It's been a very busy week with car stuff.
The carbon doors are on the car. I really like the final results. Racewerkz did a great job of installing them. There was a LOT of work required to get them on the car. (I'll talk more specifically about them later. I'm still traveling and have tons to do so I can't write in detail until I return home.)
I was able to test them at Willow Springs on Sunday. They worked great. No issues with the doors. The car is definitely faster now as a result of the weight loss. I've never gone 150mph at Willow Springs before Sunday. Fastest ever was 149.6mph. On Sunday, I hit 151.4mph on the front straight.
My goal wasn't to drive the car at it's limit on Sunday to get a new personal best. I was simply there to make sure the doors are workable at high speeds since I'll be seeing ~160mph at COTA. But-----the weather was PERFECT......ideal weather----high 55ºF. No wind. Low car count/wide open track----only 10 people in Advanced. The car accelerates better and holds the ground better. I haven't even worried about braking yet, but of course that will be better too.
I promised myself that I would not pound my new doors into the nasty rocky WSIR desert. So, I drove very much within my limits. And even still---in my fourth session, on tires that corded two sessions later, I ran a new personal best of 1:25.58.
On this lap, when I compare it to my previous best of 1:25.8, by Turn 3, I was a half second faster. But then I gave almost all of it back in Turns 3,4,5. That section of the track felt terrible yesterday. Several people were talking about it. Then I picked up a bit more time on the rest of the course. There's no doubt in my mind that on fresher tires the car can do 1:24....and possibly even dip into 1:23 if I had my act together. But I never show up with fresh tires at Willow Springs. That track is simply a tire eater. On my fast lap, after Turn 6, I had to pass some sort of luxury sedan. I am very thankful that they got way out of the way and didn't impede me at all. phew! haha
I have some aero issues to deal with today. My splitter is getting old and some support screws have pulled out. We’ll have to see if we can reattach it. Honestly, I wish I had more time to replace the splitter. It's trashed after 5 years of hard use.....darn it. Maybe I can come up with some way to get it replaced before Texas. I would have to sort out some solution this morning.....This is where living 1000 miles from the car gets complicated......
Here's the lap. Honestly, not my best driving, but the car wants to run.
Now, my sights are set on COTA. And I gotta tell ya, putting down a new fast lap at WSIR right before I go has put me in a really good mood. The car is really driving strong which makes me excited. I've been looking at the weather for the Chin Track Days event at COTA on Feb 1-2 and Day 1 looks fantastic. Day 2 may start with a bit of rain. For COTA, that seems pretty good.
Alright, time to get this busy day going. Got lots of logistics to take care of on the car and lots of miles to drive to deliver the car to San Diego for transport to Texas and then get onto a plane to go home.