Saturday morning rolls around, and I opt to take it a bit slow. I've got time until the TnT runs I purchased a week ago at 11am start, so I slept in a bit and grabbed breakfast, rolling onto site around 9:30-10.
It's not a sunny day in Lincoln. The clouds are low, but it's not raining and there's only about 30% chance in the forecast. But that was enough to screw me.
I unpacked the car, and headed over to the TnT course with just my air tank and pressure gauge. Just as I roll up to my grid spot... it starts to sprinkle. Shit.
There's practically no one here right now though, so the grid worker gives me the blessing to run as soon as I feel ready. in a mad rush I adjust the pressures, belt up, and roll up to the line. The starter drops his arm, and the sky opens up to a deluge. hydroplaning through a slalom is a new experience, but I'm pleasantly surprised I can control the car as well as I can in the wet. It's no Subaru, that's for sure, but I could actually get around the course decently. The TnT course is also stellar, easily the best one yet. Lots of high speed elements that are far more reminiscent of proper nats courses than we've ever seen before. Elements that will definitely generate a pucker factor when driven in the wet like this.
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At the line at the practice course, just before the dump happened. Photo Credit David Salas[/caption]Immediately upon returning to grid, lightning started, and so the whole shebang had to be shut down for about 20 minutes. I spent a bit of time thinking through the run I just made and trying to visualize the course.
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Thinking...Photo Credit: Dave Salas[/caption]
Once the 20 min brake was done, the rain had actually stopped entirely. But alas, the course was now soaked to the bone, and it appears that fast slalom had been in the drainage ditch. It was holding water fairly well. I decided to take one run immediately to get a feel where the course was, and get a bit more wet practice. Yeah.. Still wet.
There’s about 35 minutes left in my hour and I’ve got 3 runs left to take.. I decided to keep waiting. The course was drying and that was helping things a lot. While that slalom was still under water it’s puddles were quickly fading. The Duality of being in a drainage ditch at work.
I wrapped up my last few runs with the course still being wet, but significantly better than before. I packed up and dismissed the runs. It was helpful data, but without any rain in the forecast for the next 3 days I wasn’t terribly worried about having to make wet runs. I’m a little disappointed that the first runs I’m going to get at full tilt in the dry since the reconfiguration will be my first runs in competition.
The rest of Sunday is spent getting the car teched, and watching the ProSolo challenge rounds and the CAM invitational. Watching these behemoth power muscle cars on street tires try to put down power on pro courses that were still damp was fairly comical. Color me impressed though, there are some downright fast times and a few really talented drivers in the group.
Monday is pretty much a time to kill day. There isn’t enough data to support tuning the car any further, so I just focused on getting my course walks in. I started on the East course and my does it feel fast. lots of wide open sections.. but looking at them there are a few very pinchy points. Good braking will be an important factor on this course.
After grabbing lunch and chilling at little Minnesota a bit, a few of the new arrivals begin to ask me how the TnT runs went. I responded disappointing.. and they snapped me out of my funk. “Go buy some more damn runs” I think were the words Jody uttered to me. What the hell.. and trekked down to the TnT course to see if they had any more walk up spots available. They had a few left for the last hour of the day. I snapped one up and returned to Lil’ MN a little happier. I won’t really have any time to correct and test if I find something utterly fucked with the setup, but at least I’ll know how I can push it on the surface.
Fast forward a few hours later, and I’ve made my runs played with pressures a bit, and left smiling. The car feels really good. All the settings changes I did appeared to have paid off, as the car can now plant and roll on the gas coming out of a corner without trying to murder me. This will be very useful. The whole concept is summed up in a Facebook post I made right after finishing the runs: “Holy shit. The car works.”
A few minutes later I’m chowing down on some excellent BBQ provided by the SCCA as part of their Monday night welcome dinner. An old tradition has been revived, the talent show! J.G. Pasterjack of GRM handles MC duty through a few fun “gameshows” and couple of brave souls who actually appear to have some legitimate talent.
It’s now Tuesday morning. I landed a cool gig as an announcer assistant, so I don’t have to wake up to work first heat. A little extra sleep is appreciated, and I’m not rushing around as I don’t run until third heat. grab a quick bite from the hotel breakfast bar and head over and wash the car. Pick up a little detailing spray and some towels and get it shiny. Turns out you can polish a turd.. it just looks like a shiny turd… But the cameras are far enough away the little things shouldn’t show.
it’s now time for the lunch course walk. Usually I skip these, as they don’t seem particularly useful being there’s so many people on course you really can’t look at the line. For some reason I decided to take this one, and I’m glad did. Sure, maaayyybe I was eaves dropping a bit, but I heard more than a few drivers who had run in heats one and two giving excellent feedback about just giving it up for the pinch points, and that earlier thoughts regarding trying to drive a smooth arc through a few of them was a flawed premise. Give up the speed and cut the distance. I revised my plans accordingly.
