Well some more updates now that we're back in the race season. I'm still running all season tires (sumo akinas) really the cheapest things that I could find till I get my rims from kodiak which should be in hopefully next week sometime, then i'll be running the toyo R888.
But first race of the year, I was a second quicker this time around then last year at Cayuga. Also I'm not sure if its the front sturt tower bar or what, but the car doesn't understeer at all now even in the rain, and oversteer is really easy to control by light inputs of the throttle as oppose to wanting to snapping out of line easily.
Second race of the year was at Dunnville, first time at that track and was wet (dried up a bit in the afternoon for time attack which was good). Having just read that speed secrets book and instead of doing 2 groups (novice and pro) they ran everybody in one group really made me push myself. I cooked my brakes pretty good (brake fluid getting pretty dark, and also the one time after doing about 15 laps back to back pushing extremely hard, I came out of the track and all my rotors were colored blue, along with a bit of smoke coming out of them. But after all that hard work, using the times of a 3rd gen guy that I know is always consistent, my time difference went down about 2%. I normally run about 17% difference in time between me and him, but dropping it 2% is pretty impressive I think.
When you have 2 third gens, 2 subaru's sti fully track prepped, and 2 mazdaspeed 3 that are modded and chipped, it really pushes your bounderies. The subaru's and thrids gens always break event track records too just to give you an idea of how quick they are. But ya having them in the rear view mirror makes you not want to be in their way at all and pushes you to drive faster and brake later. When I stater out the day I was doing about 125kph through the highspeed chicane, by the end of the day I was reaching about 150kph. Also through the long sweeping corner, I was doing about 80 all the way through out, at the end I was doing about 92, and exiting at 110 as oppose to exiting at about 100. Lots and lots of fun, but once I get the good rubber, I'll be going down quite a few seconds. I can keep up with alot of cars on the straights, but its the turns that kill me. I'm gessing with getting the good race compound I'll drop a good 6 seconds or so at cayuga.
Lastly I might have to run a catch can now. Jim and Marco the owners of the 3rd gens were talking about oil and I mentioned that I wasn't running a catch can like they were, and they made fun of me because I wasn't getting as much G-forces to force it out. That was earlier on in the day, about an hour later, I popped the hood and called both of them over and with an over joyous tone, and showed them that I had dribbled a bit of out on the sprak plug wires
... still making fun of me they said "oh you're not having a coffee and eating on the track now, you're just having a coffee" ... lol third gens ... just can't please them.
