Who said I didn't?
;-)
At 09:57 AM 6/15/2006, you wrote:
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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