Project Update for July 24, 2013: Still playing catch-up from June events and developments with S197 Mustangs. So in our last update two days ago we talked about some brake parts and our 13.8" rear brake kit, the upgrade to 12" wide front wheels and the steps that took to fit, plus the lower ride heights we could finally get the car down to. Race prep car was wrapped up late Friday afternoon, June 21st, loaded in the trailer sitting on fresh 315mm Hoosier R6s, and Amy and I hit the road 5 hours north to Oklahoma for the NASA event Saturday and Sunday. We made it to our hotel outside of Tulsa and crashed out, set to arrive at the track at 7 am Saturday.
NASA at Hallett, Saturday, June 22, 2013 - CCW
This track has been looming on the schedule all year at me. I was half dreading going to Hallett... because I don't know this track at all. I cannot explain why, but after 26 years of competing in track events in Texas I've
never made it to the
Hallett Motor Racing Circuit in Oklahoma. Everyone I race with has, and they all rave about Hallett - with it's tricky/blind/off camber corners, the brutality on braking systems, and the short straights that can take the horsepower advantage away. Some folks made it sound like I would be lucky to beat TTE classed Miatas? So I didn't know what to expect, even after looking at some youtube in-car videos.
Here's the TT Track Map for Saturday that we made for the TT Racers
This track has been around for decades, and was designed to run in both directions - and it is often run both ways, which in itself is fairly unusual. From the looks of it I knew I would have a steep learning curve, but the timing with prep on the car and the growing service load in our shop didn't allow for the Friday Test-n-Tune day as I'd have liked. Doing that test Friday at NOLA made a
huge difference helping Amy and me both learn this new track. And many folks I talked to said you needed to learn Hallett, respect the layout, and that it takes years to master. Everyone knows someone who has crashed in "The Bitch", an infamous off-camber uphill turn that will bite your ass. I had zero experience there - never been there, never driven a lap - and I was scheduled to drive
only on Saturday's 4 sessions, with Amy taking the wheel on Sunday.
Solid plan!
So if you click on the Saturday results below, you will notice my name listed at the bottom, but with no time, next to 3 no-shows (who paid but didn't show up that day). But I
did show up, and even ran 3 whole laps Saturday, just didn't get any laps
counted. Why, do you ask? Well first off, it was the TT Warm up (1st session on Saturday), so times only counted for Grid Position for TT session 1 that followed. But I didn't get even these provisional times, as I left my AMD wired transponder turned off (idiot!), left my Aim Solo lap timer in the race trailer (Idiot!) and managed to break the car by driving into a huge curb on lap 3 (IDIOT!!!).
So yea, on Saturday I got in a whopping total of three laps, no official times, had no idea how fast I was going, and my day was over by 9 am. This video below shows my epic driving fail.... but it is also helpful as I give a rolling commentary of the track, corner numbers, and you can see the layout at a very modest speed going CCW.
OK, so if you watched that, I will explain briefly what happened. We gridded up based on "what we think we will run", which is how you typically do it on the very first TT session Saturday. I lined up on grid so I could follow KenO's TTB classed E46 M3, trying to learn the racing line from him. That worked well enough but after a couple of laps he backed off (running A6s) and he gave me a point-by after Turn 3 on lap 3. Meanwhile I had a faster TT2 EVO working his way up through the field and breathing down my neck leading up to Turn 2, so I was preparing to get a little ahead of Ken then give the EVO a point by right after Turn 4. And since I was watching my mirrors instead of where I was going, you can guess what happens next... I
drove right off the inside of Turn 4, smacked a curb with the rear wheel, heard a huge
BANG! and broke something in the rear suspension. I felt the impact and thought it had cut a tire, but it was part of the Watts Link. With Amy riding shotgun, of course. Oh FFS...
Its hard to see how far offline I was unless you know this track, but I was 10 feet from where I needed to be. I managed to drive into a big hole in the dirt right before the curbing starts, then
WHAM! the wheel smacked the sharp, leading edge of the curbing. Huge impact, lots of tire smoke, and I thought we had a blowout. Idiot driver...
