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And all I needed to do was have a "4-off" into T15 at 160+ mph... where my room mate in college went off, flipped 4 times, and totaled his car. Of course this was unlikely, but who knows - all I'm saying was this CW 2.9 mile course was just a tick out of my comfort zone, mostly from lack of experience running it this way.
We loaded up on Friday, once again borrowing Ed's Duramax dually, then Amy and I bombed down to College Station, TX, leaving at about 7 pm and hitting massive Friday downtown Dallas traffic. We arrived about 11:30 and managed to stick the truck + enclosed trailer into the hotel parking lot (not always an easy job), got a few hours sleep, then towed out to TWS early Saturday morning, hoping to get a decent paddock spot. BZZZ! Wrong. The place was packed and we were stuck out in a grassy parking lot, well outside of the normal garage area. Oh well - gotta rent a garage or get their early to guarantee a good paddock spot.
No worries - we had the entire lot to ourselves and it proved to be a great spot to watch the racing (very near Turn 3), and the weather was so perfect we didn't even roll out the shade awning. We got the car ready for Time Trial and Amy and I helped fellow racer Joe D change over to some Vorshlag/D-Force 18x10" wheels and Continental slicks on his 2013 Boss302 Leguna Seca.
When we entered, I registered for Saturday only and Amy was signed up to drive Sunday, but we noticed that some of the eight TT3 cars didn't arrive on Saturday, so I paid the difference and signed up to run TT both days, so we could make sure we had at least 5 in class both days - in the hopes that somebody could win some tires (minimum 5 cars in class to pay out for Hoosier). I ran the first Saturday session with Amy riding along, since the times don't count on that session (but do count for gridding in TT session 2). I was pretty apprehensive and put in some 1:55 laps before Amy said "Enough!" and I came in after 4 laps. She is a terrible passenger... or I am a bad enough driver that she can't ride with me, one of the two.
There was all sorts of mayhem in the first session, with a Mazda2 spinning in front of us going into Turn 15, a Porsche went off Turn 7 on the next lap, then another car was off, and by lap 4 a Corvette not only went off track but was on fire before Turn 4 (not much damage). Wow, what a mess. They called the session early and we all "had a talk" about driving wild in TT.
When I went out for TT session 2 I was gridded a bit better and got some quicker times, into the 1:51s with a best of a 1:51.749, which put me in front of TT3 by a good bit. See video below...
Click above to see in-car video from the TT3 winning/lap record setting 1:51.7 lap in session 2
Saturday TT Final Results: http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/N...ay%20Final.pdf
I went out again in session 3 but the temps were rising and I didn't get any quicker, with a 1:51.9. I didn't bother to go out in session 4, as the temps were on the rise and I didn't feel like there was much left in the car, at least with me driving it... a few tenths maybe? The Hoosier A6 tires always seem to put in their best laps on the FIRST hot lap, and work best in the FIRST sessions of the day (coolest temps), so I was on a steep learning curve - trying to learn this course and put in my best flier in my first lap of each day, heh.
It looks like TT3 ended up having 7 in class for Saturday with a C5 Z06 Corvette taking 2nd with a 1:54.057, with Jerry Khoury's ST2/TT2 Corvette somehow sneaking into TT3 for 3rd (he is going to get a new tune to become TT3 legal soon, but I didn't mind, as it gave us more TT3 entries) and a Super Touring Ferrari F355 Challenge car in 4th. Looking at the results I was
very happy to be ahead of the class that day, with so little seat time on this "backwards" 2.9 mile configuration.
Eventually the memory of this course came back to me during my first session Saturday, from when I ran it this way sometime back in the 1990s, but the speeds on the main straight "never got dull". The factory speedometer in the car was buried (at 160 mph) at the start/finish, hundreds of yards before I braked into T15. I calculated that I was really only doing 165mph into T15, but then I really had to ABUSE the brakes to haul it down for T14, where I got on the gas again, then braked again for T13.
My 2nd laps in each session were always hairier than the first, as the tires would get hot and the car would get LOOSE. Coming through Turn 2 at 100+, often about 10-15° sideways, was a bit unnerving. I left the rear wing at almost full AoA to keep it planted in the T2 to T1 complex, to get as much speed up for the front straight. Aero is your friend when you have more power than you have tire. I've got to get this car off of these little 315s! If she'd just let us cut and flare the car for 335s we could run less wing...
Sunday was supposed to be Amy's TT day for all 4 sessions, but we had a lighter attendance than we thought... and since I was able to pull out the win Saturday I went ahead and signed up for Sunday, and agreed with Amy to only take one TT session, the second. Sharing a car sucks. So she went out in TT session 1, but felt she wasn't getting enough seat time so she went out again with HPDE3, after her first TT session. I rode with her, trying to get her to learn the course and push the braking and acceleration zones, which were holding back her times all day.
NASA @ TWS Photo & Video Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...il-20-21-2013/
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