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Saturday TT Results: http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/N...ay%20Final.pdf
As you can see we had 18 TT entrants on Saturday, with TT3 being the largest at 7 entrants, no TT2 cars, and 3 cars in TT1. So naturally the TT1 cars lined up first, and I was able to get gridded behind them. In the warm up session I passed two of the three TT1 cars pretty quickly and pounded out a 1:51.8 lap, which was 2nd fastest time for the session (this would become a recurring theme). The track was 100% dry now and I was working on learning the proper corner exit to Turn 16, but I had already picked up 2 seconds over Friday's best laps. I quickly found that the T13-T16 complex was crucial and when you strung those 4 turns together correctly your speeds on the long front straight were highest (data shows a peak of 141 mph for the Mustang).
Random Saturday Autocross Runs - Delta Region SCCA "Quatro de Mayo" Event!?!
As if instructing in HPDE, talking to the many people that came by to our paddock spot, and driving in TT3 wasn't enough for me on Saturday, I also snuck in a couple of fun runs at a nearby autocross, too. I blame Mark Council and Shane Umbarger, both of whom were running the Saturday Delta Region SCCA autocross event and were bad influences - they
dared me to go take a few runs on the course that was only 100 yards from our paddock spot. This event was held on the same dedicated NOLA autocross pad that was used in one of the BFG Rival events, so I
kinda knew the surface. And I was on A6s that we use in TT (more on that later). So, how bad could it be? Sure, the car was set-up and ballasted for TT3, and was on
very hard compound race brake pads (XP20), and I didn't walk the course so I knew nothing about where to go, but it was just so close by... and Amy wasn't around to stop me!
After driving over to the still active autocross site with Mark, who had been running the autocross himself earlier that day and won in ESP (and Shane won STX and had 2nd fastest time of the day), I asked the Event Chairman if I could hop in line and make a couple of fun runs before my next TT session. He said "HELL YES! And tell any of the other NASA racers to stop by, too!" That sounded good to me, but I hadn't walked the course. After a quick glance it looked a bit complicated, fairly tight, and included FIVE turns of 180° or more. I asked Mark if he would ride shotgun and call out rally style navigation signals, which was met with another "HELL YES!" Man, everyone is so nice around here. We strapped in while someone put a GoPro vidcam on the roof, then we pulled up to the line and took the first run.
Mark was yelling out turn directions, slaloms and relative speeds and I was driving by the seat of my pants, on a course I had never seen, and going 10/10ths. We made it clean on our first run but I was leaving tons of time out there, and the
stone cold XP20 Carbotech track brake pads meant that the car didn't want to stop at the first right-hander. Someone commented after my first run "Wow, you braked
super deep and just
nailed that turn!" to which I replied with "I crapped my
pants when I forgot I had cold track pads, and barely stayed out of the fence!" The first fun run was a 48.0, which was close to the quickest time of the event that day. Of course we went back for one more try. We hopped back in line for another run, and by now Brandon had come by and was snapping pics and there was a crowd watching the big red Mustang with the giant wing and obnoxious graphics. I sort of knew where the track went by this run but asked Mark to navigate again. Then we put down this run:
Click the preview above to watch the on-car YouTube video of the 2nd fun run I took
The 2nd fun run we had a 46.6 sec time, a little more than a second quicker than FTD for the event (
results), on my second blind run. It wasn't my "super driving", but instead a super easy to drive track car that amazingly
still works very well for autocross use. I felt good about that, and it gave me hope that we could possibly do some more autocrossing with this car in 2013. After my 2nd fun run I hopped out, thanked Mark for navigating and the event folks for a well marked course and the two fun runs, BamaDave grabbed his GoPro, and I hustled back to the paddock. As I pulled up I was just in time to be rushed off to grid by Amy to take my final TT laps on Saturday. She was hoppin mad, "I've been looking for you for 10 minutes, where have you BEEN?!? Wait...
did you just go run that autocross!!!" I had some 'splaining to do.
It had been nearly 6 months since my last autocross run and I missed it more than I wanted to admit. So much so that I signed up to autocross with the Texas Region SCCA for Sunday May 19th. Since my Watts Link is deemed illegal we signed up for StreetMod and I predicted we would be slaughtered by the several AWD turbo regulars that run in this class, but it would still be some cheap thrills on the last bits of these A6s we used at NOLA. Back to the Saturday TT runs...
Saturday Afternoon TT Sessions + NASA Party
This in-car video includes lots of high speed understeer and plenty of driver mistakes
So I ran the 1:51.097 lap above in the first official TT session on Saturday, which was the session after the Warm-Up. The AIM Solo was predicting a 1:50.5 best on the lap above, but I over-drove on T16 and botched the lap by a half second. An American Iron car oiled down the track in one of their races so the NOLA track crew had their hands full cleaning up that mess. Oil dry does not make for the best racing surface, so Mike Weathers (TT1) and I talked about it and we both decided to sit out TT session 2. Turns out that was a good idea, since nobody put down their best times in that session, and all of the cars made puffs of dust smoke going through the oil dry. By TT session 3 the track was clean and I went out again. I took 2 more laps but even during the first hot lap the A6s were getting too hot too quickly and I overdrove Turn 16, blowing the exit speeds and running some 1:51s - with predictive again showing a potential 1:50.0 lap, until I botched that last turn. By the 2nd hot lap the tires were too greasy and lap times were creeping up, so I brought it in.
The Vorshlag paddock became the "Home for wayward Mustangs" all weekend
One lap that
isn't shown on video above, but is quite hilarious, is my
first hot lap in TT session 1. This is the session where the video above was made, and my quickest time of the day happened, but not until on my 2nd hot lap. On my first lap I was in front of Mike Weather's TT1 car (we agreed to swap places on grid, putting me out in P1, since his best laps happen on Lap 2 or 3 with his dedicated racing slicks). I went out pretty wild and woolly on my first lap and dove deep into Turn 5, braked hard.... and put two left side tires in the mud. It was a pretty hairy ride and I barely kept it from a full 4-off. Mike told me later that it was a great show and we had a good laugh about it, but I crapped my pants for the second time that day. We still don't have proper tow hooks on this car and if it had gotten stuck, man, that would have been a tough extraction.
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