After a couple weeks of no-gos, High Plains Raceway finally got enough signups to put on a winter track day yesterday. Unfortunately, of the last three weekends I've been waiting for them to put a day on, this was the worst weather of the three due to very high winds. My trailer was shaking all day long. The aluminum panels on the outside of the trailer were flexing and making thumping noises from the force of the wind. While hanging out inside the trailer, it felt like I was on a boat from all the rocking.....It was quite something.
But, do we let a little wind stop us? NO! Had a fun day and set a new personal best! Some turns were definitely funky with the wind though. I had a drifting moment on my fast lap. For me, this is the first time a fast lap had a drift in it. Usually drifting slows things down. I believe my drifting moment was largely due to the wind because during that moment, the angle of the wind would have it buffeting the passenger side of the car. Of course, on the YouTube video comments, the first comment was about the drift.......hehe big surprise.
Here's the fast lap:
My main take away from this lap is that I seem to be turning in more smoothly than I was when I first got the MCS suspension----I believe I'm sawing at the steering wheel less. I want to continue working on my smoothness because I feel like my driving has been not smooth recently.
I drove a fair amount of laps yesterday---almost 50, which is more than I usually run. The majority of the laps had me navigating some kind of traffic, which is ok. The E90 was more track-prepped than most there yesterday, so you gotta figure on encountering traffic. I was just struggling to get an open lap at the beginning of a session when the engine was fresh.
I was happy that for the first time, I started feeling familiar with the track. I have quite a bit more to learn, but I was finally feeling like I'm starting to "get" it. The fast lap came in the fourth session. I started the day with new Pirelli scrubs, and I just left them on all day in the same position. Usually, I rotate tires around the car during the day. But I just didn't feel like it yesterday. Decided to hide from the wind. In the 5th and last session of the day, I had a faster lap going for about half the track and then I blew a corner.
At this point, I know the car can drop into the 1:40s. The question is, how far?
Good news: My Zebulon splitter is done being fabricated! Connecting hardware should be in this week. The pix I have received look really nice.
Shiny!!
Zebulon is super busy and normally doesn't do installs, but I asked if they would do it and it looks like it will work out. I'm not helpless when it comes to doing things on the car, but this is a fabrication project that will take some knowledge that I'm worried I don't have. Of course, there are no installation instructions for custom race car parts. And this is one piece I would rather not screw up..... Perhaps I will try to document it to some extent for others if possible.
Bad news: I think my AIM is acting funky on my CAN bus again.....You may have noticed that my video had bare bones GPS-only data on it. That's because the car acted funny mid-session and I disconnected the cable while driving. As soon as I disconnected the cable, the car started acting normally again......I will be calling AIM on Monday....
I caught the funkiness on video----short hesitations that are easy to hear from the microphone while I'm holding steady on the gas pedal. At :11 is the first hesitation, then at :16 there are several hesitations and then at :28, after I pass the Corvette the next gear change is funky. Then at :32, you see the CAN bus data like RPMs go dead because I disconnected the cable. As soon as I disconnected the cable, the car was good again......I love having my CAN data, but not at the expense of the car's performance.....
So, the next steps for me are get the splitter on the car, then go out and keep driving at HPR to get ready for COTA Super Lap Battle in March. I've got my logistics all setup for me to drive to COTA and back to CO. I'll be hiding in AirBNBs again. Been working on setting up some more tech support at COTA this year.
Don't laugh too hard----I will be doing my very first oil change of my whole life soon! Honestly, the biggest thing I'm worried about is leaving my loud-ass car running for 20 minutes and pissing my neighbors off while the damn oil level sensor takes its sweet-old time to indicate the oil level.......