I would say there is a near-zero chance of you guys having better diff by Nationals. But I could probably make the latter happen if you think it would be particularly useful for you :). Combination of a broken NC in the shop bay and a tree coming through my house (then hitting the 1200mi ND, sigh, just got it back yesterday).
I shouldn't even post this video from WDCR Solo #5 as I was instructed by the STR ND car owner that I am no longer allowed to run the NC since he thinks it messes me up for driving the newer car.
I kind of agree with him, but I discovered I was making the same mistake at the last WDCR a few weeks ago, and at the Toledo Pro last week. I was asking way too much of the brakes to get the car slowed and turned into slower corners, leading to frustrated pushing. Obviously I need to work on backing up my braking points, particular on slower tighter courses like we have in DC and Pros, so why not get a start on that at the next opportunity, which was WDCR #5 on Sunday.
We had nine drivers in STR. Marcus, who crushes everyone, wasn't there. Craig was there in his ND2 and I expected him to be stout. After him it was kinda wide open. Jeremy in his AP2, Okas in his NC1/2, and relative newcomer Jamar in his NC1 all had Yokos, while I put on my RE71R that go back to 2019 Solo Nationals.
There was another newcomer in a S2000 with a gigantic rear wing and a grille full of intercooler. I don't know if anyone talked to him about what class he actually belonged in, he was way in the other end of grid from me so I couldn't.
My first run was dirty. Second run was clean and 1.2 seconds faster. Third run was even better by six tenths, and that was it for improvement. Fourth run I made a stupid navigation mistake and I spent the rest of the runs convincing myself that fixing that would make me way faster, when I already fixed it in previous attempts. On the plus side, I got a couple opportunities on each run to work on my braking, and I wasn't making the stupid mistakes I had been over the previous few weeks. That's all that really mattered.
Craig (4th in PAX) won with Jeremy (9th) .46 back. Okas (12th) was only another tenth back. I wound up fourth, 1.2 seconds out of the win and 26 out of 110 in PAX. Despite my asking nicely, neither of the Yoko-shot NCs accepted my offer to trade wheels after first runs. Jamar, who wound up fifth, was a student at the Level 2 school a couple weeks ago where I was one of the instructors. I got to drive his car and it's properly quick on those tires. I don't know if they'd make me 1.2 seconds better than I was on Sunday, and I'm not really willing to spend money to find out for myself, so it'll remain a mystery.
Now that I think I'm going to be better with slow corners on tighter courses, it's time to think about bigger national-level courses since we're only a month away from the big show. So next week we're trucking down to ZMax with the ND to get a taste of going fast once more.
This installment is about the truck and its bed cover that we put on a bit less than two years ago. It came highly recommended, and for a while it was good. But in the spring I noticed that the vinyl layer over the aluminum panels was starting to pull away from the edges in one corner. While it always bugged me, it finally irked me enough to actually do something about it last month.
I couldn't remember the terms of the cover's warranty but in a fit of optimism I sent Extang the picture above and left an open-ended "what are my options?" question. They asked for my proof of purchase and the serial number, which is printed on a white label that had faded beyond any readability.
I was mildly surprised that Extang replied saying they were going to replace the whole unit. What I had to do, they said, was "destroy" the existing cover by spray-painting Xs on every panel. I took the cover off, sprayed the Xs, and then I had to put the cover back on because the truck was going to the Toledo Pro Solo the next weekend.
The vinyl cover only got worse on the tow out to Toledo, and as we started on the ride home, it started flapping around enough to be seen in my rear-view mirror. All I had to try and keep that under control was masking tape, but surpringly that held it more or less in place for the rest of the trip home.
Extang came through with the replacement bed cover, and I put that on after the Toledo weekend. We'll see how well this one holds up. The only thing left for me to do is cut up the old cover and disapose of that.
