…)
I’ll try to post it to Vimeo.
turbo329is wrote:
In race mode, you will see almost everyone track out to the curbing or pretty close to it. With a lot of seat time, you get comfortable tracking all the way out then having to hustle the car back to the right to set up for T3.
In a DE setting there is no need to protect against a pass there, so you might as well swing to the right coming up the hill so you are nice and straight for a brush of the brakes to set up for 3. In a race, I will always track all the way out. Sometimes I need all the track I can get, other times when I have overslowed on entry I just let the car run out there to avoid scrubbing speed by trying to get the car to turn a tighter radius.
When you enter T1 there is a slight curve to the left edge of the pavement just after turn in. It is the perfect place for the rear to swing out as you trail brake in. The penalty for missing it by a few inches is huge though (gravel, walls, etc.). Don’t try that move unless there is a $5 NASA beer stein on the line. :laugh:
Here is my Saturday race video. http://vimeo.com/12770823 I welcome and appreciate any critiques, whether helpful (from those who still race Spec E30) or snarky (from IndyJim).
Steve D wrote:
P1? More like PU… you suck through T7. You’d be alot fastr if you weren’t so slow.
Maybe next time u should have more cords and wires danggling at your feet. Have you ever hear of a zip-tie? I’m pretty sure the CCR require wires to be neatly tied up. If I was racing and forgot to show up on grid (the only reason you’d finish ahead of me), I’d protest your @ss
Steve D wrote:
I had a question about your first video. What did you mean by radios for the restart? Did the Walsh/Laszlo crew have someone with view of the green flag talk on the radio to them to say green flag and you didn’t hence they got the huge jump on you?
Of course not, that could never happen. There is absolutely no reason to buy radios. Save your money for Beer!
Speed Secret… watching the flag stands works wonders!!
Ok so heres the deal on Lako’s car, he had a great run going and we had an excellent pit stop. We were running traqmate so we could later overlay our laps and compare notes. I made about 2 or 3 laps, the car felt fine but traqmate showed that I was turning around 2 seconds a lap slower than his best time. On this particular lap it showed +0.0 going into 7 so I was trying to get a good run for the back straight and hopefully beat his time.
I still have not figured out exactly why it all started but I know I should not have tried to drive out of it.
Open for ideas , tips , ridicule or whatever!!
No ridicule from me. That’s exactly where I got into the same wall in December '08. You did manage about an additional 90* of rotation before impact and came out much better off than I did. At least I did it in my own car. 
Matt
Hello David. Have seen your videos before. You are an excellent driver, on the edge but under control. However, this time you went over the edge. The video seems to show that you brought too much speed into the turn. The rear starts comming around at your turn in. Trying to power through trouble was a late gamble that did not pay off. The mistake was not your driving, it was your mental purpose. Let speed come to you because you do everything right (most of the time…)…
IAP wrote:
#1. I get this a lot too.
#2. Y’know, I told you to quit talking to my wife.
Am full of one-liners this morning.
After watching my video’s and looking at my traqmate data for hours I have figured out why I was to slow this weekend. It was a lack of motivation. For the August race I am going to get motivated BAMA style. I going to put a crate of shine in the spare tire area for both weight and motivation. That way I will be motivated to get the hell away from the car on my back side. :laugh: Just don’t bump draft me to hard and break the mason jars due to the large fireball and red flag that will come out afterwords.
I dynoed the fish tank last night. Best of four pulls was 148 HP and 146 ftlb. Ill post synopsis sheets when the moderator permits.
YouTube link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qxtUVjccrE&feature=youtube_gdata
Richard:
If your car is that week on power and were still able to put distance on every other car in the backstretch that has higher dyno numbers that I smell a 4.10 rear. 
Hmmmm, I don’t think those numbers are out of line for 168 at the flywheel. What kind of numbers are other cars showing on the dynojet?