WEll, first race down. I had a great start, but just wan't able to keep up. Passed Galati, dropped a spot to Saini and the car placed where it should have in 7th based on laptimes. Seth was in front of me but slipped back, Nick was just behind.
Not satisfactory. Nick and I are going to gamble big in our Mon 10AM qualifying session and put completely new setups on the car, Seth will remain relatively close to the Saturday setup. Hopefully this will help us locate some of the missing speed.
Labels: Lime Rock
Nuts day today. We usually have a test day with 3-4 sessions, then a day of practice with 2 official sessions, then a day to qualify. Instead, due to the double race weekend and special issues at Lime Rock, we have no test day and had three sessions, with the last a qualifier for tomorrow's race, starting at 12:45 and ending by about 5.
We started with 3 fairly different setups on the 3 cars and oddly enough, there wasn't a clear winner. All of us have tuned our own and they are all working. This made it a TON easier for the guys with no spring changes or scaling required at this point. And, we kept the cars out of the walls, which helps a lot too...
My qualifying session was going to be awesome - had a great lap 1 and was showing a low :58 on the dash. Then a Mazda in front of me slid wide in West Bend, tapped the wall, and headed back my direction across the track. I checked up and swerved, got back on it going down the hill, but the damage was done - 0.5 sec on that lap. My next one was blown when I overcooked T1, meaning my sticker advantage wasn't capitalized on. The balk lap was my fastest until late in the sesion when I went out with Seth and Nick in tow and powered on to click a :58.8 on my own on about 10 laps on the tires. The best thing I am finding about a double race weekend is I will get to qualify again Monday morning and get it right this time!
Labels: Lime Rock
Lime Rock is one those tracks where you are either on it or you are way off. As I began the weekend I was fighting the setup for some very minor problems, mainly understeer. Using our Motec data and some good calculations from our engineer the setup came together for qualifying. On the magic lap of the Toyo 888 everything was great. The front was turning in and the rear was slightly loose, the right combo. That left me 5th on the grid and the fastest BMW. With the race tomorrow it is time to get some rest for a great race!
Labels: Lime Rock
Transporter back at 5AM Tuesday, cars unloaded, gone over fully, parts changed, and new setups put on and reloaded and back on the road Wednesday at 3PM - the guys did an awesome job!
Nothing like a little pressure. 20 minute practice session tomorrow, then 2 qualifying sessions, each no more than 2 hours apart to fix the cars and change setup. So as a driver, you better get up to speed immediately. And all this at Lime Rock with walls right up agains the track at many places. Pull the pin and toss...
Labels: Lime Rock
