Did the off-track excursion at the beginning of the video hurt something? More details please?

 

What a bummer, what happened?

 

Looks like something gave out on your driver's front. Is that your typical turn-in point orrr do you have any other video from that weekend to compare? Hope repair is minimal and you're back out soon!

 

The prevailing theory on the FB post is that my steering rack or something in the steering (inner tie rod?) broke. I turned in a roughly the same spot with about the same steering input. This was my first weekend at this track so lap to lap consistency isn't that great. My entry speed wasn't higher than previous laps and I gave it a lift before turn in even though I've taken it flat.

The cast aluminum piece where the steering column mounts is cracked in half. At this point I don't know if that is crash damage. The wheel did not move much when I hit the tires. Which is good because I left my thumbs hooked like a moron.

Damage is light so far. Everything forward of the frame rails is toast. I'll replace a lot of that with pipe and plate since PT allows it for no points. Radiator support looks straight to the eye as do the frame rails. UCA on the driver's side is toast and I'm going to call all the ball joints over there toast as well. Hood/fender/bumper skin are all goners. Undercar plastic and steering rack are toast.

The off at T1 could have broken something that was almost failed, T3 went just fine though. That may have just been the inside tire not mattering that much combined with underdriving the turn. A previous wheel drop knocked my rear toe out, fixed that Saturday evening and the car felt right for (an extremely short) qual. I'm not sure rear toe can even cause the car to not turn that badly.

For speed reference you can hear the rev limiter in 4th right before turnin. I'm on 205 Hoosiers, 5-speed and 4.77 rear so that's about 106 - tire slippage. I need to dork around with my data logging phone, I left it on and it didn't save the session properly. I'm hoping the data is somewhere on the phone and I can convince it to come off.

 

This would be my guess as well, but just a guess. Some component was already fatigued and that slight off put it a critical...."oh **** about to let go" stage, then RIGHT as you turned right to load it..... it fails. Still just a guess.

Good to hear repair will go smoothly! Hope to run with ya at ViR in Oct.

 

Are you going to run PT with the big boys?

e: NVM, just saw FB. Go get comp school knocked out and run PTE.

 

I didn't run CoTA this weekend, but a legit points build showed up and slaughtered my usual competition by 3 seconds (which is also 3 seconds faster than SM, so right in the ballpark for full tilt PTE/TTE build). Oh boy. Looks like I'm gonna have to go back to the idea of e85 and not just make 136whp peak, but do the Kansas power.

 

Kopitski and Bubbles strike again.

 

Ol' "Bubbles" is no joke.

 

Talking about the 2:39.7? That's not even a second under the SCCA SM record. Unless the day was super shitty I'm guessing there is more time out there for a PTE car.

 

*2:38.8, which was ~3 seconds (Edit: 2 seconds) faster than SM for the weekend. A lot of SM national level drivers were running though. Hard to extrapolate SCCA vs NASA since they run completely different times of the year. SCCA is in February which is usually nice and cool whereas this past weekend was mid 80's.

 

2:38.8 TTE Sunday.

Out-qualified SM by 2.3 seconds on Saturday as a solo car with no bumpdraft. SM had a multi car pack containing the 2017 Runoffs champ, fast locals and the usual suspects.

 

I encourage all you to sign up for nationals and have some fun, u can look at the cota times all you want, we we're just testing, yes there is more time in a pte car, don't read into things to much, I know Chris ( the kid who was driving it) he wants some fast guys to show up and have a race

 

I'd love to do nationals at CoTA, but I can't afford it in $$$ or time this year :( Maybe next year in ST5 or ST6 depending on how that goes.

 

Can't blame you, it's expensive. I'm gonna do it just because it's my backyard (even though I haven't done an event at CoTA because $$), but no idea how I'll even begin to bring the fight when restricted to 10whp less than an NB1 points build. Thinking about adjustable FPR and e85 again, tune to make 136whp for the broadest range possible (as per usual) instead of just peak, which is at nearly 7k RPM right now. I might also have some midrange sitting in the car based on how my dyno looks vs literally every other tuned BP4W I've seen, but could just be dyno variance? The one thing I'm considering right now is if I should ditch OEM bushings for ES + sadfab bearings. The car is already pretty awful for a road car, so I can't imagine it can get much worse...but I've been wrong before. The slippery slope to full racecar continues.

I've also been considering a 10.5:1 rebuild for my spare block, throw tomei cams at the head, ???, and hopefully make decent TT5 power. Because bad ideas.

 

 

At tracks you aren't fresh on, this can certainly be the case even though the track got a little slower. I wouldn't be surprised if you looked at the data and things like longitudinal G's were ever so slightly less in the afternoon with just a bit less grip, but you just drove it better. Which is crazy, because you matched the record in sub-optimal conditions.

Well driven.

 

2:14.8 in those conditions is pretty legit. The 2:14.2 TTE record was set on a pretty ideal day.

 

Thanks. It surprised me. The warmup lap was a 2:17, then a low 15, and I was like, "this shouldn't be happening"..

looked up that 2:14.2 standing record from 2014 after the session, thinking Kohler had the record with another 2:14.8, but I was thinking of his TTE Champ lap from 2015.

I'd love for Marcus to trade his swaybars for an ECU and E85. Maybe toss some valvesprings in there... It would crush.

 

Hey, what's $2000 between friends, lol

Btw, nice times, Dan!