VIR 10/09 the most infamous smack talk thread ever

#21

Just checked the weather.

Take your rains…

Carter

#22

BHey wrote:

We have just enough money in the Spec E30 account to finish the season with a cookout.

However, it might be raining, and our races are at 12:50 and 3:15.

Weather permitting, we can eat from about 1:30 to 2:15.

'Sound good to everyone?

Carter

#23

the report on Friday here at VIR is pretty negative :frowning: . Some of the worst driving I’ve ever seen during test n tune, especially by the 944s. I had one exit the pits and move over the blend line right in front of me. Both afternoon sessions had a few wrecks and both sessions were cut way short for no apparent reason.
The 12 car definitely has some kind of alignment issue. We’re going to check it tonite and hopefully find the issue or our race tomorrow will be over before it starts.
Carlton is testing out some ra1s. He broke into the 19s this morning. Comp school is still in progress and as far as I know the e30s are still going strong. :slight_smile:

looks like rain tomorrow

#24

Whew. What a day.
Lots to report but just the results for now:

Race 1:

  1. Cobetto
  2. R. Allen
  3. Hunt

Race 2:

  1. J. Allen
  2. Bennett
  3. R. Allen

'09 championship final standings:

  1. Cobetto
  2. R. Allen
  3. Bennett
  4. Davidson
#25

Robert, thank you for the update and for reporting the happenings within MA.Congratulations on your #2 finish in the MA region.

Regards, Robert Patton

Further reports?
The season with MA is complete. Any racers comming to join the SE events at CMP in November, RA in December?

#26

[quote]Further reports?
The season with MA is complete. Any racers comming to join the SE events at CMP in November, RA in December? [/quote]

Thanks RP and everyone at the track for your congratulations.
I always feel like the stuff going on in the MA is too interesting to go unreported. I’ll have something written and the videos up tomorrow or the next day. Unfortunately that was probably my last race until the summer :(…

#27

After a tough season with the car I finally tracked down my crazy sputtering issue to the diagnostic cap! Don’t ask me how I figured it out but it was the problem I have been chasing all season. I’m more than happy with 4th in the points especially with the talent in the MA region. It gets better and better with every race. Good job guys. Great weekend although I had a tough finish on Saturday after qualifying first. I was leading coming into hogpen and Johhny went to give me a little bump but unfortunately the bump caused my rear toe hook to get stuck in his front end. Never seen this happen before it was pretty strange. It felt like I was towing a trailer lol. The second race I was battling for the lead on the third lap and tried to play chicken into 1 with Chris but apparently you can’t brake at the 3 cone and still make the turn. I got back on track and finished 4th. In the IFU me an skip worked together to pick up a couple of positions until my left front wheel started to come off (damn spacers) so that was the end of that race. I had a lot of fun and proved a couple things to myself this weekend that will hopefully help me in the future so I’m happy. Everyone did a great job and I’m pleased with the level of driving that the MA region has reached.

I’ll post a video soon

cheers,

#28

This thread is worthless without videos…Well not entirely. Robert mentioned he’d get his video up soon. Mike did you shoot any? Video that is :lol:

Don

#29

Thanks, Mike. Can you tell me more about the “diagnostic cap” problem that you chased all season?

I’ll add it to my file of things to chase all season…like a loose crankshaft vibration damper and a bad fuel injector wiring harness.

Regards, Robert (those are my excuses) Patton

#30

allenr wrote:

I always feel like the stuff going on in the MA is too interesting to go unreported.

Very true!
Mid Atlantic has the fastest race group.
However, this message board has not been…Let’s just say the frequency of post from MA are less than they used to be.

So, send us the stuff as we can learn from your on-track experiences and paddock maintenance discoveries.

RP

#31

ive got a repor but the videos didnt save properly, so i think ill save the written stuff and post both at the same time. I’m not going to be able to upload them until i get home this friday :(.

So c’mon mike, put 'em up!