Interesting postscript to this story: I was dealing with Extang via both email and FB Messenger, and while I thought I was always talking to the same people, that was apparently not the case. A couple days after I got the replacement cover, I got an email from FedEx saying that I had a shipment from Extang on its way. It was another 70-pound package and I realized that I was going to be sent a second replacement bed cover. I called Extang to give them a heads-up, and the lady I talked to said she hoped they could get the thing off the truck before it left, she couldn't guarantee that. If it wound up making it all the way to my house, I would have to refuse delivery and it would be sent back, assuming I'd be here when it was delivered. For the next couple days, I got conflicting emails from FedEx saying that the item was on its way, then saying that the shipment was being returned to the sender. I figured it was going to be a 50/50 chance that it was going to wind up in my driveway while I wasn't home, but it looks like it wound up back where it started, and it's not my problem anymore.
One problem with our local region losing its best site is that, if we want to get some runs on a big National-level course, we have to travel. So we decided our warm-up for Solo Nationals was going to be at ZMax Dragway for a Central Carolinas one-day local. Trevor and I trucked down Friday (we learned our lesson back in the spring about trying to do this trip in one day) and woke up Saturday morning to some very wet pavement. It rained in the morning and was just winding up as we were ready to head to the site. Fortunately, that was the last of the rain we'd see that day and the lot dried out nicely.
We hit the run/work order lottery for once, work 1/run 2 (three-heat day with 135ish entries). We run Pro Street Tire which had 18 entries. I started out poorly with a cone, but at least the time was slow. Trevor was better, but after second runs was only up on me by a half a tenth as I got braver/smarter. I was happy that I was recognizing braking areas before slow corners. I still was pushing them a hair past what was prudent, but it wasn't overly punishing me.
Trevor was up on me by half a second after third runs, and that's a gap that I'm not too unhappy with. I thought I could make more improvement on the last run but I got wimpy in the last third of the course and didn't pick up any time. Trevor went faster, but did so with his hair on fire and accumulated three cone penalties while doing so. But overall we were happy with how the car was working and had no complaints as we got loaded up and pulled out of the lot before the first car of the third heat left the starting line.
I don't look at results while my heat is going on typically, and I did not on Saturday. For that matter, I didn't look at the results till I was back home in my recliner, and Trevor never mentioned much about results except that he got knocked down the PAX list by a bunch of R-comp cars that ran in the third heat. Imagine my surprise when I saw that we wound up 1st and 3rd in PST, Trevor winning by a quarter-second over Mike Casino while I was third, .15 seconds behind Mike. Trevor winning didn't come as much of a surprise; my winding up on the podium did. Trevor wound up 7th in PAX, while I was 11th.
We're certainly buoyed by this performance and I can't wait till we can fire on some fresh tires and take this car to the big show next month.
To prove that we're not very smart, we trucked down the nightmare that is I-95 to run Dominion Raceway in 95+ temperatures. I didn't hold out much hope for improving on my previous best (1:38.3) between the heat and some pretty much done RE71Rs, so much so that I didn't bother charging the GPS puck and didn't even start the phone lap timer for the first session.
The heat was definitely being felt by the car. I hit 4th gear for the first time hitting the big esses on the backstretch and could easily feel that the car wasn't pulling nearly as strongly as I've become used to. On the frontstretch, where going to 5th is typically a no-brainer, I wasn't sure if I was going to get going fast enough to need to do so. However, the tires weren't going away nearly as badly as I expected, especially compared to NCM under similar conditions where I could only get one decent lap and then times fell off the map.
At the start of the second session, I caught a 1LE Camaro in the tight bits and he let me by in one of the slowest corners on the track. By the time we got back to the front, he was catching me and I gave him a point (yeah, with the right hand for some reason), but he waved it off. So I figured I had better hustle to make sure he wasn't going to regret that, and that's the lap seen here. I don't think I did anything significantly better than before to pick up eight tenths. I did carry more speed through South Paw (1:08 in the video), getting on the outside curb which is something I don't really want to (I went off there my very first time on that track), but other than that, it's just a little better here and a little better there. I couldn't back this lap up for the rest of the day. Maybe I just need to glue a picture of the nose of a Camaro on my rear-view mirror to get myself to drive faster.
