NASA TT @ Buttonwillow

I survived my weekend in California and got a glimpse of what to expect at Nationals this fall. The level of prep is significantly higher than here in Colorado. Many of the TT cars are full-on race cars that are trailered to the track.

I worked my way up a finished second or third in TTD but to put my performance in perspective: I'm 10 seconds off the TTD record and 6 seconds off the TTE record. That a lot. In fact the TTC time is faster than the BMWCCA IP M3 LTW I crewed for over the weekend. Fast!

Helmets

Helmets are quite difficult to pack for air travel. I finally caved and used a bag that was too big to carry on. I hate checking luggage.

Packing for NASA TT @ Buttonwillow

Somehow flying to an event seems more stressful than driving.

Don't forget these important things:

1. Helmet, gloves, suit, socks, balaclava
2. Earplugs
3. NASA License
   
4. Traqmate + cables
5. Instructor intercom

Or these slightly less important things:

• 2 Long Sleeve Shirts
• 2 pr pants
• 2xSox/2xUnd
• Hat
• Sunscreen
• Camera

Pics from PPIR

NASA TT @ PPIR

It was a little like bringing a gun to a knife fight. Arriving at the track with an untested race car is rarely good for confidence and this weekend was no different. I was pretty anxious especially considering PPIR is an Oval with an infield road section. Driving NASCAR corners is always exciting given the high speeds and concrete walls. During the fist session I was really happy with the car. It was really tight but that is exactly where I expected it to be. Each session I loosened it up a bit with shock adjustments. It just got better and better through the weekend.

By Saturday afternoon I had turned a 1:06.5, fast enough to win TTC be 4 seconds. Sunday I never quite matched that time as I gave passenger rides most of the day. Late in the afternoon, I tried to better it but missed tire pressures a bit and only did a 1:06.7.

Results
Saturday times merged
Sunday times merged

Not bad for an untested car on new track configuration. Next Event: Buttonwillow next weekend (in a different car) and then Pueblo in three weeks.

Tools at the track

I've been carrying the same tool box to the track since I started racing my first M3 in 1997. The large metal box, a Kennedy 1022 I think, was a gift from my father many years earlier and sat unused under the workbench for a while after upgrading to a full-sized roll-away in the garage. While it has served faithfully for many years, it's size and weight -- 22 Lbs empty -- have become more of an issue while loading and unloading the car. The large size of the box makes it too easy to throw in parts and tools, and the lay-out of the box was not particularly well suited to storing auto repair tools.

Since I'm planning on driving to many events this year, I decided to lighten the load a bit. First I cut the number of tools I bring to the tracl to the bare minimum. I inventoried everything in the box keeping only the essentials. Gone are my 16 oz. ball-peen and dead-blow hammers, nearly the entire 1/2" drive socket set, hex-keys, screwdrivers, wire-cutters, and a bunch of other junk that has taken up shop in the bottom of the box over the last couple of years.

I knew I wanted a tool bag instead of a tool box -- the soft construction makes packing the car easier -- but I initially wanted a bag large enough for my Snap-on Torque Wrench which is over 24" inches long. An on-line search showed few soft bags in that size, so I decided on a smaller bag and to keep the over-sized torque wrench in my 16 Gal. Tote instead.

I found a Husky 16" Large Mouth Tool Bag that seems to work very well. It has ~20 internal pockets and a dozen external pockets. I moved at the necessary tools into the bag yesterday and they fit really well. The size and weight of my tools have reduced by at least 25% and the soft bag is much easier to pack the the steel of the box.

It's probably not as waterproof at the Kennedy so I've added a couple of trash bag to one of the external pockets in case it rains. The bag will debut at the NASA event at Pikes Peak next weekend, we'll see how it does.

G/C Setup tips

One of the keys to properly setting up any suspension is the ability to accurately reproduce settings. The Bump adjustment of the Advanced Design shock is based on a reference location -- turning the knob until one of the printed numbers point at a specific point. The problem is that there is no indication of that location on the shock.