#32

Here’s a video from the first race on Saturday
http://www.vimeo.com/7075409

The diagnostic cap on the big bumper cars has 5 pins inside of it that act as a jumper for certain circuits in the factory harness. Finding info on the purpose of the jumpers is damn near impossible. You can figure out what pins the jumpers connect but figuring out the circuitry beyond that is beyond me. With the cap off the car runs fine. With the cap on the car will act like its hitting rev limiter at 3800rpm under full throttle. The problem steadily got worse throughout the season but it finally got bad enough that I decided to take the car down to Dave Pallister. He hooked up his diagnostic equipment and found that the car had an “Internal ECU Fault” so I replaced the ECU. The entire time the car was at the shop it was running great! I got home and the car was still running great and then I noticed the diagnostic cap was still off. I put it on and took the car for a spin and the problem was back. Took the cap off and voila the problem was gone. I know that some of the pins that are jumped have to do with the main ignition power and ecu signal but I still can’t figure out the intended purpose of the jumpers. Dave said that he remembered replacing some diagnostic caps in the early 90’s on E30’s that were having similar problems. There was supposedly a certain run of caps that would degrade over time and cause intermittent problems. All I know is that the car runs fine with the pins removed from the diagnostic cap. Something to check next time your car starts acting funny.

cheers,

#33

Nice video mike, it must have been strange getting hooked like that. Wow, you showed a lot of enthusiam on that last lap ;)!

Are you going to post race 2?

#34

allenr wrote:

Nice video mike, it must have been strange getting hooked like that. Wow, you showed a lot of enthusiam on that last lap ;)!

Are you going to post race 2?[/quote]

Haha yea I was excited that my master plan was actually working!

I’ll post the second vid when I get around to it. I have been trying to get the forward and rear video synced together but have had some issues. I play around with it some more this weekend.

#35

Great video Mike, unfortunate last corner. Was there an incident on track? You were only on the track 15 mins.

#36

Elephant4 wrote:

Nope we had two short point races on Saturday and a 1 hour race on Sunday.

#37

MikeD wrote:

[quote]
Nope we had two short point races on Saturday and a 1 hour race on Sunday.[/quote]

Got ya, we did something similiar in our region. Are you done for the season? There are a few us making the trek down to Road Atlanta in Dec, would be cool to have some of of MA folks down there as well.

#38

[size=4]Leading Off…[/size]




The final race weekend of our season had a different format. Both points races would be on Saturday, with one qualifying to determine the grid for both, and no practice. From a results point of view, my purpose for racing this weekend was to beat Skip. It’s that simple. He was 20 points ahead of me for second in the championship points. Cobetto was basically uncatchable, and MikeD and Jonny were 40 or so behind me. I didn’t know how I would hold up physically with my mono since I had basically been asleep for a week straight leading up to the race. But I hoped I’d at least be able to finish the races without falling asleep at the wheel :unsure:.

FRIDAY

On Friday, a few guys showed up with RA1s. Carlton did some testing with alignment and pressures. Skip had a fresh set of RA1s shaved almost to the cord. So much for the gentlemens agreement… luckily we had the toyo bucks to splurge for a new set of 888s, so I hoped he wouldn’t have much of an advantage. Bob Ott made it through comp school despite getting caught up in someone else’s wreck early on :). The 12 car’s handling problems were fixed just before midnight. The only real problem we could find was the springs coming out of their perches, and a dying power steering :S. Im not going to say much else about Friday because I know things are tense enough between us and the P-cars… :angry:

SATURDAY

We woke up to a wet track, which just started to dry out when we were on the qualifying grid. I was lined up early, but it was obvious that the track would be improving a lot over the session and the fastest laps would come at the end. Im not going to say too much about my qualifying, because as I said the 944-SE30 tensions are running high, especially after a little episode in the drivers meeting. But directed at no particular race group, Id like to point out that taking a 1/2 speed cool down lap on line in the middle of the qualifying session is about the most disrespectful thing to the other drivers that you can do on a racetrack. Unless you count racing a car on its hot lap when you have just exited the pits and you are on your outlap, which of course isn’t timed and doesnt count. And thats just the beginning of what made me want to pull out my hair after qualifying. A very long and frustrating story made short, I qualified 6th. I was very angry (with no particular race group) :angry:. Anyway, MikeD qualified on pole with a 2:20.2. JonA qualified a tenth back in 2nd after a little mix up with T&S that originally had Skip in second. Skip was moved back to 3rd, which was good for me, and I was moved from 5th to 6th (on the outside row) which was also good. Cobetto was 4th and carter was 5th. I thought my championship runner-up hopes had ended with qualifying. I would need a lot of luck to beat skip in just a 20 minute-long race.

Despite a mistimed jump at the start, I got around carter early. Then almost immediately, I got the break I needed on lap 1 in turn 5, when skip suddenly slowed in front of me and appeared to miss a shift. I went rallying to avoid him but I stayed WOT so that I only lost a position to carter when I re-entered. I had a great battle with carter, who raced hard but clean. I got by him, but I was really just focused on keeping my eye on the white car behind him, which appeared to be skip. I found out later that skip had retired after the shifting issue, which I think was a problem with the linkage. The white car was rick mariani, who drove a great race, dicing with carlton and getting his first top 5 :). Great job by him to run just a second or 2 off the leaders for the first time. Shortly after my off, 4th gear started giving up. Then, what started as a little vibration in the wheel went from bad to worse :blink:. Up front, mikeD and Jonny tangled in a bizarre bumper-hooking incident on the last turn of the last lap, causing MikeD to spin out of the lead. Jonny was later DQ’d although both agreed it was really just a bump-drafting freak accident. So Cobetto inherited the win, which I think clinched him the championship as long as he started race 2. I finished 2nd, and carter got a well-deserved podium. The start is pretty wild, but after the first 3 or 4 laps there wasnt a lot more going on from my point of view. I knew everything had already gone according to plan for me, so I just managed the gap to carter and nursed the transmission home to save everything it had left for race 2.

video: http://www.vimeo.com/7110276
results: http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=1344323&perclass=1

Skip started the race, so he received half the points of the last place finisher, meaning he now had to drop that race. Unfortunately for me, his next lowest finish was still a top 10. With my second place in race 2, he was now just 12 points behind me with one race left in the season. If he won the final race I would have to finish 2nd to secure the runner-up spot, and if he finished 2nd-5th, I had to finish 2 places behind him or better. Past 6th, I basically just had to finish. I knew that most likely it would be a scenario where I had to finish 2 behind him. With a transmission on its way out and a wheel bearing getting ready to disintegrate, I was just hoping old faithful #12 would make it to the checker.

For lunch there was an awesome pig roast put on by JonA and drivegear. Skip provided pies, and the Otts provided pasta salad. Most specE30 peeps were there.

