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Amy went out in the first session, and in the Texas NASA Region the 1st TT session
on Saturday doesn't count for the competition, only for gridding the cars in order of speed for Session 2. Kind of weird, but we all know it. Normally the quickest times happen early in the day, like this first session, due to excessive track temps. But this day was COLD, and it only varied from 47-50°F during both days, so track temp wasn't a problem!
She went out and busted off a 2:01 in her first session, which wasn't bad. Then in the 2nd session (or the first one that counted for competition), with no changes other than driving she popped off a 1:58.8!
Amy's best lap in TT session 2, at a 1:58.8
I was floored. She was leading TTS class over some other TTS drivers in real race cars, but in this overweight full street car. I asked her what she did different and she said "I pushed it a LOT harder!" She got out of the car shaking a little but with the BIGGEST smile I've ever seen. Oh man she was HOOKED on R compounds now. This was by far the fastest I've ever seen her run on a road course, and come to find out it was her
very first time racing this car on R-compound tires on a road course (I kinda hogged the car at the previous events where we ran sticky tires). "I want some more..."
After her second session we made some lunch, then she hit the track again in session 3, but she only managed a 1:59 lap. We talked to Mike Patterson at lunch about a ride-along for some pointers for her. Mike is a long time AI racer, NASA race director, and one of the gurus at Moton/AST-USA. They went out in an HPDE3 session right after TT session 3 with Mike riding shotgun, giving her advice.
He knows pony cars and this track very well, and showed her a few places to tweak her line, where to track out farther, and some places to brake a tick later in the high speed braking zones. But overall he was impressed with her smoothness, ability to take advice and alter her driving quickly, and the car's lap times. He also raved at how well our 2011 GT soaked up some of the more notorious bumps at ECR, stating "That's the best handling street car I've ever ridden through turn 8 in at this track!" Gotta give credit to his own shop's custom Moton shocks (with DDP pistons + custom valving), and the new Whiteline S197 suspension bits.
So after this 4th session for her that day she went back to the trailer and we fueled up the 2011 once again. She was ready to try some of the new tricks Mike taught her in TT session 4, and the weather was still chilly but otherwise conditions were unchanged. Her main rival in TTS for the day was in a yellow C5 Z06 Corvette had just busted off a 1:57.5 but she felt she still had some left and was going for it....
During her warm-up lap I saw her arm go up, signaling "pit in", and she came into immediately to the hot pits. I went over to see what was up and she said the rear brakes were making a horrendous noise - and I looked at the rotors, and both were split! It probably happened between her 4th session on track while the car parked down at our trailer, sitting in the cold wind cooling down. We had heard a slight noise going up to grid in TT session 4, so I got out, walked next to the car, and listened... then it went away. Couldn't see anything. But as soon as she braked hard
once on her warm-up lap the rotor splits opened up. Just a single half speed lap like this wiped out the nearly new rear Porterfield R4 pads, too.
We quickly put the car in the trailer and bombed back across town to Vorshlag. Ryan met us at the shop with a pair of new rear rotors he picked up at O'Reilys and he swapped those + some used Porterfield R4S pads we typically used for autocrossing/street use, just on the back. The front 14" brake rotors and pads looked fine. We reloaded the car and got some sleep.
How About the 2013 in TTB?
Yea, about that. Well we had nobody there shooting pictures for us all day Saturday, so I don't have any "action pics" in the '13, and with only one video camera we didn't get in in-car vids of the '13 either. That's probably all for the best, as it was pretty terrible on track. I cannot describe in words how awful this car turned and braked. It was rather remarkable. Sure, the 5.0 Coyote V8 made
boatloads of power, and the NT-05 tires worked "OK" in these frigid conditions (finally didn't overheat!), but the brakes were atrocious and the handling is best described as "boat like".
ECR is a little bumpy. OK, it is a lot bumpy, but with good shocks on our various track cars (ASTs or Motons) we don't notice the surface humps, heaves and bumps at this track almost at all. This 2013 GT was on the OEM shocks, and I'd swear they were 200,000 mile blown shocks and struts if I hadn't seen the odometer reading 600 miles with my own eyes. The front end was porpoising up and down about a foot all down the back straight. Even the corner workers we talked to at lunch remarked at how bouncy and floaty the car looked. First session best time was only a 2:10, but that session doesn't count for times.
Even with maxed out camber, which did help me from shredding the outside edges of the front tires, this car was a hot mess. Like driving a guided missile - all kinds of power, but with minimal turning and no way to stop. The handling was like this: it would turn in, then keep rolling, then bounce through the corners and flail around, seeing both top and bottom of suspension travel several times per corner. Just awful. The base GTs must have a set of noodle shocks and springs. And we even had an Eibach front bar set at full stiff, to try to fight this massive bodyroll. And big 295mm tires on the thing, up from 235s. It was all "lipstick on a pig" with the stock suspension, though. This car needs better shocks and springs BADLY.
By TT session 2 the base GT's 13.2" front brakes were going away quickly, and by that session I realized the brakes only had ONE hot lap in it at a time, then needed a really slow cool down lap to get the brakes to come back. I was braking the '13 a solid 50 to 100 feet sooner than in the '11 but it was still
barely staying on track. And one time, it uh....didn't.
I was coming down the back straight in TT session 2 at what the (second, borrowed) AIM Solo later said was 115 mph. I go to brake for turn 7, down shifting from 5th to 3rd... but there were no brakes. Pumping madly, nothing happening. I could say I was still "getting a feel" for the stock pads and braking system but I was abusing the crap out of the car, to try to make better lap times due to the abysmal handling. It was too much and the front brakes just didn't have anything left. I won't blame the equipment, because I bought the car on purpose
without the Brembos, then left the craptasic stock pads and fluid on there, then over-drove it; I have to blame myself for not having the forethought to replace these critical OEM bits + the extra abuse I was laying on the car.
So in TT session 2 on Saturday I went WAY off the end of the back straight, still doing about 80 mph, even though the entry speed is about 50 mph (according to the data I was doing 123 mph and slowing down to 51 mph in the '11 GT - lots of braking). The corner workers had a good laugh at lunch. "We thought that car would
never stop!" I was a good 100 yards off in the dirt, but the tall and soft 4x4 stock suspension at least soaked the off-roading up well enough. Only evidence was a little stalk of grass in the grill, and otherwise zero damage. I got off lucky.
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