Overall it was a good afternoon at the track. I think the weather kept some folks from coming as there wasn't a huge entry. Bad for the club, but good for those of us who were there who didn't have to deal with a lot of traffic. There's one more Dominion on the TNIA schedule next month and I'm debating whether to go back with the NC or take the NA that hasn't had many opportunities to come out and play this year. But first I get to go back to VIR next week and I'm very much looking forward to that.
WDCR Solo #6 on the year was Sunday, and we were treated to a Strano course that let us go fast, at the expense of run length. Since this isn't Fedex Field, we can either have fast or long; trying to do both would involve a crossover and I guess we're trying to avoid using those even though other clubs that use the site frequently do those.
Tiny STR entry of just four drivers was a bit of a letdown since we've had decent fields earlier this year. Craig and Cindy were there with their ND2, then me, and a first-timer in a NB. Craig ran away and won by a wide margin, but I was holding off Cindy despite only making small improvements in time through the last few runs. Cindy was getting faster but not cleanly, but she put it together on her last run and got me by .160 to put me third, 31/130 in PAX, and knocking me down to fourth in STR season standings. So it was a good but not great day. At least it wasn't 2000 degrees or raining.
The next time we autocross will be in a few weeks somewhere in the middle of the country.
With Track Night at VIR coming up Friday, I figured I'd check brakes and stuff on a hot afternoon. Bruce's wheels were filthy since I left the Carbotechs in for last Sunday's autocross, where I drove the car to Summit and back instead of towing. So I pulled the wheels to clean them and make sure the tires were all OK. And surprise surprise, the tires were not all OK.
This is what I get for trying to not pile the towing miles on the truck going to WDCR locals. Fortunately, the tire was still at the pressure I set it to before leaving Summit, so it's not leaking. The screw is in a place that should be easy to patch so we can keep using the tire afterwards. But that won't happen this week since I don't really have time to get to Danny's to have the tire taken off so I can patch it.
So I put the 255 Stones on Bruce for Friday instead of the 245s (which is what the pictured tire is one of). They're very close to done, so much so that the shoulders on the left side tires have no discernable tread visible. The ones on the right side are quite a bit better (thanks NCM), so I put the tires on backwards since VIR is more right-hand turns. That'll probably be the swan song for those particular tires, and I can procrastinate getting another set of 255 take-offs mounted for September TNIAs at Dominion and Lime Rock, and a possible trip to Charlotte Motor Speedway if I'm up for that.
As for the 245s, I'm hoping to get them to finish this year and get Kate through however many Track Nights as she cares to do (she had to miss last Thursday's since stuff went down at her office). I don't have any other 245s to put on, and I don't want to try running 255s on her pristine car's fenders and fender liners. If I don't think plugging and/or patching this screwed tire will be OK for track work, we'll have to (gasp) buy new tires for her track use, and I don't know if that's in the budget since we are springing for two sets of Yokos for Trevor's STR car. Maybe I can luck out and find someone's take-off 245s for cheap.
I had so much fun watching these rallies. Thank you for sharing this project with us.
"It's raining at Roller Coaster"
Not what you want to hear when you're about a minute away from being sent onto the track in a car that's wearing pretty much bald RE71Rs. And you've never done a rainy track day before. Undaunted, they sent us out of south paddock onto the backstretch and sure enough, big drops and wet pavement. Fortunately, the rain was limited to Roller Coaster through turns 1/2 and it was dry everywhere else, and the rain was brief. By the end of that first session there was a dry line and I hadn't fallen off the track so I made it to the checkers. But my driving was terrible (third time at VIR), turning in early, missing the apexes (apeces?) I didn't turn in early on, being in the wrong gear, etc.
Second session was better and I got in a rhythm. I couldn't remember what times I ran here a couple months back so I wasn't sure if I was any faster. I specifically wanted to work on getting out of 2 and into NASCAR since last time I left it in 3rd there, winding the motor way out and pretty much coasting into NASCAR. This time I went to 4th to squeak out a few more MPHs, and with the downshift I carried a lot more speed into NASCAR most of the laps where I didn't wind up in 5th rather than 3rd. Now that I supposedly fixed that, I have another section where I'm caught either winding out 3rd or having a quick trip to 4th and back, this time at the little straightish blast though 15-16-17 (exiting Roller Coaster and heading into Hog Pen). GPS says I get to 85 there, which is probably all that I can get in 3rd, but I don't know if taking the time to go to 4th just to go right back to 3rd for Hog Pen is going to gain me anything.