Making some kind of mark on the chassis to represent this point makes setting up Bump much easier. I made 4 small triangles and put a pair on the front strut-towers and the other pair on the rear shock mounts.

Suspension setup

Car-related forums are littered with the same n00b question: What coilover should I get for my Blah-Blah-Blah car. Most of the time the poster is only concerned about lowering the car for looks and will never use any of the adjustments available with a coil-over suspension. If, however, you want to really use these adjustments, you've got to learn the fundamentals. You need to know how camber and caster interact as the car turns in. You need to know how ride height changes at one end of the chassis effects mid-corner balance. There are a number of books on chassis engineering and a number of great web-sites that cover everything you would need. Now you may know what each adjustment does, but you won't make proper use of your new knowledge until you learn to think like a test driver and a race engineer. You have to measure and record everything. You have to take copious notes and be organized, methodical and work to a plan. Every session has to be on the clock and all performance measured. Now are you can start to use suspension adjustments to "tune" the suspension and gain real performance results.

What I'm going to describe here is setting up a Ground Control suspension system with Advanced Design Double Adjustable (D/A) shocks. With this system I can adjust nearly everything front and rear: Caster, Camber, Ride-height and Toe. The shocks are called double adjustable because it provides for two separate resistance adjustments, one changes the shocks resistance to being compressed (Bump) and the other changes the shocks resistance to being extended (Rebound). Single Adjustable shock have a single adjustment the usually only changes Bump resistance. The ability to adjust Bump and Rebound separately is tool that is use to change chassis balance on corner-entry and on corner-exit. Springs and Bars are use to change steady state chassis balance and shocks are used to adjust dynamic chassis balance.

I'm using Bump and Rebound because the first letter corresponds the the color of the knob used to make that adjustment. Red is for Rebound and blue is for Bump. These knobs stick out of the top of the shock so all adjustments are made under the hood or in the trunk and not from the bottom of the car.

The Advanced Design shocks described here have very different methods for setting Bump and Rebound. The blue knob (Bump adjustment) has three positions and a small detent to indicate the correct position. The red Rebound knob has three full turns of adjustment limited by small stops at full stiff and full soft. Clockwise is always stiffer on these shocks.

Baselining:

This is where you develop a repeatable basic setup for the car. All subsequent adjustments are made from from the baseline. My initial baseline came from Ground-Control and is basically an alignment/ride height guide. I have that on the car now. Once the ride heights are determined all the other adjustments won't alter the corner weights so I want to get it set before I corner-weight the car.

I want to understand the performance envelope of the shocks so I plan to do a number of short sessions while testing full-soft through full stiff for both Bump and Rebound.

F-ing weather

For the second year in a row all pre-season testing has been lost to a series of spirng storms. Tomowwow is the last test day and Denver is now expecting 8-12 inches of snow today and tonight.

This means that the first few races will be a thrash trying to get tire temps, alignment, corner weight and balance sorted out instead of trying to drive for the win.

This is why we are going to move back to California, life is too short to have a few days of weather dictate the success of the entire racing season. Fuck this place.

Continental Divide Raceways, Castle Rock, CO

For years I've heard the rumor that there was once a "real racetrack" in Castle Rock but that it had closed many years ago.

Recently I learned the racetrack was called Continental Divide Raceways and was located just 4 miles south of downtown Castle Rock. It was a 2.8 paved mile road course, 0.5 mile oval and 1/4 mile drag strip that opened in 1959. Racing continued until 1979 and reopened in briefly in 1981. The land was sold for development and although little has been developed even now, the asphalt surface was plowed up to ensure cars would not return.

Using Google Earth I was able to find the location of the track. Although the pavement is long gone, the location had a distinctive grandstand cut into the hillside which is still visible. Finding the grandstand showed where the drag-strip was and it too is still visible.

Events held at the track include USAC Road Racing Championships, USAC Stock Car and Indy Car events, and SCCA Trans Am.

