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Mike Patterson won all 4 American Iron races on new 18x9.5" Forgestar F14s he got from Vorshlag, with a fastest race lap of 1:53.0
Looking back at the weekend I took two hot laps in the TT Practice (1 aborted), one hot lap in TT session 1 and two laps in TT session 2 (1 aborted) on Saturday. For Sunday I took all of
one hot lap, in TT session 1. That should leave us plenty of tires left for GTA, other than Amy's entire HPDE 3/4 session she took - but since she was mired in traffic it kept her speeds and tire wear down. Our new wing worked great, even through we only tried it at one position (6 degrees AoA). We made mounting holes for 3 positions - 6, 10 and 12 degrees - but the car felt so good I didn't want to mess with it, and with as few laps as we took here we didn't get in much testing - we were hoping to do that at Road Atlanta.
Amy running in a DE group was pretty funny, traffic-wise
We did make several shock adjustments on the new MCS RR2s during the weekend, and with easier access to the rear rebound knobs that was a welcome improvement. The dampers felt great with our Maxcyspeed custom valving, soaking up the bumpy pavement from this old track. New mechanical grip from the wider tires was evident in the slow turns and the added grip from the new rear wing helped at higher speeds. Its notable that we run the AJ Hartman wing at 6 degrees and it has more stick than the GTC-300 had at 12 degrees, and lots less drag. Last year we were "dirt tracking" through Turns 1 and 2 up onto the banking but this year the car was a lot more stuck down and confidence inspiring.
I like the car with more downforce. Unlike true "aero cars" that have very narrow speed ranges of effectiveness and HUGE downforce numbers, our splitter and wing combo seems to just make the car easier to drive, makes the brakes more effective at high speeds, and we're dropping major time from last year's lap records with almost the same set-up and power levels. We won TT3 by about 6 seconds again on Sunday and with 5 cars in class won another 2 tires for a total of 4 over the weekend. This might have been the last time NASA ever runs TWS 2.9 going ClockWise, as there are serious rumors of the owners selling the track and turning the land into a housing development. The MUD passed by the city a few weeks prior to this event, so who knows? We might be back in 2015 for a final time, but if so I think this 1:48.4 lap is more solid than the 1:51.5 lap I ran last spring in 2013.
It was a record attendance for TWS with NASA, with 335 entrants. Will and Dave and all the folks from NASA Texas did a great job with the racing, paddock, Saturday party, and I heard the Friday 8 hour enduro was a blast. We had a good time, with two solid wins and a new track record, especially considering the strange events on Saturday.
Costas had a great weekend in his GT-1 car, putting in TTU wins both days and winning several of the SU races on new Hoosier tires (switching from Goodyear). In SU qualifying he managed a 1:45.0 lap, which was the quickest lap recorded all weekend - nice! He had a nasty blowout at one point but it didn't phase him and he just swapped on some other tires. I can't do it justice here, so check out his write-up for the TWS weekend
is located at his Witchdoctor website, which is always fun to read.
Texas SCCA ProSolo - Welcome Party - May 2, 2014
the following weekend Vorshlag sponsored the Friday night welcome party at the Texas Pro Solo held out at Mineral Wells on May 2nd, 2014. This event was within days of the the annual
Cinco de Mayo celebration that is huge in Texas, and was the theme of the event. Contrary to what you might think, May 5th isn't "Mexican Independence Day" but actually a celebration in both Mexico
and the USA of our thanks to Mexico for fighting off the French, who were invading their lands in 1862 and threatening to support the Confederates in the American Civil War. The Mexicans were outnumbered 2 to 1, and the French hadn't been defeated in battle in 50 years. This battle also marked the last time any European force has invaded the Americas.
The more you know...
All that
might explain why someone put a Mexican sombrero on me while I drank German beer and cooked American burgers and dogs for about 200 people over the course of a few hours. Jason went with me and talked to a number of folks at this Friday night event as well, and our shop foreman Brad Maxcy was running the event, as he does for all Texas Region SCCA Solos. Special thanks to Jen Maxcy, who helped me work the grill and serve the meats. The competition for the ProSolo was on May 3-4th, but we were double-booked with an event (see below) on Saturday, so we couldn't compete in this event. Bummer, would have been fun to run in Street Mod.
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