Assessing the Damage + Repairs at Vorshlag
After sitting out the rest of the TT session at the Turn 6 corner station, trying to see under the car through thick green grass, one of the wrecker drivers loaned me a bungee cord. I used that to get the lateral link tied up, that was otherwise dragging the ground, then drove the car back to the pits. Amy was calling me
Curby McCurbison from that point on. One we got to our paddock spot it was time for a closer look. Oh, and that's when we noticed how we tore up the trailer on the tow up, driving on some horrible "toll road" in Oklahoma. So bumpy and bouncy that the tires on one side slammed into the fender and bent two panels on the side of the trailer. The F-350 rides so well we didn't notice how much bouncing around the trailer was doing. Glad we didn't cut a trailer tire. (Kurt has since fixed the trailer damage, moved the fender up, and clearanced the panels for more tire travel - on both sides)
Damn this car is
low now. It took driving up on some boards but I finally managed to get a jack under the axle and raised the rear up in the air to take a closer look. I had fellow TT racers and even AI racers stopping by to help, telling me to take the car to the infield race shop for repairs, but when I saw what broke I knew our day was done. It was a solid hit and I sheared off one of the Watts Link propeller stands, which allows the axle to float side to side until the tires smacked the inner fender wells (which explains all of the tire smoke that I thought was a blown tire). With an impact like this, something had to give. Nobody's fault but my own. I knew this wasn't going to be an easy track-side fix - especially since the part that broke was missing in action (probably flew off and bounced out into the woods). I knew where the closest spare part was - at Vorshlag, 5 hours away in Plano, Texas. Time to load up, our day was over.
Quick mention about this track. Hallett is a picturesque track plopped in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma. Surrounded by lush grass, old growth trees, ponds, and rolling hills. It is very unique in that all of the paddock, grid, pit lane, buildings, and spectator parking is located INSIDE the track layout. Most of the racers are paddocked near the track, behind fences and tire walls, but it makes for a great view of the race at all times. Also, there is
no tunnel or bridge to get inside or out during a race session, so everyone has to wait for a break between sessions to access the infield. They have an efficient system of manned gates and every ~20 minutes they closed the track, then let cars pass over the track surface to access the infield or to leave. Beautiful little road course with LOTS of elevation change, trees and ponds everywhere, lush and green, and being 5 hours north of Dallas it was a hair cooler than home on this June day (high Saturday was 95°F but breezy).
We were loaded up, the car was strapped down by 11 am and were on the road back to Vorshlag. I had called our fabricator and head technician Ryan, who was luckily in town and not off supporting a pro race team, as he does on some weekends. He agreed to meet me at Vorshlag and we'd fix the car quickly, then get it reloaded and back to Oklahoma for Sunday. Just a quick 10 hour round trip, no problem! After seeing this kick ass track for the first time I wasn't about to let my curb smackdown end with a DNF for the entire weekend.
Onward!
Amy and I went and got checked out of our hotel outside of Tulsa (and cancelled that night's stay), stopped for lunch, then drove back towards Dallas. Made it back to Vorshlag, unloaded the car (again, with the help of lots of boards), got it on a lift, and
Ryan was wrenching by
4:15 pm. We robbed the part we needed from an S197 Watts Link kit we had in stock and he got the propeller and one of the lateral links (that dragged the ground for a ways and had some road rash) replaced and re-aligned by
4:40 pm. We checked out the rear tires for damage, they looked fine, and I reloaded the car and took the trailer to my house for the night. Got to sleep in my own bed instead of a hotel, which was a bonus.
NASA at Hallett, Sunday June 23, 2013 - CCW
We woke up by 1:30 and hit the road by 2 am, to make the 5 hour trek back north to Hallett. Yes, 2 am. We needed to be there and be unloaded by 7:15 am to make the grid for the first TT session. Amy had agreed the night before to give up her seat for Sunday to let me drive 3 if not 4 of the sessions. She also volunteered to drive the truck & trailer the entire 5 hours up, so I could sleep on the way. Amy... freagin... ROCKS!
Sunday was going to be unique in that we were going to run the track in the OPPOSITE direction for TT session 4. It wouldn't count for points, but it would count for a track record, as TT had never run Hallett Clockwise. Since this car has been racking them up this year, I
really wanted a chance to set two TT3 records on the same day. I was determined to get out on track for all 4 sessions, learn the layout quickly (in both directions), and get fast/clean laps going both ways. Remember, a 4-off or a spin is a DSQ for a TT session, so I had to learn the track layout quickly, stay clean, and go fast.