As early as 1960, USAC held a Road Racing Championship event at the track. Carrol Shelby in a Scarab Mk II held off 35-40 other drivers for 36 laps to take home $900 in the Continental Divide 100. Attendance was recorded as 8,500. Here is an interview with Carrol Shelby discussing the 1960 race at CDR

Though lightly attended compared with the Riverside and Laguna Seca events, the 1961 even still attracted Ken Miles and Bob Holbert and their Porsche 718 RSs and collection of other including Ferrari 500TR, Maserati Tipo 61 and something called a Devin Volkswagen.

By the mid '60s attendance had climbed to over 10k for major road racing events.

The Rocky Mountain 150 held July 7th 1968 attracted Al Unser, AJ Foyt, Lloyd Ruby and Mario Andrett. Ronny Bucknam lead from pole until a half-shaft failure on lap 23 gave the lead to A.J Foyt who held it to the end.

An entry list for the first of two SCCA Tran-Am races held August 26th, 1967, is a Who's Who of American Motorsports:

Mark Donohue, Peter Revson, Dan Gurney George Follmer, Jerry Titus and Milton Minter were all there. Titus took the win in 1967 and Donohue won in 1968

Evel Knievel performed at CDR July 30th 17972.

The last recorded race I find is a Winston West event August 15th, 1982 won by Rick McCray

According to the Chicago Herald-Tribune Driver Jim Mulhall of Littleton was killed on June 8th 1969 at the 1969 Formula A Grand Prix, in a accident that later took the life of mechanic Michael DesJardins.

According to witness Paul Bredenberg;

"I was also at that race. We went to the '69 and '70 Indy car races and the '69 First (and only) Annual Denver Post Grand Prix for SCCA Formula A cars. The Post GP was the eventual demise of the track. The dragstrip was used as the front straight ("The Andretti Straight") and the return road was the pit road. They were separated by a row of 55 gallon rain barrels that were to be filled with water and cabled together. Jim Mulhall was a small-time local Corvette racer who had a chance to drive one of the Indy cars that day. It was a Halibrand Shrike chassis and was offset for oval track racing. It was a yellow #77.

During the race, an absolute DELUGE hit the track in the form of a typical spring storm. Cars tried to stay out on their dry tires but it was senseless to do so. Mulhall's crew signaled him next for rain tires on the next lap. He took one hand off the wheel to signal that he got the message off the board, hit a puddle and aquaplaned 270 degrees, so that the back of the car headed towards the barrels at about a 30 degree angle. Mulhall's car hit the barrels at about 155 mph.

Guess what? Somebody forgot to fill all of the barrels with water! Barrels went flying into the pit area and the cable snapped and hit Mulhall's helmet, breaking it into several pieces. The car went across the return road, hit the Armco barrier and slid to a stop almost at turn 1 ("Foyt's Corner") with a smashed barrel underneath it. Mulhall died on the way to Swedish Hospital without regaining consciousness and three people in the pits were hurt.

After the lawsuits flew and damages were paid, Sid Langsam lost his heart for the track, and then later was diagnosed with cancer; I think it was prostate cancer, but I'm not sure on that."

Today, the Colorado Region of the SCCA give an award for outstanding contribution to racing in Colorado called the Sid Langsam Award.

Here is a video by the Castle Rock Historical Society showing some great period racing at CDR

Here is video of a sprint car race on the CDR oval in 1960

Curbs?!?! on Sunday?

It looks like HPR is going to be closed on Sunday to install curbing. Really on a Sunday? Seems a weird day for construction on a racetrack.

HPR Shakedown

On Sunday I'll be taking the car to High Plains Raceway for a shakedown/test session. I hope the weather holds. Beyond making sure the thing works on the track, I'm focused on getting the alignment and overall balance sorted. The main tools will be my new (to me) Longacre tire temp gauge, stopwatch and driver feel.

Tire temperatures will be used to make sure the front and rear camber settings are optimized. Since I've been running Nitto NT-01 for almost a full season I have a handle on the optimum pressure, but I'll be open to making small changes. The primary tuning tool is the driver. I'm going to focus on setting up the car to be comfortable -- aiming for a little oversteer in entry and a little understeer on exit.