We got a little more rain towards the end of the second session, same deal as before, showers limited to one section of the track, but I didn't fall off the pavement so that was good.
The last session was a love story between me, the car, and the track. Everything was working gloriously and I was having a real ball. I caught and passed a few more cars than I usually do (which is typically not many) which is always a treat.
Got home and looked up my times from earlier and I was surprised to see I cut three seconds off of what was my previous best (2:23.14 vs 2:26.34). On tires that are just about ready for the dump, I'm pretty happy with that.
It's crunch time preparing for Solo Nationals. I went out to Trevor's to lend a hand with some last-minute stuff. We did a suspension nut-and-bolt check, relubed the front upper control arm bushings, and bled the brakes. Working alongside us was Trevor's dad, who was making a spring change on the back of his work-in-progress STX 86.
I put a couple new tires on the trailer, and new Yokos are going on Marmy the ND tomorrow if all goes well. Then I can go get it and get it loaded up. The plan is to head west after Wednesday morning's rush hour for a no-rush no-fuss ride to Lincoln. It'll be different this year as I'm making the trip solo. Kate is out for the Pro Finale as her left foot is still not very happy working a clutch pedal; we're keeping the possibility of her flying in for Nationals Thursday/Friday open for now, though I'm not optimistic that'll happen. Trevor is being the rockstar fly-in and fly-out as he has limited time off. Tune in later in the week and see if I drove myself crazy being alone in the truck for 21 straight hours (not counting gas stops and naps).
I knew when I was going to Solo Nationals that this thread was going to get neglected for a while, but I didn't think it would be left alone for over a month. So we've got some catching up to do.
We'll start with the Pro Solo Finale. This involved driving to Nebraska, and for the first time I did that solo. Trevor was going to fly in and fly out, and Kate was not making the trip as she was not participating due to lingering foot issues. The trip out wasn't that bad. I had lots of podcasts to go through, lots of baseball games, and some tunes as well. I made good time and got into Lincoln early Thursday afternoon. In retrospect, I could have left a day later, not driven through the remnants of a hurricane, and been just fine.
Picked up Trevor and got on site Friday afternoon. We don't do test course; the Pro Finale is our practice. And going in with that mentality is good, especially when you don't do well in it.
I've run every finale since 2014, and I've never finished better than third from the bottom in my class. Sometimes I was next-to-last, kept out of the cellar by Kate. This time there was no Kate, and that meant nobody to keep me out of the cellar. It's the same story every year: I drive the courses early and do halfway decent, then make no improvements in time for the balance of the weekend.
Saturday evening I got a call from Kate sadly telling me that our old man pug, Carl, passed away lying next to her on the couch. We knew he wasn't in great shape, but he still got around OK and I hoped he would hang on for another few weeks, at least until I came back, but he went out on his own terms with no suffering. He was at peace, but I was crushed. It absolutely killed me to not be there for Kate, and she had to handle everything herself. I offered to head home, but she told me to stay. I stayed, and I ran my Sunday morning session, but my head wasn't in it and I stayed last. I was just glad that it was over and I could take a couple days to clear my head before moving on to Solo Nationals later in the week.
Trevor didn't have a great start to his Pro Finale either, but he got his head on straight and had a great Sunday to move up to sixth out of 16.
We move on to Solo Nationals, running first heat Thursday/Friday. Me, I love running first heat; Trevor, not so much.
I don't think we changed much with the car after the Pro Finale. If anything was changed, I didn't know about it. This is not a big deal. I tell Trevor to set the car up to his liking, change anything he thinks will help. It probably won't make much of a difference in how I drive it unless it becomes pure evil, and that hasn't happened yet.
