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Even though the GTA series is ultra competitive, we were there for NASA practice more than anything else. Our car isn't built around the GTA rules/tires and the Hoosier A6 tires we run dumped us into their top class, Unlimited RWD. Turns out that the top 2 fastest cars for the entire GTA field of 43 competitors were in this class, hurray. This was a crazy "combo" event weekend with GTA, Formula D drifting, and 3 classes of Trans Am racing all happening over the same 3 days. GTA was to run a compressed schedule with one early morning Thursday practice, then 3 timed sessions Friday (almost back to back), and three more on Saturday (also within quick succession). The drifting was off and on all day and went late into the night, and the Trans Am practice, qualifying and racing was in between. It was a hectic schedule, but our GTA bits were all grouped together.
Todd Earsley drove the 15 hours solo from Dallas to run GTA in his street tire shod EVO
Since we had a 15 hour tow from Dallas to Atlanta, and Amy was already taking 2 days off work, we wouldn't make the early Thursday practice. We left in the trailer from our house at about 3 am Thursday morning with Amy, shop manager Brad and photo guru Brandon in tow. We drove 850 miles across 5 states, straight through and arrived in time to eat dinner near our hotel Thursday night. We got up and made it the 10 miles to the track early Friday morning to find a paddock spot and unload. Once there we found a few Texas folks in attendance, including MyShopAssist/FrictionCircleFab/NASA and USCA competitor Todd Earsley in his EVO, SPL Parts/NASA racer Sean Farrah in his boosted Nissan 300ZX, and NASA TT competitor Josh Garcia in his Toyota V8 powered AE86.
We got to the track Friday morning with plenty of time, found the registration center and got our credentials to get in the gate, then we worked our way through the maze of infield roads trying to find the paddock. We asked directions from parking folks
3 times and were told to go 3 different places. We even found Todd Earsley in the infield maze of roads, who threw his hands up and just followed us. It was crazy confusing, and after coming back from this event I've found a map of the RA paddock areas and better understand why - there are TWO pit rows and TWO separate paddocks. The "infield" or "Pro" paddock and the "TT" paddock and pits set outside the track, across the T12-T1 front straight. If you learn anything from reading this post, it is to learn to ask WHICH paddock you need to pit in at Road Atlanta, and to NEVER underestimate this track's abuse of your braking system. More on that in a moment. They put all of the Trans Am and GTA cars in the left "TT" paddock and the Formula Drift cars were in the right or "Pro" paddock.
Josh Garcia's Toyota V8 powered AE86 Celica is always a popular car in the pits and on track
We unloaded the car from the trailer, and while I went to the driver's meeting Amy and Brad gave the car a quick wash at a nearby garden hose. They were drying it off, applying the GTA number boards, and checking fluids when we I got back. At this meeting the GTA staff warned us that this track was pretty treacherous and that they wouldn't be surprised if there were multiple crashes and car carnage. They were right.
Left: I'm talking with Sean Farrah in the pits before we went out in session 2. Right: Sean is a behind me here in his 300Z TT
We brought two sets of wheels and tires with us - a fairly well abused set of Hoosier A6 tires that had 2 hard weekends on them already and the semi-fresh set of 335/345 A6s that we had used for one weekend with NASA @ TWS two weeks earlier. The older, scrub set was a mis-matched mess: I had loaned out one of these 18x12" front wheels a while ago to Todd to test on his EVO, and it still had an old 315/30/18 A6 mounted to it. The matching 18x12" front wheel was brand new from Forgestar and not even powdercoated yet, and mounted with an old 335/30/18. We didn't realize we were missing the 315mm mounted wheel until moments before we left Dallas, but Todd grabbed it and brought it to Road Atlanta with him.
Left: After the GTA Session 1 results I was in 8th overall. Right: I found a 1.4 seconds in session 2, moving up to 7th
After swapping to our "test" tires, which were terrible, we never got a chance to put on the good ones
I figured Friday's first 2 or 3 sessions worth of laps would be throw-away times, since I was a total newbie here and intended to make as many laps as possible to learn this new track layout. So we mounted the worst set of mis-matched tires and put the 315mm on the inside (RF) corner, since it would see the least lateral loading. Contrary to what the sidewall numbers might lead you to think, the 315/30/18 and 335/30/18 Hoosier A6 tires are both
exactly the same diameter (
25.6" tall), so it shouldn't throw off speed sensors/ABS system due to side-to-side tire diameter differences.
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