This is why double-adjustable shocks are so important, the ability to change how the car behaves before and after the apex. Triple and quad adjustable can also change the behavior at high and low speed both before and after the apex.

Winter Update

After nearly three monts in the shop I got the car back yesterday. It sits a little lower (and a lot stiffer) on the new Ground Control D/A suspension, has a new (used) transmission and a electric cooling fan.

The GC camber plates only allow -2.6 degrees of camber compared with the 3.5 degrees I used with the stock suspension. I suspect the loss of camber won't be a big deal because of the reduction in body roll. The reason a McPherson strut based cars run so much static negative camber is to compensate for the loss of camber that occurs when the suspension compresses - especially the outside that compresses in a corner. With a 550/800 In/Lb springs the car has almost no body roll. I estimate that roll stiffness is in the 1-2 degree per G range now with no rear bar and the largest GC tubular front bar 1" from the end.

It needs a corner weight now and then a testing session to adjust the balance.

Trans install

The car is finally at the shop, just in time too, as we are headed into a christmas snowstorm. The window motor is acting up so Brent will look at that in addition to installing the new transmission, new tie-rod ends, an electric cooling fan and a new coolant level sensor.

Maybe if its warm enough

I'll take the car down to the mechanic today. Forecast calls for +50F, almost a heat-wave in these parts.

GT5 Delayed again

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/12/14/gran-turismo-5-reportedly-shooting-for-summer-2010-release/

So the PS3 is off my X-mas list.

Finally the transmission

I finally found a low mile used transmission on Ebay. It comes from a large BMW specialist in Ohio and is claimed to only have 22k miles. I'm shipping it directly to Castle Rock Imports and will get it installed in the next couple of weeks.

High Plains Raceway - 9/27

This Sunday is a single day event with NASA at High Plains Raceway. Instead of the usual four 20 min sessions the schedule has three 30 or 35 min sessions. I think this is an improvement and I'm looking forward to the longer sessions.

The car is OK -- the trans is still leaking from the main shaft seal -- because the main shaft bearing is worn and there is a lot of play at the input shaft -- but its not too bad. Everything else should be OK.

We are having some really cold weather in Denver now but the forecast says it will warm up -- I would hate to have to add antifreeze for a track-day.

A small scare

I attempted to drive the car to work last Thursday. It was a nice day with little chance rain and it had been parked since the event at Pueblo so it needed a little exercise.

About halfway there I noticed the temp gauge was climbing and within a few seconds the high-temp warning light came on. I pulled over and let it cool and drove it (mostly downhill) to my mechanic. I feared another blown head-gasket but was relieved to find out it was just a stuck thermostat. This is the second one to stick closed, so it's gone. Brett cut the center of it out ensuring that it will never fail again.

I got the car back Friday and drove it for an hour with no problems.

Over the weekend I also installed a set of Schroth Rallye 3 harnesses. These are four-point harnesses designed to be used with stock seats and have the Schroth ASM feature. The car is pulling 1.1-1.2 sustained Gs now which require more than a little effort to stay in the seat. I tend to push against the steering wheel (illustrated by the lack of suede left on the face of the wheel) to hold myself in the seat. These should make driving a lot more comfortable.

IRL @ the track formerly known as Sears Point

This weekend Kathy and I are heading out to Cali to watch the roundy-roundy kids attempt to turn the wheel both ways for a change at the PEAK Antifreeze & Motor Oil Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma County. Whew, that's a mouthful.

In preparation I just dug out the Scanner and headsets that I purchased for the Daytona24 a few years ago. I took a couple of minutes to remember how to connect everything and to find a couple of missing parts, but now I think I have everything.

If you have never "heard" a motorsport event with a scanner, you are missing one of the most interesting aspects of the race. Hearing the teams discuss strategy, tactics, and problems gives a view of the event that even TV can't match.