In this post, I’ll talk about my approach to the SuperLap Battle competition this year. (I’m writing about this not to bore you, but to give people an idea of what kind of thought process I go through when going into a competition like this.)
A few weeks ago, I wrote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by dogbone
…so my best bet is to focus on putting together clean laps. I know that sounds basic, but sometimes you just gotta go back to basics. I've put in enough laps at Buttonwillow to know how to get around the track cleanly. The question always is: can you put it all together in one lap?
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This really was the basis of my approach. But how do you go about it? I’ve done many of these events. It’s the Wild West out there. The track gets trashed with dirt and fluids as it goes on. The weather always seems to get hot—even in the middle of November. No plan ever gets executed without a hitch. So, you have to be adaptable. I want to start out by saying, there’s no 100% right way to plan things out. Every decision has an upside and a downside. You just have to do your thing and see how it plays out.
For me, the main question was: When do I run my brand new Pirelli DH? Everything had to revolve around that. I wanted to give myself the best chance of getting the most out of the tires. (I only come with one set of new tires. No palette stacked full with new tires for me!!) Pirelli DH are magical on their first hot lap. However, in my experience, brand new Pirelli DH need two scrub-in/warm up laps to get into prime condition. Given that each session only has one warm up lap, how do you scrub-in new tires over two laps without screwing up your position within the grid and not impeding the guy behind you or worse, he passes you and now things get really complicated?
Here are the questions I needed to consider:
-Run the new tires Day 1 or Day 2? Day 1 was going to be cooler weather than Day 2. If cool air is important to me, which it generally is because my engine pulls better in cool air, then I needed to hunt for the coolest air. Looking at the weather apps, it seemed it would be a few degrees cooler on Day 1. The first session for my run group would be about at the same time on both days due to how they run the schedule. Some people like to save the good tires for Day 2. I would also do that if I didn’t know the track. But, I know Buttonwillow. I don’t need as much ramp-up time to get familiar with it. So, the weather seemed to be better Day 1, and I didn’t need a lot of warm up. So, Day 1 seemed to be the answer to this question.
-Run the new tires early in the day or late in the day? My car does NOT run record lap times in hot weather. So, from an engine standpoint, early in the day is better. But, trying to go maximum pace in the first session is never really ideal. Quite often, I find I run my fastest times in the second session of the day. But the 2nd session of the day was after lunch in the hottest part of the day. So, I felt like the first session was my best shot. At some HPDE events, I do run well at the end of the day, but this ain't no HPDE.
-Do I go out gridded in my assigned slot? Or do I go out later in the session? This is a TOUGH one. The sessions are 20 minutes long. Almost no one ever runs all 20 minutes in a time attack session. So—do you go out with everybody in a grid spot that might be bad? Or do you wait 10 [very nerve wracking] minutes and then run the last 10 minutes when usually less people are on track? There is simply no right answer here. Waiting 10 minutes can be very risky. Sessions tend to get crazy. People go off and dirty up the track, cars break down and prevent maximum pace, safety/tow vehicles are on course trying to get someone off the course…..sometimes, your best bet is to go out in your gridded spot and just work hard to maintain a gap your out-lap and get a good lap in before the shit hits the fan in the session. So, there’s no sure-fire way to approach this, but my pre-assigned grid slot was 8th position on Day 1 Session 1. I figured this could be high enough in the grid to allow me a chance at an open lap. I decided that my Plan A would be to show up and run from my assigned position at the beginning of the session.
-Do I drop my fastest lap at the beginning of the whole event? Or do I wait and try to drop my fastest/best in the last session of Day 2? If you watch Formula 1 Qualifying events, you watch these guys get faster and faster. No one wants to reveal their maximum pace until it’s too late for anyone else to do anything about it. That’s fascinating, but this ain’t F1. At a time attack, sometimes you find the conditions to go fast are best early in the event. The track just gets trashed and the weather gets hot and it’s just damn hard to go fast later. I do believe that it’s a good strategy to hold a fast lap until later in the event, but the reality for me is that I just can’t worry about it. And, dropping a good hot lap early can get in the heads of your competitors. All of a sudden, they are forced to chase something. Again, there’s no right answer here…. (I gotta pause here and share a story from a couple years ago. A guy had been leading the SuperLap competition pretty much the whole weekend. He decided to not run the last session and packed up his car and hang out for the awards. In the last session, a Miata dropped a hot lap good enough to beat him and he couldn’t respond. Whoops!) Anyway, given that I was such an underdog at this event, I felt no need to be cagey. I was leaning towards setting my best lap early in the event.