During race 2, I never checked my laptimes. I never looked up to see what the top3 were doing. I never thought for a second about the car balance or my many mechanical issues. All of my focus was on not letting 2 cars between skip and me, running 4th and 5th. Carter was right behind me again with skip directly in front. Skip was driving like a mad man straight out of the gates, with a few big loose moments on cold tires. I would have preferred for skip to pull away from me and allow me to settle in behind him and maintain my points lead, but he was holding me up slightly which was allowing carter to stay close. If carter were able to get between us, I could start to have problems. Skip finally went wide on lap 1 at the exit of oak tree. Thanks to a little bump from carter, I was able to barely outbrake him at the end of the back straight. Going into turn 1 a few corners later, he made a very deep outbraking move to get alongside me on the outside of T1 and outbrake me into T3. I was happy to let him slip by, although I was careful to slam the door on carter who was trying to follow him through. Although skip and I were racing harder than I had ever raced before, I wasn’t racing him for the position on the track. I was just trying to keep the cars behind us from having any opportunity to steal my points advantage. The next lap, skip caught a spec3 in T5, and I made a good read on it to overtake him when he was held up by the slower car. When I got in front, I was unable to pull a gap on skip, and staying in front of him was forcing me to work my tires harder than I wanted to at that point in the race. I think some of that was a result of the alignment issue that I still don’t think was 100% solved. When skip came charging on the front straight a few laps later, I defended the inside knowing that it was the safest place to be with a desparate driver behind me whose time was running out. But he made another great outbraking pass on the outside. I again let him slip through in T3 but I again slammed the door very hard on the car behind him, this time MikeD, who was catching up after spinning out of the lead pack. Going up the esses into T10 that lap, we caught a spec3 that I’ve mentioned on this forum before. Me, skip, and mike were nose to tail at probably a 30 mph closing speed. The spec3 appeared to be caught napping and wasnt ready for skips plunge to the inside of 10. Skip had to slam on the brakes. I slammed on the brakes to avoid those two. Mike couldn’t stop in time and ploughed up under my rear bumper. I thought for sure we were in a 4 car wreck. Somehow everyone kept it straight with shiny sides up. The only result was that the hit knocked my camera out cold. We continued to race hard, although that part is lost on video. Luckily for me Carter had fallen off the pace so that I didnt have to risk a second car getting between skip and me. But jonny, who had checked out in front as a result of cobetto spinning, could have had a problem while leading ;), which would give skip the lead. If skip won, I would have to finish immediately behind him since there is a greater points payout from 1st to 2nd than 2nd to 3rd. Luckily, we finished as we ran with jonA winning, skip second, and me 3rd. That was barely enough to clinch the runner-up spot (1024 to 1018). Whew. Points racing is intense.
If you watch the video, youll see that skip and I raced a little closer than close a few times. It was something both of us don’t normally do, but we were both comfortable with it, especially considering the extremely close points situation. It didn’t cause any damage or disrespect to either car or driver. And he started it :P.

video: http://www.vimeo.com/7110516
results: http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=1344324&perclass=1

Cobetto finally got bitten by a loose car in this race. After some spectacular sideways moments, he had an uncharacteristic spin coming onto the front straight. It didnt matter in the points, and he seemed to be having fun while taking his time to control the spin out in the field. After several loops, the spins started to look a lot like victory donuts. Congrats to the champ :). This is just the second time, and the first time since way back in '06, that cobetto is regional and national champ in the same season.

SUNDAY

I had to leave early on Sunday, but I hear it was a really intense 1 hr fun race. Carlton was dicing for the lead but had an early off, which busted his oil pan and may have damaged his motor. Carter hounded jonA until the last lap, when jonA went off at oak tree and carter passed him in front of his family for the lead and the win. Congrats to him :).

results: http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=1346449&perclass=1

It was a very eventful finale with a lot of twists and turns, but in the end the 12 car got the luck it needed to get the runner-up award. Since we got competitive horsepower in may, I finished on the podium in every dry race for the rest of the season. That was the consistency needed to make up for a barely decent first half of the season, and some poor finishes in the rain. Sure I was hoping for a bit more last December. If the first attempt at a horsepower increase had gone as planned, who knows how things would have turned out. But considering that misfortune and how the first half of the season went, it didnt turn out too bad :).
Other guys had worse luck this year. MikeD had a recurring mechanical problem that kept him from continuing on the great note that he started the season. I had a little scare before the awards party when NASA miscalculated the points and had mike in second. Luckily we got it sorted out before any awkward zoolander moments on the stage :lol:. I also originally miscalculated mikeD to be 4th in the points, instead of his actual position 5th. Sorry to keep pushing you down the order, mike :(. Jonny had some of the worst luck all season, too. From setting off the fire suppression system to hooking bumpers, he couldn’t catch a break all year either. On a positive note, I think skip was the most improved driver this year. He’s always been lightning fast, but his consistency didnt catch up to his speed until the second half of the season. If he had driven the way he drove in the second half all year long, I think he just might have won it, especially with cobetto’s little handling gremlin this summer that wasn’t discovered right away. Thats what I love about SE30 in the Mid-Atlantic. Any of these top guys could have won the championship. Some people think that it was “cobetto and everyone else” this season. But each of the top 5 drivers in the championship standings won at least one race and took at least one pole each this year. That’s unbelievably competitive. Here’s the final standings:

