Gary,
Thanks for the insights. Sorry that you lost your "stealth
mode"....maybe you should have sandbagged it a little? :-)
-Jeff
GaryK wrote:
Let's see, where to begin...
A majority of those who went this past weekend to Topeka went to run
on the new solo pad and that is why we went. Hearing about the site
is one thing, driving on it is another.
The weekend consisted of 2 regional events, 1 on Saturday and 1 on
Sunday, of which results are posted. The course was pretty fast and
fun and we used the whole pad, Sunday was reversed and a little
shorter. The first runs of the first heat on Saturday kicked up sand
off the course, so it looked pretty slippery to me. (Every time when
the racers were going around the road course and went off course a
cloud of sand was kicked up and blown around, so sand on the surface
will be an issue at all the events in my opinion.) But the kick up
from the cars ended pretty quickly.
Everyone in FM ran in the 2nd heat both days except Vernon Maxey who
ran in the 4th heat both days. Saturday it was sunny and mid to high
80's when we ran (and was warmer (91) when CM ran in the 4th heat) and
Sunday it started out cooler and cloudy, threatened rain but didn't,
and was probably high 70's to low 80's when we ran (high 80's and
sunny when CM ran). So I don't think weather was a factor.
Tires. Plain and simple. Tires made the difference, I believe.
Scott Nardin was on the same tires he won the Peru Tour with. I do
not know how old everyone's tires were, but we were on brand new tires
and to us the site wasn't that slippery. We had pretty good grip and
were able to drive the course. On Saturday, Scott could not get the
front end to grip, thus was fighting understeer. Take away some cones
and 4 CM drivers beat me on Saturday. I do not know if any of the
CM's were on new tires.
On Sunday we didn't make any changes and just ran the car. The grip
level felt better, probably because we also had a lot of rubber on the
course now from all the cars and CP. I was able to drop a lot of time
on every run. Scott made changes to his car and it was running better
but I think it still had some understeer. As to why I beat CM, I have
no idea. I'm still surprised I beat Scott by as much as I did on both
days.
Later in the day and on Sunday you had to run the clean line because
if you didn't it was pretty slippery from the displaced sand and
dirt. Thus the lower powered cars were always online and the higher
powered cars struggled more when they went offline to set up a corner
or accelerate. IMHO.
The surface is below Concrete in the grip area, but I was surprised by
the grip we were getting. I was expecting to slid more, thus the
reason we went. With more age and runs on it, it should get better.
Since Nationals is at the end of September, it will be cooler and the
track temperature will be lower, so will it affect the grip? Will the
other 3 events, the Pro Solo and the warmup make it better? We will
soon find out.
Handling will be very critical this year.
Gary K
(I lost Stealth mode last weekend) :-)
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