July 26, 2003
Things that I have changed since the last race.
Fully rebuilt rear drums and I finally got a header and my exhaust put on.
I was running out of time (helping a friend replace his valve stem seals in a
supra) and again came down to the wire. I made an appointment with Honda
to service my rear drum, i figured they would inform me to replace the shoes and
drums. The service guy called me and told me that both drums were metal to
metal and the shoes looked like they exploded inside the drum. This might
be why I was fighting a soft brake pedal since I've bought the car. The
dealer finished up late on Thursday.
Tech closes at 10 (30?) p.m. so I know I have to leave
early to make it. I left work at 3:30 and met Emily at the grocery store.
Emily would of done most of the gathering of stuff but she didn't get back from
getting the brake controller on the 4runner installed until 3.
We finally get home around 4 and I start getting our stuff ready. 5
o'clock rolls around then 6 and I am getting close to finishing. We stop
at a gas station and fill up both vehicles and we are on the road by 6:30.
Hauling the trailer with the brake controller makes for such a better trip.
simply amazing, however we still didn't get up to Blackhawk until 12:30.
Mental note, doing 70(ish) it is a 6 hour trip. We find our way
into the paddock area and everyone I know is already asleep so we
begin to make camp. We received a new Colman tent for our wedding and as I
took the tent out of the bag for the first time I noticed that the bungee rope
in the poles is broke. not on ONE but on THREE of the four poles. so
I spend some time trying to rethread the string and tie it off and hope it holds. I had the
bungee so tight on them they had no extra give. 45 minutes later we have
camp ready to go and got to bed around 2a.m.
6:30 in the morning comes awful quick when you only have four
hours to sleep. I got the car tech'd and was ready to go by the time they
called for the morning meeting at 8 a.m. A couple doughnuts later they call
for our first practice session. My plan was to grid behind john (neon) so
I couple find where I am the slowest and Jeff (C5) grid in behind me. John
gets the green light and takes off. He hits turn one and is out of sight.
I get the green light and dump the clutch at 4k and had NO tire spin. I
find my line through turn one and progress through turn two while still not
really braking. As I am approaching turn three I begin my brake. My
rears locked up right and started swinging my rear end around. I got off
the brake and was making my correction to the wheel. click. steering
wheel was fully turned to the left as my car is facing the corner station of
turn three (which should of been on my 4 o'clock) the front grabs traction and
its coming back the other way. I am back on the brakes and am frantically
trying to bring the wheel back to the right as now i am looking at the tree line
along turn three. The car comes to a complete stop just inches from going
off track. I shake my head, check the mirrors, put it in first and floor
it. as I am hitting second gear I can see Jeff in my mirrors just now
coming into turn three. I am flustered and can't seem to catch back into a
rhythm and my heart is pumping away like mad. I wasn't following the best
line or was I going the fastest I could for the rest of that lap but I started
to settle down by the time we reached the main straight. Jeff was behind
me waiting for me to give the pass (I think he was ready by turn 5 ;). I
gave him the pass and kept in it. yes the C5 makes more power than my
Honda as he was pass me without blinking. He
never really got that much farther in front of me than I thought. as a
matter of fact he was only a couple car lengths in front of my by turn two.
I was holding him. He didn't make any progress on my what so ever until we
came back to the main straight where he was able to hit the triple digits and
finally shake me. I was impressed with myself.
The second timed run I was basically by myself. I
dumped the clutch from the start at 4.5k and still didn't spin the tires. I
didn't catch up to anyone, although I was closing in one the person in front of
me and no one passed me. Things that I noticed: I noticed that most
of my corner entry speed is around 55 mph with the exit speed being in the 60's.
I noticed with the added power of the header I can/could shift into fourth out
of turn 3, and between turn five and six. I never did shift into a higher
gear but i am thinking there is .4-.8 seconds of time here. I noticed that my speed crossing
the bridge with stock exhaust was 80mph and with header it was 90mph. I
noticed that the brakes were soft again. I am going to call it the
Blackhawk plague that nick the headless Ferrari driver gave me for making it to camp so late at
night. I have no idea why the brakes go soft here so quickly. At
gateway the held the entire day, at Gingerman they held 3/4 of the day, at
Blackhawk they last one session. People do say that you shouldn't mix
Motul 600 with any other brake fluid and my guess is that the dealership bleed
the brakes when rebuilding the drums and introduced a new brake fluid. I
have SS brake lines and new fluid I will install before the next track day and
will know then.
After a long brake at lunch they started calling for timed
runs. In a nut shell, you line up at grid and wait for the green.
Its a standing start, so there is no warm up. You make your one lap and
have a half a lap to cool down (still having to do 8/10's as not to hold up the
guy that should be coming behind you) and exit through the back gate at
turn five. On the first run I dumped the clutch at 5k and heard just a
minimum of tire spin. I think I had the car pushing a little too
much through turn three and tried to shift into fourth between turn five and six
and botched the downshift. This run
turned out to be my fastest run to date in the Honda with a 1:36.1.
As the day wore on, it was getting hotter and muggier.
The second timed run I think the heat got to me. I know I pushed through
turn three again. I ran a 1:36.3. Looking at the results everyone
seemed a little slower that run. Humidity?
The third run I was tired, hot and my sugar was high. I
came into turn one and late early apex'd it and pushed the front end almost
sideways. This time I think I nailed turn three and turn 3A is finally
getting easier for me. As I approached turn 7 i remember looking up and
seeing the track a firebird made earlier that day (he had a stuck throttle and
drove off full throttle) and was going into the turn hot and hoped the
brakes would do their job. well they did a little too much. I didn't
lock them up this time but I slowed down more than I should have. Usually
my speed into the turn is 55 with the exit speed being 60-65. I was down
to 45 and that dropped the tach down into the 3.xK range. WAY to slow.
I kept in it and pretty much dismissed that entire run. Later I found out
it was my second fastest with a 1:36.2 (pretty consistent with blowing different
corners each time)
John took first place again with a 1:33. Bill Minor
took second place with a 1:35 and I took third with a 1:36.1. Watch out
Bill I am chasing you down. John, I think it will take r-compounds or 5-10
more hp to catch up to you.