Thursday we go and my first run is a mess. I changed how I do first runs at Nats and tours since I used to be a real slow starter and have to play catch-up both physically and mentally for runs two and three. Now I try and overdrive the first run to see what I can get away with, and figure out where I need to ratchet back for the rest of the heat. In theory, this works. But those first runs can be real adventures. This one was a 56.4 which had me down in the standings. Second run, much better to the tune of two seconds and I felt better about things. Third run wasn't enough of an improvement to even mention. I finished the first day 22 out of 34 and I was kinda OK with that, though there were some guys ahead of me that I thought I shuld have been beating.
Trevor had cones on his first two runs, but had a good third to sit a tenth and a half ahead of me, though that translated into something like six positions in the standings.
Friday, another beautiful day! I watched the times of most of the first drivers and after my typical mistake-laden first run, I was surprised to see the time was pretty competitive at 61.0 as I was expecting a disaster of a 64 something. It's a good thing that the first run was a good one as I might as well not bothered taken the rest. Second run, just a tenth better but with a cone. On the third, I was FLYING. Hit all the braking marks, back end behaved nicely, I thought I was up like a full second at least two-thirds of the way through. But on a very fast left-hander I got greedy getting back to power and lost the rear and around she went. Fortunately, that 61.0 was good enough to get by some of the competition and I wound up 20th, and that's probably about where I should have been. Trevor held his own and I think he stayed 18th at the end.
Since they decided to do away with the Friday night banquet, there wasn't any reason to stick around Lincoln. We got loaded up after being released from impound, and once we were done working the third heat, we were gone. I dropped Trevor off at an airport-adjacent hotel in Omaha, then started out on the long solo road home. I had half a thought of cannonballing the trip in one shot, though the early alarm Friday morning meant that probably wasn't going to happen. Also, my allergies were starting to act up so I stopped just over the Indiana state line to take an antihistamine and call it a night. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful and I rolled home around 8PM Saturday.
Next up, just a few days after getting home from Nebraska, was another Track Night in America at the home track, Dominion Raceway. The original plan for me was to bring out Captain Slow, which hadn't done much of anything since May, but as I was backing it out of the driveway I could feel the clutch wasn't quite right, probably in need of another slave cylinder. So Bruce got the call again (I'm not really complaining), with the bonus of freshly-mounted RE71R take-offs that still had something like half tread.
Kate was bringing her own car, but under protest since I didn't have any tires for her. Recall my finding a screw in one of the Bridgestones we usually use on her car. The friendly local tire shop refused to patch it, and I didn't have anything else to put on those wheels as my stash of Stone take-offs were all 255s and I didn't think those would play nice with her car's conservatively-rolled fenders. I said she could run on her daily driver Conti ECS and see how slow they were compared to what she's used to.
Weather was threatening all day, and I only got three or four laps in my first session before the rain showed up. For this I was very thankful to have the fresh(er)(ish) tires, as the previous Stones would have been no bueno in the wet. Kate was fearless as she went out for her first wet session ever and appeared to be one of the faster drivers in the intermediate group.
At the end of our night we had plenty of rain driving under our belts with no horror stories to report. Kate was pretty proud of her time, saying she got down to a 1:56 ! I said I was there as well, except mine was a 1:50.6 (they sound the same). Given a choice, I'd rather run in the dry than the wet, but our first experiences on a very wet track proved that we have no reason to pack up and head home early if we happened to get rained on.
That last Dominion up there was on a Thursday. The next Saturday morning, I was up turbo early to make another banzai road trip, this time back to New England to spend a couple days with the folks and, eventually, another TNIA at Lime Rock Park.
First stop, cars & coffee just outside Baltimore. I needed breakfast and figured having the Miata on the trailer might get some love from the C&C crowd.
Made it to beautiful Pittsfield Mass and, since the folks' place doesn't have parking for the truck and trailer, I left those in my sister's driveway 15 minutes away. Unloaded the Miata and took that to mom & dad's. The highlight of the visit was a car swap: dad got to take the Miata out for a romp and I got to take his '19 Vette. I didn't think he'd like Bruce that much (he said he wasn't much of a fan of Sloppy when he drove that a few years ago), but he really liked Bruce.
