Anyway, enough harping on “good time this and that!” On to the meat and potatoes! My 2015 Solo Nationals started on Sunday when I showed up on site to get the stickers I'd need to pass tech on Monday. This car was “virgin” so it needed them all. The TireRack banner, SCCA wheel, Nationals sticker, Bridgestone stickers, and the Grassroots Motorsports stickers were all applied. The only other sticker on the car is the in-transits! :)
Monday morning I woke up and drove back to Lincoln. There is no running on Monday, just tech, check in, and the Test'n'Tune course. After checking in, I drove to tech and got the car teched. I don't know who was working tech but one of the guys made comment about the car still having in-transits on it. The tone of his voice was pretty condescending and judgmental but I figure if shit isn't broken in by the time I got to the first event at 250 miles, they WONT be broken in, ever, they'll just be broken. At this point the car had just over 1,000 miles on the odometer.
I went up to the T'n'T course to see if Mark Walker needed any help up there or doing anything else. If you've ever spoken with Walker at Nationals, you'd know that he has a laundry list of things that need to get done that adds stress. I also knew that the T'n'T was packed full for all the run times so I thought maybe I could bribe work for T'n'T runs! :) Turns out there was help needed which I gladly gave. I spent the next 4 hours shagging cones on the T'n'T course in the rain and shine while folks ran! At lunch time, the Rebels Auto Club out of Lincoln was looking for people to give rides to some of their members after the T'n'T shut down for the night. I was asked and gladly accepted the offer as it would provide me with some much needed seat time with the recent changes to the alignment of the car.
So the only things that I changed going into this event was the alignment, and tire pressures. The alignment change was discussed in a previous post but the front struts were slotted the 2mm allowance which produced -1.9º of camber on one side, -1.7º on the other side. The rear suspension was set to -2.2º of camber. Toe was zeroed out all around. The rear alignment drew A LOT of criticism and comments about the car not needing it and it making the car handling worse because of it. I set tire pressures at 38 all around.
Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate. By the end of the T'n'T run times all the Rebels club wanted to do is go home. No one wanted runs and the Lincoln Air Park's concrete patching crew was hell bent on fixing some of the damaged concrete on the T'n'T course. That's all good! I can use the exercise and don't mind helping out.
F-Street was slotted to run on Tuesday/Wednesday starting on the East Course and finishing on the West Course. The weather was predicted to be raining earlier in the morning but it was supposed to stop before we ran.
The East Course
[URL="http://cdn.growassets.net/user_files/scca/downloads/000/009/280/2015_Solo_Nationals_East_(plane)_Course.pdf?1441382867"]Click for East Course Map[/URL]
Well... the weather in Nebraska is rarely accurate... and.... well it was accurate. The rain had began at o-dark thirty in the morning and stopped just prior to my departure for the site at 0600hrs. I arrived on site and promptly began cleaning the water spots off the car. Rule #1 you know... if you can't beat them, at least look better than them! :) I then went and walked the course. You see, on Monday I walked the west course three times thinking it was the east course. Thankfully the east course was not overly complex. There were a few places where line choice was critical to doing well but it wasn't like the course was a mess of transitions where you could get lost on course easy. While the rain had basically stopped, the sun was not fully up and the pavement was no where near dry. By the time runs started the course was STILL wet.
As you can see, lots of sweepers, lots of power and some pretty healthy digs. Transitions were not as complex. This course would be a course for the Mustangs... except... that... the course was wet. The moisture would complicate things drastically and the fact that it wasn't raining still meant the conditions would be changing throughout the runs. The whole event was going to be determined by the final runs as the course dried out.
Boy would that hold true...
Run #1:
There is always a level of caution on the first run and then there is added caution from it being wet. I literally have no seat time in the wet with this car so this would be a first for me. I also had no seat time with the recent changes so that too would complicate things some. The gas pedal was next to useless at anything resembling WOT. Had the course been dry I KNOW I would have been in third in multiple places on the course but because it was wet there was some speed changes as I felt the car's grip out. Front end traction was fine, transitions were tolerable but rear end traction was non-existent. I'd come in with a 65.112. This run would put me just outside the trophies (about 15th place IIRC) after everyone was done with their runs.