GTA did something with the schedule that was new to me, and it played very well into the plan I was coming up with. On Day 1, they did a Practice Session from 8:30-9:30. No times were being recorded during this session. Any car could go out during that hour. This was the single biggest factor that ultimately affected my planning. So after considering all of this, I decided Plan A would be to run the new tires in the first timed session and commit 100% to going as fast as possible. I hoped the track would be clean, the weather would be cool, I would have practiced and I could get a clean lap. Here’s what I planned:
-I wanted to go out and practice running the track from 8:30-8:50 on old scrub DH tires. This would allow me to get my first “session” in and get familiar with the track again. I could warm up my brakes and make sure the car is running ok. (We replaced the fuel pump and filter right before the event.)
-Then I would come in and put the new tires on the car.
-Then I would go out at the end of the Practice Session and scrub in the tires.
-Then I would go to grid and run from my 8th position and hope that I could get a good lap time in the first session.
Here’s how it went:
I went out in the Practice Session from 8:30-8:55. Holy cow, that Practice Session was REALLY the Wild West!! It was crazy out there!!! You had cars of all speeds out there. You had a TON of cars flying off track and dirtying the track up. You had cars breaking down sitting on the side of the track waiting for a tow. You had cars spewing fluids on track. There was white powder being put down already in this session. Oh my god…….it was insane. I actually thought I might have to scrap my plans. But I decided to move forward. So, I came in a few minutes later than planned. Also, GTA threw us a minor curveball. The transponders would not be ready until 9AM. There was some issue with the charging. So, once I came in, I had to get my transponder. I forgot to bring an ID with me to leave with them, so I had to run back to my trailer, get ID and go back and finally get the transponder. These are precious minutes!! Then I had to change wheels, put gas, put water for the misting system, put the transponder on. Then, I had to switch back to my race suit and race shoes, jump in the car, strap in and then still have enough time to run out and scrub the tires in. I did all that crap in 25 minutes! Hahaha so, I made it, but was literally down to the last minute. So then I go to grid, and there was something I was quietly hoping for———in past events, I have found that quite a few people are not ready to run in the first session. I was slotted in 8th position, but I had hoped some people would not show up and I could run higher up in the grid. Guess what———several people did not show up to grid. Instead of going out 8th, I went out 3rd!!! This was a stroke of good luck. So, that was the last piece of the puzzle that gave me the green light to go for it in the First session on Day 1. And sure enough, I had open track on my first hot lap of SuperLap Battle.
Unfortunately, I sent the tail wide in Off-Ramp of lap 1. I was pushing as hard as I could and just pushed a bit too much. First lap ended up with a 1:48.6. On the second lap, I was impeded by the car in front of me at Bus Stop because he was on an off lap (data says I lost 0.6 sec)…….darn—1:48.4. (This would have been my 1:47.x.) The third lap was open. I did everything right on that lap and got a 1:48.003, but the engine was on it’s 3rd straight hot lap. It couldn’t pull the way it does when it’s fresh.
But my plan had worked! I got a respectable lap in during the First Session. And I never was able to run faster the rest of the weekend. And believe me, I tried. I ran every session. I ran as hard as I could. The track felt bad to me on Day 2. I don’t think I ran better than 1:49.9 on Day 2. And aside from the top few cars, no one else was tearing it up on Day 2 either, so going hard on Day 1 turned out to be the right thing for me.
In the next post, I’ll talk about what I saw some my competitors going through.
And I guess I gotta share this walk of shame through the desert. The announcer called it----"Bus Stop Complex". hahaha Oooh busted. Yes, I contributed to the dirt on track during the event. I went 4-off at Bus Stop twice, and dropped two wheels there once. I didn't go off anywhere else though.