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The sun came out and drove up track temps in session 4 and I slowed down to a 40.166 best. Session 5 was much of the same but I got a hair quicker with a 40.026 best, only 3 hundredths quicker than session 3. I was beginning to think we'd never break out of the 40 second zone, but the AiM's predictive lap timer kept popping up with a 39.9 every once in a while, but then I'd blow it in Turn 5 - which was the toughest corner to master due to a lower grip surface and an off camber slope. I had to keep the rear from sliding
too much in this corner, as oversteer would overheat the rears and they would then lose grip badly. I was also putting a lot of heat into the front brakes, but kept pushing my braking into Turn 1 later and later during each session.
I never stopped pushing until Ryan Matthews came off track for the last time - that Camaro was FAST
By session 6 somehow I was in the overall lead, but not by much. Ryan Matthews had laid down a blistering 40.119, and that was too close for comfort (I was in the 40.0 range by then). Thanks to my faster times I was gridded P1 and out first in sessions 2-6, which let me set the pace on the out lap and gave me clean air for my first several laps. We got into a pattern where where I'd take 4-5 hot laps, 1 cool down lap, then dive into the hot pits and park, check competitors' times and let my tires cool for a couple of minutes.
I would talk to Jason and Amy, they'd check the tire pressures, brake temps, tire temps, and then wait for a gap to send me back out in the second half of the session. Invariably a big portion of the field would quit early, about halfway through each session, then I could go out for more clear laps. This was a good strategy and with such a short lap time (40 seconds) the out lap and cool down laps didn't eat up substantial amounts of track time.
It seemed like the fastest 2nd gen Camaros in the world were all here this weekend!
I knew the car had a 39 second lap in it so I planned on trying to put in a flier on my first couple of laps in the last session of the day. The attrition had taken its toll by days' end so USCA combined the two Expert groups for our last session, but I was still gridded P1 and the first car out, and got my clear laps as planned.
Being this event was in my home town I had lots of friends there giving me advice all weekend
Jason and I talked strategy before the last session, and he and Amy both kept me calm and my mind clear all weekend. We had a plan to use a bluetooth phone call via MySync in the Mustang to set-up 2 way comms, like we have done before in TT events - but only if things got really close and I wasn't finding any time. I was ready to take that call, but it wasn't needed because I went out first in session 6 and laid down the only 39 second lap of the weekend.
In-car video of my fastest lap in the final Expert track session, session 6
Once I saw that 39.77 lap on the SOLO I knew our lap goal was met - faster than even the AiM had predicted. Man, I was
PUMPED and Brandon had to bleep out my voice for the entire cool down lap when he edited the above video. The
official lap time was
39.803 seconds, which was close enough. As soon as I saw that 39 lap I immediately took a cool down and dove into the hot pits to wait. Jason and Amy were high fiving me, but it wouldn't be over until we saw time expire
and if nobody beat that time. If Ryan managed a faster lap time I was ready - strapped in, engine idling, tires cooling, and ready to go back out and look for more time. Where I could find it, I had no idea...
About 10 minutes into the 15 minute final session, after about 4 minutes of waiting in the hot pits, we saw Ryan Matthews' Camaro come into the hot pits.... and turn left into the garage area!!! Jason looked at me and yelled, "Its OVER! You won it!" WAAAHOOO! The rest of the field came in within the next lap as well, but there were still about four minutes left in the final session and a completely empty track. Amy said "put it in the garage", but I told her that it would be a shame to waste an empty track with TV cameras looking at nothing. I went back out and took some victory laps with the ass of the Mustang hanging out
so much that it was good enough for the drift circuit. I was hooting and hollering, drifting and sliding around, so excited to have finally won ONE dang event that weekend!!! We cannot show this video at all because the audio would be one continuous censored BLEEP, hehe!
Each driver's fastest session times are shown in the chart above
Looking back in hindsight it appears that my best lap from all the way back in session 2 was
just good enough for the Hot Lap overall win, but it wasn't at all obvious to us at the time, so we fought hard all day long to break into the 39s. I took close to 90 laps on Sunday hunting for that lap, but we see now that the fastest laps on these BFG Rivals were taken just like on the Hoosier A6s - they came within the first 2 laps of going out on track with cool tires, or within the first 2 laps after my regular mid-session break cool-downs.
Seems that the BFG tires liked to get their best time when semi-cool, yet the rear tires needed some "slip angle" to get the best out of them. It was tough to balance tire
heat with the right amount of tire
slip. We had dialed the final tire pressures in at 31psi front and 33 psi rear (hot) on our best laps and the rear wing was set at maximum AoA (about 12 degrees). We dumped the rear shocks' compression to help with corner exit and ran about -3° front camber. My driving technique was simple: keep pushing the braking zones, use all of the available track and curbing allowed, stay off the grass, don't EVER go off track or spin, and focus on keeping the rear tires on the limit of their friction circle.
The chart above shows our placing in the GT3K class, which was quicker than the GT2K and AWD classes. You will notice on the "per session" chart, two above, that Brian Hobaugh had only one session with lap times. This was because he shattered his driveshaft about 5 laps into session 1, miring his times at 7th fasted for the class (see below, right).
Left: Ryan Matthews' DSE-prepped Camaro was 2nd quickest overall. Right: Hobaugh's driveshaft 'sploded during the first track session, which sucks
Danny Popp had no Hot Lap times, due to a CV failure from Saturday. Attrition played a part in the overall placements and worked in our favor. Tucker and Finch ended up 4th and 5th, a half second back from Matthews and Sherrin. This Hot Lap's final ranking ended up being a huge boost for me in the overall points battle for GT3K class, but we didn't realize that until later.
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