'09 CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS:

  1. Cobetto 1100
  2. R. Allen 1024
  3. Bennett 1018
  4. J. Allen 974
  5. M. Davidson 956
  6. Hunt 939
  7. Grace 856
  8. Mariani 796

This was my last race for a while, probably 'til next summer. School is taking priority, but I’m gonna try to keep from getting too rusty then make a full comeback in a few years at first in the SE30, then possibly in something a little… faster. My long-term racing goals would require that, but I still have a lot to learn and enjoy here, especially rain driving :).
I’m planning on continuing to follow the series closely next year, and I already have a few predictions for 2010. Look for a certain orange car to run up front, and maybe fewer white cars if cobetto isnt going to just pull our legs again about retirement ;). There are a few more young guys moving through the HPDE ranks, and several current drivers have “upgrades” planned for the off-season. I think this series is in its prime right now, and it was great to be able to experience a full season during the glory days. Thanks again to everyone for a great year.

:slight_smile:

#39

Good write-up from Robert Allen and yes Mr. Patton, we’re falling behind a bit on our reports.

Here’s mine.

One weekend prior to the race weekend, I went to the dyno with a few new parts in-hand, to try to find some lost power. I’m fairly confident in my driving, and seeing the front runners pull away slowly on the straights helped me think the car needed some attention…but it’s always in the back of a driver’s mind that lower finishes must be because of poor driving.

Anyway, on the dyno, we did two baseline runs, which were virtually identical. We then changed the crank position sensor and did a run. The car didn’t want to run very well but got better after we let it idle for a few minutes. Hmmmm. After the run; no change. Next, the coil was replaced and the car, again, wouldn’t run very well. Then, it died and wouldn’t run at all. I had the ECU from my '89 car that I killed at Summit Point last October so we swapped it in. The car cranked and ran fine. We swapped them back-out and the car wouldn’t run. Another two swaps (just to make sure) and the car ran fine. This run netted almost 15 lb/ft of peak torque. Not only that, it brought the torque up quicker and it stayed up longer. We then changed the plug wires and saw no change from the previous run, and the torque was still strong. Not wanting to even touch the car, I carefully drove it into the trailer and took it home.

During the Saturday morning VIR qualifying, I lined-up early and started at the front. Traffic was ok but not great for me and I ended-up 5th on the grid. Mike Davidson was on pole and while he was a bit faster than me in the qualifying session (we ran most of the session fairly closely), he never checked-out. I thought I would have been a bit higher on the grid but being in the top five in this group is never disappointing.

In Saturday’s first race, I was able to stay with Robert Allen, something I hadn’t seen in a long time. While I was never a serious threat, he never drove away. Because of the Jonny Allen/Mike Davidson last lap bumper-hook, I cruised to third, not too far behind Robert Allen. And while Cobetto, Robert, and I admittedly got a break, being on the podium felt very good.

In the second Saturday race, I was racing with Robert Allen again and when I gave him a “nudge draft” on the back straight, my hood popped-up. With the stock hood mechanism, I wasn’t concerned about it flying-up so I kept racing. Having a giant air scoop on the front of the car does not help with straight line speed so as Robert mentioned in his post, I fell off the pace and finished 6th. This was frustrating, because I had such a good race 1 and because the car was significantly better than it had been in previous races this year.

On Sunday morning, we got to the track a couple of hours before the 12:30 race. I figured that would be plenty of time to fix the hood latch and prep the car for the race.

Wrong!

The hood latch required a lot more time than I thought and after finally getting it secure, I noticed the right front rotor was cracked. Now, I was starting to sweat a little. I swapped it pretty quickly and glanced at the left front rotor. Cracked too! However, the crack on the LF rotor wasn’t as bad. As I tried to remove the rotor setscrew, it stripped. Great! I then tried an easy-out but it just chewed-up the bolt head. I then tried to drill it out but the Harbor Freight Tools drill bits didn’t last long enough to get it out.

