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The guys here at Vorshlag had everything prepped before Hallett in about a day. The brake pads and rotors looked great but they pushed a little fluid through anyway, to make sure it was bled. The Carbotech XP20 pads were brand new before the ECR test day and they swapped in fresh Carbotech pads out back halfway through the day there. Car was nut and bolted, I drove down to the local Shell to fill the tank with 93 octane (and we brought 20 gallons more with us, as Oklahoma only has 91 octane for premium), and a sticker set of Hoosier 335/345 tires were mounted. This was the winnings from TWS, and I
almost took a scrub set to Hallett and saved these.... but I got nervous at the last minute and had Olof mount the new sticker set.
Why? I was worried about two things: getting beat in TT3 at Hallett -or- maybe barely winning but not resetting our old track record there. My main TT3 competitor Jeff Tan had just had new aero installed front and back, new suspension spring rates added, and a stroker 2.3 liter motor drinking E85 in his red EVO 9. Our friends at
Evolution Dynamics had just put a new custom tune on Jeff's TT3 EVO that made 300whp from 3200rpm to 8000rpm, peaked at 326 whp and 410ft lbs of torque. In this much lighter car it could be a killer in this class. They use a boost trick to make constant "max power" across a huge rpm range, - and meets the letter of the TT rules. Nothing I can do about it except - build a similar turbo motor. Jeff was coming equipped for a battle! We also had 7 cars entered in TT3, including Boss302 driver John Scheier who I've known for 15 years and co-driven with at the Solo Nationals more than once. He's always fast. There were 10 cars in TT1, and I was worried about getting stuck behind some of the slower TT1 Corvettes if I didn't qualify well in the first TT practice session. And the 2013 TT3 National Champion was hinting on Facebook he
might show up at Hallett, so I had all sorts of threats looming.
The last mod we made was to my helmet - adding the D-ring hardware anchor mounts needed for the Simpson Hybrid Pro I was borrowing. I wanted to test this Simpson head and neck restraint system at Hallett, and the HANS quick-release post anchors I already had installed in my helmet were swapped out for these. No, you won't find these D-ring mounts at a local hardware store, like a friend told me, they
have to be special ordered. I got a pair from RaceDaySafety over-nighted after we struck out at all of the local race shops.
I have used a HANS branded device twice before (see above right) and absolutely hated the experience, so I was hoping the Simpson Hybrid Pro would work better for me - to actually allow me to turn my head, look down more than 1 degree while in the car and strapped in, etc. As an autocrosser I'm used to having my head on a swivel and looking way ahead, sometimes 90 degrees from the direction I'm traveling. I even autocross many times with an open faced helmet, for better visibility. The HANS I used back in 2012 was not a sliding tether style that allows you to rotate your head, so that was part of the misery. At Hallett there are a few corners where you
have to turn more than 90 degrees in a very short span of track, so looking out the side window to check and set-up corners would be crucial.
Still, I was determined to try to set a better example with my safety gear, vowing to run all of my sessions wearing my 3 layer suit, Nomex lined shoes and gloves; the Hybrid Pro attached and my Schroth 6-point belts secured tight. I was already sporting the back injury and this was my first event back, and I didn't want to make matters worse if I had a crash. Also, I was keeping an eye on the pain - if it got bad, I promised my wife Amy that I was going to hand off driving to my TT3 team mate (Amy). She wanted the seat time, too, so I had to watch my mouth and NOT complain unless it got really bad!
NASA at Hallett, June 21-22, 2014
Amy didn't have enough time off from work to go up a day early and run the Friday test-n-tune. That's a shame, as we both needed the seat time at this track. I had run the CCW 1.8 mile Hallett circuit all of about 15 laps that one day in 2013, and Amy had no laps at all. My friend John and another buddy of his (and MCS customer of ours) Garrett arrived on Thursday night and had a good paddock spot set-up for us outside of Turn 9 (aka "The Bitch"). TT1 racer Marc Sherrin was also on site and paddocked with them by Friday morning and taking laps, and TTU racer Paul Costas was there as well in his GT-1 Camaro.
Vorshlag Event Picture Gallery: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/Racing-E...allett-062114/
Note - these pics are by me/Amy, Paul Costas, or Hallett's photographer (I bought a CD of pics)
We left Dallas plenty early at 2 pm, took our usual route north to Oklahoma City on I-35 and .... stopped. For an hour. There was massive construction traffic north of town that delayed our arrival by an hour, so we didn't get to the track until 7:30 pm. Luckily June 22nd is the longest day of the year so it was light until 9 pm, which allowed us plenty of time to unhook our trailer and... cart everyone to dinner 25 miles away. See, the Hallett Motor Racing Circuit is located in a remote part of rural Oklahoma and the nearest hotels are 25-35 miles away.
Marc had heard of some restaurant "on a lake" called Freddie's Steakhouse that was supposed to be good - and once we found it, it was actually pretty awesome. Amy and I were joined by racers Marc, Costas and HPDE director Scott for a solid 2 hour dinner where we laughed ourselves silly. Since we drove them to dinner we took another hour of driving to take most of them back to the track, then we went off in the opposite direction to our hotel in Sand Springs, 30 miles away. It made for a long day and late night but we had a good time.
Saturday June 21st - TT Day 1
Back at the track by 7 am Saturday morning and we quickly unloaded the Mustang. Finally saw John and Garrett from Colorado, who were paddocked next to us and Marc. We did some quick checks of the car, mounted the vidcam and AiM Solo DL, then went up to the club house for the TT meeting at 8 am. We had 44 TT cars entered, which made for a huge field. We were to go out together in the first TT Practice as a group but then the TT group was split into two groups for the rest of Saturday: TT1/2/3/U in one group and TTB-TTF in another.
There was ample coverage of the Passing Under Yellow issues we had at TWS and what was acceptable and what was not for this weekend. Dave B, Ken B and Scot Adams all put their foot down about PUY, not blocking, how to take a cool down lap without impeding, and where to safely pass at this track. It was a good meeting and I hope we can continue to have these open discussions amongst the TT drivers like this before each day of racing.
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