Trey and I went to Hallett for the weekend and had a great time! We spent Friday at a test day. I raced on Saturday and Trey ran on Sunday. No body parts (car or Trey!) were harmed during this episode of "As The POS-7 Turns".
Practice day!
We arrived bright and early for an 8:30 driver meeting. I sent Trey out first. We really decided to use today just for track familiarization since neither of us had been here before. Trey worked the car around slowly and cautiously ramping his speed up. Session one finished without incident for him. Trey managed to get down to a 1:51 which was slower than our target time of 1:40.
I went out next and put down some laps in the 1:45 range getting used to the track. Trey was a little bummed since he "thought" he was getting faster than me for some strange reason.
We made a few adjustments to the car and started putting some speed to our laps. I got down to a 1:42.2 as my fast lap for the day. I put a wheel off in the turn 7 exit area and cracked a right front rotor unfortunately. We did not have a spare with us so we ran with what we had. Trey took the car out for his final session to get some laps in with the Hankooks on. He managed to get down to a 1:42.4 during this session!
I hate kids!
Saturday:
Put in some gas, checked pressures and torque, and off into the IT group I went. Car handled like crap, pushing all over the place. Came in for our 5 lap check. Trey and Steve made a front pressure change and back out I go. I manage to get close to our target time by a fast lap of 1:40.6XX placing me 19th out of 20th on the grid. At least it wasn't DFL this time!
The race: (short version)
Made a decent start but did not go poking my nose in due to the poor handling of the car. I just put some laps in and made a position or two by finishing 15th overall and 4th in class. Very disappointed in my driving and the car!
Trey's Sunday:
After some discussion and coercing by Trey and Steven I reluctantly agreed to stiffen the car up at both corners. We adjusted the front shock compression 50% and set the rears to full stiff. We had a really bad crack in the right front rotor which was only getting worse. I told Trey to just take it easy and get some laps in. Since it was a short session, 15 minutes, and with Trey babying the car we really did not get a good reading on the handling.
Trey started the race in 17th on the grid next to an Alfa Romeo. Their qualifying times were only a couple of thousandths off so that was a good sign I thought. At the start it appeared Trey's participation in the Bimmer school paid off as he passed two cars at turn one! I was REALLY worried about the rotor and how it would hold up so this made me a very nervous spectator. Trey did a great job not pushing the car too hard and just getting some laps in. At lap 7 we noticed some smoke under braking from the right side. UH-OH! It really got bad within a lap and Trey managed to get the car back to the pits and call it a day. When we inspected the car it wasn't a braking problem at all. The radiator had developed a crack and was draining all over the right side of the car! I did not know that Redline Water Wetter would make that much smoke! Trey just about cooked the motor but all seems well after we got it cooled down and started up to get on the trailer. He ended up in 15th and was credited with the finish so he maintains his points lead in the IT Tour series.
Observations:
Hallet was completely unlike what I was expecting! I thought the track was faster but turned out to be an intense, technical, demanding track to drive. We really loved it and will return in the future for a race or two. The staff, track and AVRG, went out of their way to make everyone feel at home. The weather was almost perfect and not terribly hot with a nice breeze blowing most of the three days.
We finally uncovered some ugly truths about the RX-7 in its current state. We now have a high degree of confidence in the car and can push it pretty hard. This resulted in the car really pushing badly at every opportunity as I was warned. Stiffening it up helped so that is a direction we will go especially with the front end. We had a chance to talk to a couple of other RX-7 drivers and inspected their cars at length. We have a plan to get this pig to handle better now! We still had a great time and our lap times are within reach of the faster RX-7s with a little work. Next up: Gateway on August 1st.
A bonus to the weekend was that we were paddocked next to Lisa and Bill Noble of Formula Vee fame. We had a wonderful time hanging out with them and talking Vee and SCCA stuff. We talked to them about getting Trey into a Vee and his plans for the future. Bill allowed Trey to sit in his car and size him up for fit. Does that Scott kid look good in an open wheeler! I'll post some pics later.
I would be remiss without mentioning all the St. Louis folks we saw down there: the Prokopf clan working the corners, Don Melvin in his ITR Mustang, Curt Weilindich in his ITC CRX (which was REALLY HOOKED UP!), Jim Lynch in the T1 Viper, Mark Weber and others I'm sure I missed. Lots of fun!
SLUF