Fifteen minutes to the start…

I threw the left front back on the car, got dressed, jumped in the car, and drove to the grid. I usually have the car ready well in advance and end up sitting around for an hour before the race, so this was a new experience.

While I was sitting in the car on the grid, breathing hard and sweating, I was going down the mental checklist. When I got to "tire pressures, I realized I had swapped the right front and right rear so the pressures were off. I yelled to my Dad to get the pressure gauge and let four psi out of the front. Then I got to “torque wheels” on the mental checklist. Because of the rotor problem, I never torqued the left front.

So, I drove back to our paddock area, pulled-off the belts, jumped out of the car, torqued the LF, got back in the car, and made the grid at the 4-minute mark. I got the belts back on and the net up as the front was leading-off. The field was inverted for the one-hour fun race so that gave me a little more time. So far, this hasn’t been much “fun.”

On the warm-up lap, the left front rotor was thumping whenever I applied the brake so I was hoping the pads wouldn’t get chewed-up during the race. Plus, a small crack will close some when the brakes get hot.

We took the green flag and I had a great time racing with the guys in the front of the inverted field. I was surprised at how long it took to get past some Spec E30 racers - several have really stepped up their game!

After a few laps, Jonny Allen caught me and got a good run coming out of the lower esses. I pointed him by because I knew we would be quicker with him in front. Carlton, who got a great start, was out there pretty far, but might be catch-able in a one hour race. After a few laps, Jonny and I did catch him, although his driving was solid and he wasn’t making any significant mistakes. As the three of us drove down the back straight, me in third, I realized that no one was driving away from me down the straights! That was definitely a good feeling…but also meant that I had lost my excuse.

:stuck_out_tongue:

At the end of the back straight, Carlton braked a little too late and went off the end. He gathered it up quickly and got back on the track, not too far behind Jonny and me. Then, three corners later, Jonny went off at Hog pen. I then thought…am I leading this thing? Ok. Drive like Skeen. Despite all the pre-race thrashing, you have a good car. No mistakes. Yes, I talk to myself in the racecar.

A lap or two later Carlton (solidly in third) went off at 10 and hit the ditch at the bottom of the hill. This knocked a big chunk out of his oil pan and put him out of the race.

While I actually drove well, Jonny was back on my rear bumper. I then braked too late at Oak Tree, jogged slightly left to miss a 911, went four-off slightly, and Jonny got by, right in front of my parents, son, daughter, niece and nephew. I didn’t want to look badly in front of my family so I then passed Jonny at turn one, and he immediately re-passed at the exit. I followed him for several laps.

On the lap just before the white flag lap, Jonny went off at Oak Tree and I got the lead…right in front of the family! We got back to the front straight and I still had a small lead. Again…“drive like Skeen.”

After taking the white flag, I got past Spec E30 driver Rick Mariani and Jonny caught him right as they entered the uphill esses. This slowed them both and gave me a tiny bit of breathing room. I got a good wave from the family as I went through Oak Tree and drove hard but carefully, knowing that any mistake would cost me the win. Johnny made-up a bit of ground but coming out of Hog pen, I knew I had the win.

Yahoo! That was fun!

On the cool down lap, the left front rotor cooled enough to open the crack and the thumping came back. Do you think I cared?

:slight_smile:

Many, many thanks to Johnny for a great race. We both drove hard and drove cleanly.

If you want to see some of the race, go to http://vimeo.com/7046552 and fast-forward to the 15:50 mark.

Pardon me for being so long with this write-up but it really is another example of great Spec E30 racing.

I’m looking forward to another great season in 2010.

Carter

#40

Robert, I finally got around to reading your extensive race report and watched your videos last night, great job. Carter great job also, expecially Sunday, you probably wish there were some more races left in the season. Haven’t watched your video yet.