The Corvette was a huge leap forward from his C5, as expected, but it still was a very big car that cruised nicely while not really coming across as a thoroughbred sports car. I expected more acceleration from the 0-60 romps I did, and was left with the thought that the car would only begin to show its strengths at speeds that would not be welcome on public motorways.
I'm pretty sure both me and dad brought our borrowed cars back and decided we preferred what we originally showed up in.
After spending some quality family time, it was off to Lime Rock for the second time this year. I ran it in May in a friend's car, but that was hindered by temperature issues on a very hot day. Later we found out that a fueling issue was making the car run lean, and it's a minor miracle that we didn't blow the car sky high that day.
Since I didn't find that day very satisfying, I planned on going back in September in my own car. While my NC lacked the supercharger and aero that the car I drove in May had, I had a hunch I could run comparable, and maybe even better times. My best in my '90 was a 1:08, and I was in the 1:07s in the supercharged car. My NC had been significantly faster than the '90 at every track it went to, so I figured it wouldn't be too farfetched to be just one second off the '90 this time around.
It took a while to get comfortable at Lime Rock this time around. Our first session got interrupted by an incident just a lap or two in, so we got a chance to huddle on pit road where someone was sharing some Ross Bentley speed secrets he read regarding the track. When we got going again, I used that to take the left-hander better, but I still needed to stop wimping out both going up the hill and going down it. With the '90, I could breathe on the brake pedal just enough to turn on the lights in the back before turning to climb the hill, and I didn't use any brake going downhill. I got to that point in the NC, but it took many laps to get comfortable doing that.
My dad made the trip down again, this time in his C7, and again provided coaching before taking the new car on touring laps. He also got to enjoy an old-home day as some of his friends going back to the 60s and 70s where there either flagging or driving, and he seemed to enjoy catching up with those guys.
The second session was very good for me, and I got deep into the 1:04s. While it's not the 10 seconds a lap faster than the '90 like I've seen at other tracks, Lime Rock isn't that long and it's easier for the '90 to keep up momentum compared to other tracks that have slower sections. I was happy with the time.
Our day got cut short just a lap or two into the third session when someone oiled down a good chunk of the frontstretch. They wound up pulling the plug on Advanced, saying "you don't want to be out there with all that oil-dry" while simultaneously sending out the Intermediate group. One of the advanced drivers asked if he could run with the novices in their last session but that idea, as terrible as it was, got smartly shot down. So I got a headstart on loading up with the promise that we'd get a credit for that last session.
While I doubt I'll make two trips to LRP next year, I'm definitely in for one. It's too fun not to.
Home from Lime Rock, we were winding down one evening in the living room when Kate mentioned that Philly Region SCCA was running at Ripken Stadium, which isn't a bad 2-hour ride in the morning but would likely be a murderous 2+ hour ride going home. I've never run there before, and didn't plan on going this time. Instead, I joked "if I'm going anywhere this week, I'm going to Track Night at Charlotte" with no intention of actually going there either. I had considered my track season over.
Kate asked "is that where you're going?" I said no. She asked "why not?" and I didn't really have a good reason. So I was going.
Charlotte's NASCAR Roval was my second new track for me this year. From other peoples videos and iRacing, I went in with low expectations. The infield section seemed like a fun little romp for my slow car, but 2/3 of each lap was wide-open NASCAR oval. The M3s and Camaros topping out at 160 might get a hoot out of it; I figured I'd just be watching mirrors and hoping not to balk anyone too badly. I wanted the novelty of running a banked oval, and the novelty of running under the lights. I could check the track off the list and probably not think about going back.
For the most part, I was right in my assessment. In the first session I found a couple stretches in the infield session where I was caught between gears (too fast for 3rd, not long enough to take advantage of going to 4th). Despite that, I was reasonably quick and not getting run over even though my group was full of Corvettes and Camaros. I saw a new top speed for the car (124 MPH).
Second session, I had my gears pretty settled though I was still winding it out pretty good leaving turn 2 (infield). I started behind a Camaro on Yokos and hung with him quite a bit, and he even let me go after a while. I caught another VERY LOUD Camaro that was fast on the oval but I could eat it up in the infield, but it wouldn't let me pass. I got a little sloppy going onto the oval trying to not lose time shifting and very briefly got 2nd instead of 4th, but I caught it quickly and there are no ill effects. I bailed out after that.
