FrgMstr
03-30-2015, 05:44 PM
Back from a GREAT weekend at Texas Mile. Always a fun time going fast, even if you are not going as fast as you want to.
First off let me say that I am not a professional racer by any stretch of the imagination, or will likely ever be. And I have little experience with straight line racing or roll racing. That said, we did learn a lot of things not to do this weekend.
When we left for Texas Mile the car had be previously set up to run at CoTA (http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1828425). This is NOT the way to have the car setup for the Texas Mile.
Our first runs on Friday were about the only chance we had to get our 190mph+ goal runs in. Weather was great with just a couple mile per hour tailwind.
First pass was 155 at the half and 180.5 at the mile. This car did 161/186 two years ago, albeit with a ~20mph tailwind. That was with 584hp and we are now around 615hp. The car was having all sort of trouble staying planted with tons of wheelspin through all 5 gears gears. We were breaking traction above 160mph in 5th. Car was bouncing bad. Watching down the track I saw several other cars that were bouncing badly too. It has been two years since I have been out there, so I chalked it up to the track/runway aging since no maintenance is done for the most part.
On my second run after lunch, same thing with car feeling like it was coming off the ground, and it occurred to me while I was bouncing along that the adjustable suspension was set up too stiff. No way the track had gotten that bad and they were still allowing racing. We borrowed a jack in the paddock and knocked the wheels off and set the suspension to full soft. All done and back in grid in less than 30 minutes.
Run three was much better, car was staying on the ground MUCH better, but still don't get the illusion that this track is flat, as the video will show you. This was the best run of the day (ended up the best run of the weekend) at 183mph and I felt as though I had driven well all three runs. I was still getting wheelspin though, pretty badly.
That all said, the car with the new suspension was handling tremendously better down the track. It was damn near effortless to keep control with very little input.
I ran these same Mich SS tires at CoTA for three sessions in December, and I did not push them hard and I felt like they were in perfect shape for Texas Mile, but they did not feel right, or sound right either. I was getting no feedback from the tires in terms of sound. On the way to the track Saturday morning, I found a nice smooth lane of asphalt on the feeder road. I burned the tires down 7 times till I finally got them to start at least chirping at me. They were feeling a lot "grippier."
Run 4 on Saturday morning and we had strong headwinds. At this point I gave up on making 190mph with a 20mph wind in my face. Also, on previous runs we had around a 1/4 tank of gas (as we had planned for weight reduction). We filled up overnight fully to give the back some weight, and I think this helped as well.
Still some things to learn as we ran through Saturday and Sunday. The track alignment on the car's (-2.5 front and -1.7 back) rear was costing me real straight line acceleration. Going back to the feeder road and analyzing the burnout patterns on the road proved this clearly. Also, I had greatly underestimated how much the spoiler on back was limiting the car's speed. I guessed it would hold us back 2mph or so, but after a bunch of redneck calculations (and comparisons to other racers in the "exact" car (Andreas, "345sbspinnin" met up with me out there and has provided all sorts of good information here on our forums and in person, THANKS Andreas!)) I would guess that the spoiler was more in the range of 5 to 7mph. I think without the spoiler I might have done 188 or so on run 3 on Friday if not better. And most obviously the tires were outside of being what they should be. Also watching where our RPMs are across the finish line suggests that we might benefit from using a smaller tire diameter in back.
Also driving the 400 miles back home, it was apparent that the MSS tires had given up the ghost after around 15 hardcore burnouts on them. Beside looking conical now, they will slide all over hell and back on the hot pavement.
TLDR:
Did not hit our 190mph goal at Texas Mile.
Next time: No aero on the car. No negative camber on the rear. Hoosier R6 tires. Other stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cceSaxoI68o&t=1m50s
http://racecast.me/images/gallery/2015_TexasMile/IMG_5118.jpg
First off let me say that I am not a professional racer by any stretch of the imagination, or will likely ever be. And I have little experience with straight line racing or roll racing. That said, we did learn a lot of things not to do this weekend.
When we left for Texas Mile the car had be previously set up to run at CoTA (http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1828425). This is NOT the way to have the car setup for the Texas Mile.
Our first runs on Friday were about the only chance we had to get our 190mph+ goal runs in. Weather was great with just a couple mile per hour tailwind.
First pass was 155 at the half and 180.5 at the mile. This car did 161/186 two years ago, albeit with a ~20mph tailwind. That was with 584hp and we are now around 615hp. The car was having all sort of trouble staying planted with tons of wheelspin through all 5 gears gears. We were breaking traction above 160mph in 5th. Car was bouncing bad. Watching down the track I saw several other cars that were bouncing badly too. It has been two years since I have been out there, so I chalked it up to the track/runway aging since no maintenance is done for the most part.
On my second run after lunch, same thing with car feeling like it was coming off the ground, and it occurred to me while I was bouncing along that the adjustable suspension was set up too stiff. No way the track had gotten that bad and they were still allowing racing. We borrowed a jack in the paddock and knocked the wheels off and set the suspension to full soft. All done and back in grid in less than 30 minutes.
Run three was much better, car was staying on the ground MUCH better, but still don't get the illusion that this track is flat, as the video will show you. This was the best run of the day (ended up the best run of the weekend) at 183mph and I felt as though I had driven well all three runs. I was still getting wheelspin though, pretty badly.
That all said, the car with the new suspension was handling tremendously better down the track. It was damn near effortless to keep control with very little input.
I ran these same Mich SS tires at CoTA for three sessions in December, and I did not push them hard and I felt like they were in perfect shape for Texas Mile, but they did not feel right, or sound right either. I was getting no feedback from the tires in terms of sound. On the way to the track Saturday morning, I found a nice smooth lane of asphalt on the feeder road. I burned the tires down 7 times till I finally got them to start at least chirping at me. They were feeling a lot "grippier."
Run 4 on Saturday morning and we had strong headwinds. At this point I gave up on making 190mph with a 20mph wind in my face. Also, on previous runs we had around a 1/4 tank of gas (as we had planned for weight reduction). We filled up overnight fully to give the back some weight, and I think this helped as well.
Still some things to learn as we ran through Saturday and Sunday. The track alignment on the car's (-2.5 front and -1.7 back) rear was costing me real straight line acceleration. Going back to the feeder road and analyzing the burnout patterns on the road proved this clearly. Also, I had greatly underestimated how much the spoiler on back was limiting the car's speed. I guessed it would hold us back 2mph or so, but after a bunch of redneck calculations (and comparisons to other racers in the "exact" car (Andreas, "345sbspinnin" met up with me out there and has provided all sorts of good information here on our forums and in person, THANKS Andreas!)) I would guess that the spoiler was more in the range of 5 to 7mph. I think without the spoiler I might have done 188 or so on run 3 on Friday if not better. And most obviously the tires were outside of being what they should be. Also watching where our RPMs are across the finish line suggests that we might benefit from using a smaller tire diameter in back.
Also driving the 400 miles back home, it was apparent that the MSS tires had given up the ghost after around 15 hardcore burnouts on them. Beside looking conical now, they will slide all over hell and back on the hot pavement.
TLDR:
Did not hit our 190mph goal at Texas Mile.
Next time: No aero on the car. No negative camber on the rear. Hoosier R6 tires. Other stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cceSaxoI68o&t=1m50s
http://racecast.me/images/gallery/2015_TexasMile/IMG_5118.jpg