This ended up being a very hectic, busy day, and I neglected many normal "track test" procedures. I think I checked tire pressures
once, fuel got so low it starved in one session (my quickest session, as it happened - this wasn't a good thing), and had zero time to make any real adjustments on the car or brand new set-up. Not having Ryan there for track-side support was tough, but what put us behind was the fact that we were in front of a lot of new faces. We had dozens of people stop by our trailer to say "hi" who had never seen us at Hallett, which was a lot of these folks' home track. Many were old and new customers, and lots who have read this build thread. Some wanted to talk about BMWs, Mustangs, suspensions, TT, and more. And one of our Mustang customers (Mark Council) who lives in Oklahoma was at the track on Sunday and I had promised him a ride-along in a TT session. He was there Saturday as well, but missed seeing us run, as I broke the car right before he got there. Not complaining - we always love talking to customers and friends - but I should have just asked one of the guys from Vorshlag to tag along to help with the car between sessions. We got spoiled at NOLA having Ryan and Brandon there with us.
Anyways, I went out in TT session 1 with Mark riding along for most of the laps, throwing away my times for the session as I was taking a rider (automatic DSQ in TT with passengers). I was also taking it a little easy driving, which we're supposed to do if we have a rider along with us. I ran some dismal 1:26 laps, and after 4 laps I came in to let Mark hop out, hoping to get back out and take another 1-2 hot laps with only one person on board. By the time I got around to the start/finish they were throwing the checkers. Crap. I was still so green on this track I didn't take the same line on any consecutive laps, so far.
We were watching the ambient and track temps rise and knew from the forecast that it was going to get close to 100°F as the day progressed. This meant I wasn't going to be fast on track towards the end of the day. I threw away that first session (and was clearly still learning the track) and had only racked up a total of 7 laps over 2 days. I went into session 2 knowing that this was likely my last shot at getting clean, fast-ish lap going CCW, as session 3 would be HOT and session 4 would be going Hot
and ClockWise. The video below is from TT session 2, shows about 5 laps with lots of driver mistakes, and right when I'm getting faster in the car... well, you'll see.
So as you see in the video above, my fastest CCW lap of the weekend happens on lap 2 (1:24.3). I made some driver mistakes on lap 1, 3 (and it fuel starved a bit in the 100 mph left hand Turn 1), and 4, but was really hoping to get a quicker time on lap 5. The predictive lap time on Lap 5 looked better even after passing a TT1 Viper coming out of Turn 6 (excellent point by, I lost no time). It was looking like a 1:23 lap, right until I exited Turn 9 (aka: the Bitch) when the motor laid down. I think it fuel starved again, which sent it into some sort of limp mode. Not the first time this has happened. The engine temps were fine, right in the middle, but it was down to about 50% power until I cycled the key. And when you turn the engine off and on, it resets the Traction / Stability control systems. The only way to turn them off then is to come to a stop for 5 seconds and mash a bunch of buttons, so that ended my session. No, we haven't found a way to disable the traction control system permanently in the SCT tuner, yet. The only "solutions" so far also kill the ABS, which I'm damn sure NOT going to do... Nope! I'm an ABS whore, and proud of it.
So that session was pretty disappointing. My fastest lap of the weekend happened after taking only 9 laps at a brand new track. Sure, as an autocrosser I should "learn the track quickly", but I'm just not that good at picking up an all new layout like this. I needed more laps, and more cool weather, but it wasn't to be. Sure, I went out again in TT session 3 but by then the ambient was in the mid 90s and everyone was slowing down. I had some high 1:24s and a lot of 1:25s in that session, and felt like I was pushing the car harder and getting better lines, but the grip just wasn't there. I also had a 2 wheels off on the exit of Turn 6, which the corner worker somehow interpreted as a 4 off, so they DSQ'd that session on accident. It didn't matter, as my times were slower anyway. Realistically, the car should have been running 1:22s or quicker going CCW, so I was pretty bummed, but at least this time was quicker than the old TTA record (have done that every time this year, so far), and a hair quicker than the AI track record (AI's top qualifier Was MikeP with a 1:25.7; he won all 4 AI races that weekend). Still, that 1:24 lap is nothing to brag about. Oh well, it gives us something to beat in 2014.
(Continued below)