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The best lap I saw was a 1:19.2 but that was with passing 2 cars on that lap, so I didn't worry about it too much. I came in at 5 pm, even through there was another session I could have run it. I got the front of the car in the air and pulled off the front wheels, which I needed to re-use for the new tires. Then I quickly moved the trailer (to leave room for Costas), unhooked the truck, and hauled the two loose wheels to PST. I got there by 5:20, whew. But... they closed at 5. Doh!
They said they'd get the tires swapped first thing Saturday morning, but they opened at 8 am and I also had a TT meeting at 8 and had to be ready to leave the grid at 8:40. I told them I'd be there early and hope for the best. Got back to my paddock spot, changed the rear wheels for the other pair with fresh 345mm A6 tires mounted, checked the fluids, and then wrapped up for the day by 6:30 pm.
Jamie joined me for dinner and we met Marc Sherrin and a bunch of other TT drivers at the "Rib Shack", which was a literally a shack out in the woods, but they had some good BBQ. (this is the first of 4 BBQ meals for the weekend)
Saturday March 8th - NASA TT Day 1
Arrived at the track Saturday morning at 7:30 am, stopped at the gas station in front of the track to get ice for the cooler. Noticed the line into the track was 30+ deep so I went ahead and ordered a bacon and egg breakfast burrito from On The Brazos BBQ next to the gas station. Best breakfast burrito I've ever had in my LIFE! This thing was HUGE, and chowing on that $3.50 burrito made the wait for the front gate go by quickly. Once signed, wrist banded and inside the gate to my paddock spot. Costas had arrived at some unholy hour and was already unloaded. Our single-trailer width paddock spot grew to three trailers stuffed in there with Costas' 28' and Jamie's 24' trailers jammed in front of our 36'. Their cars plus the Mustang, Toth's Audi and Cody's E36 M3 were all parked together next to Glen's CMC Camaro over the rest of the weekend, too.
After I got inside the gates I raced over to PST to buy a freakin tire gauge (it wasn't loaded in the trailer), and they had my two front sticker tires mounted and balanced by 7:45 am - they rock. Thanks AJ! Ran back to my paddock spot, mounted the front wheels with sticker A6 tires, checked all the fluids and put a tiny bit of oil in it.
Which is all I normally need to do to this car - just keep it full of fluids and drive it. This Mustang is a TANK, I tell ya. Bled tire new tires' pressures down to where I thought they needed to be in the 36° temperatures we saw in the first TT practice session - 29psi front, 27 psi rear, shooting for 33F/31R hot (it overshot that goal by a good bit, as each tire grew by 6-8 psi). First session for TT was of course early and cold, so the track was very slick.
Wind chill put ambient temps in the high 29-30°F range, brr! So I figured there would be no grip on track. At least - for once - I had plenty of seat time on the Friday before an opening TT race session and felt
pretty good about the set-up, and I hoped I could drive better than I did in January at the SCCA Club Trials. I have watched my laps from that event, plus many others, and knew I was leaving time on track just in my driving (braking too early, lifting in corners that I should take flat, and being "smooth"). Even after 27 years of autocross and track experience I still have
plenty of areas to improve with "the nut behind the wheel".
As I was installing the front wheels I was farting around with the front spacers - something just didn't look right and had the front wheels on and off a couple of times, getting the wheels to fit right. I was confused and knew something on the car needed to be changed with respect to the spacers when I ran the different set of wheels (one pair of 12's has very different offsets from the later set of 18x12s). We had a quick TT meeting in at 8 am, and I was very rushed all morning. I then got the car to grid but something was nagging me.. ballast! I drove back to my paddock spot and looked for the 35 pound plates, but they were still at the shop. I had like 2 minutes to spare so I grabbed a 25 pound plate and hoped that would be enough. Bolted it on and drove back to grid. I ended up getting there as the one minute warning whistle blew.
Crap! Go go go!
I am belted in and look over to the passenger seat and see... the harness belts on the passenger seat were unlatched and the seat cushions were sitting on the floor - all of which which would fly around and be a huge distraction on track. I had to get out of my harness, get out of the car, go around to the other side and secure the belts and cushions. Long story short - I didn't make it out in the first grid spot as planned for the first session and had to rush out and catch the field once I had all of my crap together. Not having Amy or anyone else from the shop with me this weekend was a constant struggle to make it to grid on time and get the car checked over between runs. I had some help from Jason Toth and Paul Costas but they had their own cars (and students) to attend to.
Went out dead last in TT, about a minute after they had left, so I blasted out of the grid and caught the back of the field on the formation lap then scrubbed the sticker tires a bit. Costas snuck out there in his GT-1 car late as well, but held back and left a half lap gap to me, so he had all sorts of clear track on his first couple of laps.
Smart! I caught a ton of traffic on every lap, of course, but everyone was cool and I was passing 3-4 cars per lap. Worked my way up through the field and took five laps, which is a lot for this car in TT (normally overheating the tires by then).
I can smell and hear a tire rubbing and smoking, and eventually I figured out that the right rear is rubbing inboard badly. Then I finally remembered which spacer I was supposed to change - the rears! I really needed to get a sub 1:20 lap so I took a few more laps even though I saw and heard the tire rub. Needed a fast lap to get up the grid for TT session 2, so I wouldn't be mired in traffic and slow all day. That was probably a mistake, as when I finally did come in I had damaged the tire a bit more than I figured.
Did manage a 1:20.4, which was 4th fastest and moved me up the grid. Way better than I thought I'd get with that much traffic and these cold temps, so I guess it helped after all. We ended up having 29 cars for the day after 28 signed up, some didn't show, and then we had several new drivers get check rides from HPDE 4 and move up to TT. I came in, pulled the rear wheels and put the correct spacers on back there. Checked the tire, despite the rub, it was still OK and had not cut all the way through the outer rubber and into the carcass. Made quite a big "tire baby" out of the shaved rubber from the right rear. Oops.
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