Time had come to run. Interestingly, almost all the Zs were gridded together with myself in the middle, JG Pasterjack of GRM to my left, and Brian Peters and his co-driver to my right. There’s one more way at the end. I’ve been shooting the shit with JG back and forth a bit over the weekend about GRM’s Z build and getting to watch Brian run is a real treat.
The first run didn’t go so well.. Feeling confident after my practice runs the previous night, I went out in full force. Andddd spun it. Damn. In all my course walks, I wasn’t paying enough attention to the changes in surface, and in the left hander right in the middle of the course there was a crest. Not a big crest mind you, but enough to unsettle the car if it’s loaded up and going flat out. Whoops. Well, I know exactly where I have to watch my ass on the following runs.
One of the down sides to single driving is that you have a ton of time on your hands, but this gave me a chance to watch a few other drivers from the heat make runs without feeling rushed.
When my turn for my second run came back around, I gambled on going flat out again. I know my brain would force me to be tentative in that section this time, so making up the time on the rest of the course was going to be critical if I was going to finish decently. It worked, and I wound up with a 65.964. Not a terrible place to be, landing me .014 seconds behind JG on the same run. and sticking me in 11th.
Finally, the last run came around and I tried to push even harder, but I got off my game knowing I had a safety and screwed up multiple places leaving me a half second slower. No good, no good.
In the end I finished the day a hair behind JG in his Z in 11th place. It’s a close fight and JG is a fun dude to have a battle with.
It’s time for some beer walks. Those unfamiliar with this practice, it’s fairly simple: Obtain beer, perform course walk. Rinse and repeat until course is memorized or further memorization is not possible. One of the perks of having a big crew from MN is that there’s plenty of input after day one. Being one of the only drivers from the group who ran the east course, a rather large group of people appeared appreciative of my offer to lead a group course walk and provide insights to things that may not have stood out otherwise… like the crest..
After leading the east course walk, a few people who ran the west course offered to lead a walk with me and provide their insights. A helpful scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours situation.. with beer.
The west course appears more technical, but the information gleamed from drivers like Steve Garnjobst and Preston Jordan is that the course actually flows better than it looks at first glance, and how it opens up or gives you room that may not have been initially apparent. This course should prove to be very fun.
The sun comes around again on Lincoln, and it’s time for day two. The west course awaits. The car still being clean from yesterday requires no attention, and gives me a chance to relax and watch people run on the west course. Oh look, another crest! glad I got to see a few runs before taking mine, because that probably could have been a larger problem. My car being over sprung and under dampened doesn't take well to significantly unsettling things like crests.
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Photo Credit: Perry Bennet[/caption]The first run I crack off is a 62.545.. I definitely felt like left some on the table there though. The deceptive elements still have me spooked, but now I’ve got my head around just how much room and speed there actually is.
Run two, it’s time to go push. More gas in more places, and it paid off. Pulled a 62.094.. dropped nearly a half second on that one and really feeling good. I got more aggressive on the launch, and it felt like it helped, so I’ll probably try to do that again.
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Photo Credit: Perry Bennet[/caption]Run Three… it’s time for death or glory. Last run, got my safety, and there’s nothing to loose. Lets do this. I line up and launch like a bat out of hell, reach down and grab second. Shit. The car wasn’t settled from the launch yet and it started to fish tail. I managed to catch it, only to find myself on the wrong side of a cone. the 3rd cone on course. damn it I’m not even 2 seconds out the gate on my last run and I’ve pissed it away. DNF. I start to slow.. and a thought hits me: “Now, I truly have nothing left to loose.”
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Photo Credit: Perry Bennet[/caption]Any pressure to try to execute perfectly is gone, there’s absolutely no way that this run can be faster because it won’t count anyway. I’ve reached autocross peace. I’m truly free. “Fuck it.” and gun it. Time to find out just how much grip this damn thing actually has, what slip angles it likes, and just how late can I brake. It’s all on the table now, and I’m just driven by pure hatred. I have one last pass at what may be the best autocross course I've ever driven on, on one of the best surfaces in the country. It's go time.
I hammered that run for all it's worth, and had an absolute riot doing it. When it was all over, I pulled the data logger out and looked at the times. It looks like the overall run time was a match for the previous fastest run... but if I hadn't slowed down after that DNF, if I'd have kept my foot in it, it was almost a second dropped. I wish I'd been driving like that for the last two days.
With that run, the story of my competition at nats closes. I managed to pull ahead of JG who was having a really rough day two, and land in 10th place. My highest nationals finish to date. I got some feedback and setup discussion from Brian Peters who I finally got to meet in person, and overall was really happy with how things went.
In 151 days I took a car that was fairly stanced out and abused, and turned it into a pretty decent race car. I'm not at at all displeased with this result, and am looking forward to the upcoming off-season to build something even better.
Now, with all that pesky driving out of the way, the REAL drinking could commence.
