2014 Nasa East Championships
 

Hey guys, Emilio suggested I start a thread to discuss what's going on over here at Road Atlanta and keep everyone updated. Great idea!

Nothing too exciting after my drive up from Orlando until I got onto the dyno. Sampsonite! Way off!!
Dyno is wildly inconsistent. My main tune has about 40 pulls that where all within 2 hp.
On this dyno we are using for compliance testing, my results vary by up to 11hp between pulls and the some of the graphs look wildly different.
Not sure if others are having the same issue but Jason Kohler (speedengineer) did dyno wayyy over also. Hopefully we can get things sorted in the morning and have a good test day. I know I have a lot of setup work to do on my car because this was a last minute class switch...

That's all for now
I am #74 PTE & TTD

Wow... sucks to hear that. Can't say I'm surprised though. I'll pack some extra ballast.

I'm headed down after work tomorrow evening. I'm not driving this year... just going to hang out and help a couple buddies. I'll be there with Chris Adams in PTE and Cody Mason in PTF. Stop in and say hi if you see us.

Eric, I still have that restrictor you sold me sitting on the shelf. Want me to bring it?

post pics of timing sheets and cars. Never too many pics! I'm curious to see how close the PTB's are to ST3 and PTE to Spec Miata. Did the SE30's show up?

Go just fast enough to win but not so fast you get everyone extra ballast next year.

Last I checked there were like 40 SpecE30s registered.


Circuitmaster - watch out for Jim Drago in PTE, the guy is fast and probably knows about racing miatas as well as anyone on this board. I would bet he's going to be running well under SM times.

Have fun and good luck. I have two former teammates racing in HC2. It's a damn shame there aren't more PTD and PTC cars...

How does NASA determine power if a set of runs are inconsistent? average? Seems fail to me. Too much power means you have to run a restrictor OR ballast?

It's hard (for me) to find clear results on Race Monitor but it looks like the first round of practice is over.

As far as I can tell Eric P. ran 45.4 and was the fastest PTE car. Jason Kohler was a half second behind him at a 45.9.

Fastest SM time so far today is a 44.9 so both are off the SM times currently.

I have no idea what the current conditions are.

Drago and Steyn qualified in the 42s at the SCCA race in March. That was in SCCA "spec" Spec Miatas.

probably 10 of those 40 will be totaled by the end of the weekend. Welcome to RA everyone!

Wow, 3s off. What is the temperature now compared to March? I would expect PTE car to be able to run high 1:40 in the same weather conditions.

cel phone pics of the timing sheets guys!

Steyn did 1:44.953 on August 2nd in the SM race and qualified at 1:44.418
Drago did 1:44.739 in the race and 1:45.216 in qualifying.

http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/N...20SM%20ST3.pdf

They both went slower on Sunday.

The fastest qualifying session for the March SCCA race at Road Atlanta had 12 cars in the 1:42s.

According to weather underground it was about 53 degrees during that qualifying session, with easterly winds of about 7mph and clear skies.

Today's early sessions were probably 20-25 degrees warmer.

53° with sunshine is magic lap weather, but 70-75° isn't bad. 1,1.5s maybe but not the 3s they are back. Anxious to see 2nd session times from today

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Nice to hear NASA taking dyno testing so seriously. I won't miss Greenbaum's apathy one bit.

I heard through the grapevine that there was a group revolt that forced them to allow uncorrected values. It's nice to see the accountability for compliance work both ways. I wonder if they will refund all the $150 appeal fees. I heard there were ah, many.

Also, somewhat gratifying that I'm still getting in their hair :party:

Useful tidbit: This is MCE's mobile dyno and sets a precedent that could be called upon for future events.

Yes, the dyno will be run with uncorrected values as per our 6:30pm drivers meeting.
Literally everyone was raising hell about it.
They had issues with the scales today too. My car was about 35lbs lighter on their scales. While I sat there shaking my head and arguing with the "scale guy" my car magically lost yet another 10lbs. After I drove off in disgust, they announced that they would be bringing in a new set of scales. Everyone had the same issue there too.

As far as lap times. It was really hard to get clean laps today. Our run group was full of spec iron cats (I think) and a bunch of pesky 944's that where being very difficult to pass, which is going to make the race interesting since they are in our group.
I did manage a few clean laps here and there but was making a lot of mistakes also. Since I switched to this class last minute this was my first real development day and it's far from perfect. We where making changes all day and got it a little better. However, the car is pretty hard to drive fast and consistently. My fastest lap was a 44.8 which I think was equal to the fastest SM time of the day set by Matt Pombo. However my theoretical was... Hmm, should I even say? Lol
I also started the day on 16 heat cycle sm7's....
Ben Anderson in the PTE rx7 did a 44.6
Jason said Ben had passed him on the backstretch and gapped him about 10 car links. He could be trouble.
We will see how qualifying goes tomarrow

I also had a LF wheel bearing explode on me. Good thing I had spare from hubs.
But the other ones where fancy super trick low drag dealios

RX7's are tough to beat because of their power but they use up tires if they have to defend. So you have to use up your tires a bit after the start to either block and make them fight or defend. If they're allowed to get a gap and can back off uncontested, you'll never see them again. You need to find that 2s. If you can apply pressure for 2-3 laps, you'll own them. I've seen your powerband. Look for places to leave it in one gear, use a bit more track and just uber momentum it. You can do that in qual but tough to do in a race if you are defending.

Ben Anderson just ran a 42.5 in the rx7 in the warmup. Ouch.
I ran a 44.2
And Chris Adams right behind ran a 44.3

Qualifying at 2:10 ET
Time to push

Should be interesting with all the hot weather today!