Run #2:
I bled down the rear tire pressure 2 PSI in an attempt to bring the rear end under control. The car felt balanced and could carry speed in the sweepers but power down was still an issue. The course dried out a little bit but was still properly wet. Conditions were changing and people were getting faster. On course the rear end calmed down but it was still very loose. Throttle application was touch and go depending on the location on course and the finish was still a very sloppy and wet mess. After I came in on this run I was supposedly in fourth place. With the drying conditions I knew it wouldn't last but it felt good to know that I was at least in the hunt. Time was a 63.293.
Run #3:
I bled the rear pressures down another 4 PSI (to 32 PSI) in an attempt to utilize what power I had. The front end of the car was still really hooked up but on the previous run the power down was actually pretty solid. Better than I remember it being at the first event. The rear alignment didn't seem to really make the car push bad and I knew there was plenty of time on course for me to find. The run initially felt good. A combination of the dryer conditions (driest of all three runs) and pressure changes made the car feel good. I could use the power and it seemed to rotate fine off power. The problem came after the first big turn around. I'm not sure if the rear tires just got more grip or the fronts lost theirs but the car started to push, badly, mid corner. I ended up clipping two cones on this run and my raw time without the cones actually slowed down. How annoying! This dropped me from 18th place (where I was prior to 3rd runs) down to 29th. Time was a 67.608 with the two cones (63.608 scratch).
Day 1 ended kind of bitter sweet. I knew that in the dry I could hold my own as that is where all the seat time I had in the car was and where I knew the car would actually be able to utilize the power it had. The problem is the Day 2 course was transition heavy and not exactly booming with power spots. Lots of speed maintenance and transitions... I was HOPING for a better Day 1 finish to go into Day 2 in better positioning but reality didn't work out. Turns out I wasn't the only one having troubles. Eschantra and his co-driver in the #24/#124 car were not having the best day either. Truthfully it turned out very few of my friends were having good day 1's!
The weather definitely helped the lower powered cars out. The M3's benefited the most and Heitkotter put on a good school for the rest of us. Knowing the west course would favor the M3's more than any other car in the class, I anticipated a large number of M3's in the trophies. That wouldn't be wrong.
The West Course
[URL="http://cdn.growassets.net/user_files/scca/downloads/000/009/282/2015_Solo_Nationals_West_(Corn)_Course.pdf?1441382870"]Click for West Course Map[/URL]
The west course was a transition heavy course that was just flat out busy from inside the car. So busy that I think if we run it locally, I may encourage the event master to pull some of the cones out to open it up slightly. It was an incredibly fun course even though it was busy and mildly frustrating. There was really one corner that I felt was the most important. That'd be the Teddie's Ring of Hell Fire into the finish. Why? If you didn't get the offsets at “Pants'd in the Hallway” right you were behind for the entire rest of the course. I worked corner 4 and watched so many people get Pants'd wrong and end up over slowing to make it through the 414-424 cone complex and then ending up trying to make the time up at the exit and not making it into the “Wet Willy” correctly.
Going into the West Course I knew that in the dry, which the weather folk said it would be, the car was going to need some help with rotation. I set the front tire pressures at 34 PSI and the rears at 38 PSI. This is because the rear swaybar wasn't here from BMR yet and neither was the front bar. I did try and modify the rear bar over the course of the night between Day 1 and Day 2 but ran out of drill battery to do so and only got one side done. I opted to leave the front swaybar alone rather than running that staggered setup.
Run #1
The car felt surprisingly good on Run #1. If anything, maybe a touch of high speed push but nothing that wasn't manageable with driving changes. The car was putting down power exceptionally well but the lack of damping in the stock PP shocks and struts made this a difficult course to drive fast. Simply put, the stock dampers are not up to the task on a transition heavy course like this. The weight just takes too long to transfer from side to side to really attack the transitions. It doesn't help that I'm always a tad timid with the go and woah pedal on the first run and I forgot to really backside all the cones on course. This is most evident in corner four where I over slowed for the 414-424 cone section because I didn't backside the cone enough. This run was a 69.518 which was slower than it should have been by about three seconds. Only consolation prize on this was that I did run a faster time than Heitkotter did on his first run (he ran a 74.051, I think he spun or something).