The last session was run after sundown with track lights on. While it was very cool, it was also pretty difficult to drive fast in as the lights don't really illuminate the infield section and I missed a bunch of turn-in points. It was also less easy to tell if the car approaching was closing by 10 MPH or 40, so I was very generous letting traffic through as soon as I saw lights in the mirror.
I loaded up with the confirmed suspicion that while Charlotte is nice and certainly unique, it's pretty low on my personal rankings and I don't have to go back. On the plus side, I got one of my favorite pictures of the car from there (as post-process tortured as it is).
Stop me if you've heard this one before, but just when I thought my season was over, I found a way to expand it another week. I came home from Charlotte thinking about another trip south, making my maiden voyage to Carolina Motorsports Park. A friend of mine went to the Time Trials National Tour there a year or two back and gave the track high marks, though he said it's too far from home to consider going back. No stranger to long hauls, I signed up.
The only problem with sneaking in one more track day was that I was out of brakes. I got to the point with the pile of used pads I got from a friend where I wasn't confident I could get through another day before they got down to the rivets, and I was concerned about how much more the pistons could go before risking the seals and stuff. Tried getting new Carbotechs from Stranoparts, but he doesn't carry that brand. He did carry GLoc and I opted for their R10 front and R8 rear (same temperature range as the Carbotechs I'd been using), and in true Strano fashion I had them in a day and a half.
Cashed in hotel points so I could go a good chunk of the ride down the day before, and that made the ride pretty painless. I rolled into the track stupid early as always and got the lay of the land. I watched a lot of video and found the track in Assetto Corsa for learning, so I was in decent shape. Tagging along for a couple of laps with the novices' paced session showed me I wasn't going to get lost.
The first session was started tentatively, both because I needed to work up to speed at a place I hadn't been to before and because I couldn't really bed the new pads in right beforehand. But the brakes felt good and traffic was good, so I started getting faster.
CMP kinda reminds me of Pittrace in that there aren't many slowish corners and not much of elevation changes. But the slowish corners treated my car well and I could hang with the fast stuff for the most part. The kink on the backstretch was becoming my nemesis, though. All signs pointed to my being able to take that without a lift but time after time I found myself chickening out and lifting. It wasn't until my last session, and fairly late in that session, that I kept the right foot planted on the gas through the kink, which made slowing for turn 11 a very different proposition.
I got blessed by the weather gods in that the threatening skies didn't actually produce consequential rain until the very end of my third session, so I got to load up in rain rather than drive in it. The car was good, and it ran every lap of every session of every track day I went to without needing any more repairs than some fender liner trimming. It's a thoroughly entertaining car to drive and I'm already looking forward to knocking off a new track or two with it next year.
As for CMP itself, I liked it better than Pittrace or Charlotte, but that's not saying much since those two are at the bottom of my standings. If CMP were my home track, I'd have no problem going there multiple times a year. But it's eight hours from home, so not really in my there-and-back-in-one-day range (Charlotte just barely qualifies at 6 hours away). I don't have to go back. If it comes down to the end of the season next year like it was this year, and I still have a car and time to sneak one more day in before hibernation, I could easily be talked into a return trip.
After CMP I figured that Bruce's season was over. This meant swapping in street brakes, tires with actual tread on them, and, most importantly, the stock drivers seat. I don't want to say that the Kirkey used during fun-driving season is terrible for street use, but it's certainly not comfortable. Or heated. The older I get, the more I appreciate heated seats.
A story in three pictures
Picture 1 is me enjoying a glorious early spring afternoon where it was warm enough to pop off Captain Slow's hardtop and go for a spirited drive around some of my favorite Southern Maryland two-laners.
Picture 2 is me on my 5-mile walk home after the good Captain surprised me with a weak battery that wasn't able to start the car after stopping to put gas in it.
Picture 3 is me back behind the wheel of Slow after the wife came home, brought me back to the car with a jump pack, and that allowed me to bring the car back home. At some point I'm going to have to replace that battery.
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