Run #2
For tire pressures I kept them at where they were for the first run. Solid choice and it worked well enough the first time and this time both. The high speed push through the Ring of Hell Fire slowed the car down some but the car was otherwise balanced in steady state. Given the rear alignment change I really thought the car would be more pushy. One thing the car WAS doing well was putting down power. When the car stepped out it was silly how controllable it was compared to my 2009. There were a couple of “unexpected” cones where I damn near ran over them but saw them just in time to avoid them and I cleaned up the 414-424 cone section some and found time. This dropped my time down to a 67.770 and put me in 28th overall.
Run #3
I dropped the front tire pressure down 2 psi and took my run. Car felt great through the opening part but I clipped a cone in the opening transitions. By the time I had gotten through corner 3 I was getting flagged down by a corner worker. I stopped on course as instructed and would be given a re-run. The driver in front of me took out some cones and I think spun. I hustled back to the grid and the clock began. For those who aren't familiar with Nationals, re-runs are given at EXACTLY 5 minutes after returning to your spot. They don't care where they are in the run order, if you are getting a re-run, a guy is standing at the hood of your car with a stop watch giving you each minute and then telling you to go. When it was my turn to get my re-run I went out there with the intent to find time and to clean up the run. My free look at the course's opening section told me that there was PLENTY of time to be found and had in the opening transitions. I decided to get aggressive with them and really attack all the transitions. I lost some time in the first transition as the back of the car stepped out slightly but it worked out in the end. I found some time out there and improved on my final run and kept it clean. With a 67.584, I solidified my 28th position out of 46 drivers in attendance.
And that run concluded my Nationals runs. At the end of day 2 I knew exactly where I stood. I knew that my runs were solid midpack runs but a rainy and bad third run on day one really brought the final placement down from where it should have been. I am not at all disappointed with the car's performance or my own driving and think that 28th isn't a bad place to be given how little seat time in the car I have and how far from prepped it is. There were some big names that finished behind me and some not far ahead of me and that feels good.
So at the end of it all I've learned more about myself and my car and had a good time. I know the pace is there even with my hack driving to be a solid mid pack finisher. I identified one key area where I need to improve (back siding cones) and a few other more minor areas to improve (throttle application and braking points). I know that the car is in dire need of a new set of dampers and a swaybar (no surprises there!) among the need for more wet run seat time. By this time next year I am going to get myself deep into those trophies in a prepped car!
Speaking of: Tom Reynolds (third place 2015 GT/PP) was kind enough to put his video on the Tube of You's so I pulled it down and made a side by side comparing our fastest runs on the West course. You can see I lose a lot of time right after the second turn on the course in the fast transitions. Every transition after that seems to lose a few tenths in all the major elements. Scary thought how fast time disappears when you don't backside cones or aren't aggressive enough with the throttle or brakes!
So what next? Well, next is getting the car prepped as best I can for Spring Nats next year! Swaybars are already on the way and I need to test both the front and rear bars and figure out which one it really needs. Pictures say rear as the inside front is damn near off the ground at corner exit on the power but more than a few people whom I trust with car setup advice are saying front bar is still the way to go. I plan on testing both to see which I like more. I know why both will work and I'm not afraid to test them since both bars are on the way anyway.
Dampers are a big question mark right now. There are no available front struts that I'd trust or that don't require extensive modification and Koni has listed the new Mustang as a priority. I'm sure that means sometime in the near future, but we'll see. I also need to figure out the front alignment issue and see if there is anything else I can do to get more negative camber within the rules. There is probably a burr holding the bolt up from it's full sweep in the strut ear.
Outside of that, I don't think the alignment needs tweaked any further. The rear camber could probably use a little more negative camber in a world where both bars were open but for now I think we'll leave it as is.
Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you to see some of you next year at Spring Nationals and Nationals. We have one more event for this year on the 20th of September so expect at least one more event after action report this year before winter sets in!
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