EricVonHa

IRP (now ORP)

Today was a so so day. I have been to IRP several times over the last 10 years, and I really thought I had this thing nailed. I knew the track well enough, I just didn't keep my foot in it long enough! I can say for sure that I did not have my mind fully focused on the race. I guess you can call it "complacency". And, I say this because I knew my way around the track so well that I think I was overconfident. And, that overconfidence caused me to not push hard enough.

During the morning race, I ended up 22nd place. Damn! The S6 was ahead of me. The Babcocks crushed me. And the M5 also showed me taillights. Double damn. Things were seriously reversed the other day at Hallett ?

ORP is a horsepower track. There are two places where you need brakes: at the end of the ¾ mile front straight, and just before you shoot out into the main straight at the back of the track. Other than that, it's a fine balance of keeping your foot stuffed into the throttle while slightly correcting the steering as the car transitions in some very predictable turns. It's not a technical track at all. You can see everything, and you can feel everything. The pavement is course and rough and hasn't been repaved in years.

My co-drivers were running a radar gun at the end of the ¾ mile front straightaway. They gathered the highest top speed of each car for every lap. I had 7mph over the other S4's and the S6, but the turns were killing me. I just was not keeping my foot into it long enough. Autospeed custom tuned the track program for this car, and it really showed today. The main straight was a tight 2nd gear entry, then banging 3rd, 4th, and 5th gears before the brake zone. Making the highest peak speed in this section was definitely indicative of a car that achieved a higher rate of acceleration. Also consider that the Babcock car is a fully gutted MTM S4 race car. It could be argued that a higher entry speed onto the front straight equals a higher trap speed at the end of the straight, but, I already knew that the turns were my problem. I just was never carrying enough speed through the turns. So, we have 2 pages of data on all of the terminal speeds of all of the competitors.

Ok, so the AutoSpeed S4 was capable of 137mph.

Would you believe:

2006 Z06 Vette with intake, exhaust and cam change registered 155 mph?

Twin Turbo viper was at 172mph !!!

Stock 2006 Viper @ 130mph

2006 C6 Z51 Vette ~132mph.

There are some other notable stats, and when we get time, we're going to crunch all of the data and post it.

So, in the 2nd race during the afternoon, I purposely had to keep my head focused on "more gas, more gas, and less brake" It worked. I moved up 5 positions and finished 18th place directly behind the S6. There is no excuse for not beating the pants off the S6. It's a 2+ ton hunk of underpowered barge-like metal with a pro-driver, and we've beaten him (TC Kline) before. So, I was a little miffed that the results weren't better. Oh well, it was a good day still!

At the end of the day we had the low ET drag race. I was running a half tank of 100 and 93 mix along with 2 cans of Torco race fuel concentrate. We were probably ~98 octane or so. At the 1st et time trial, I lined up against the twin turbo Lingenfelter Vette of the Corcoran's. I blew him off at the line and cut a decent light. I hit 88mph in the 1/8th and was about 5 car lengths ahead of the Vette. Then, all of the sudden, the tires hooked up like glue in the Vette, and he went rocketing past me. Looking at the time slips after the run is kinda comical. He had over a 1 second reaction time and a lousy 2.x second 60' time. Then, it was obvious that he was frying the tires through the 330' due to a slower time there than me. Then, at the eighth, we had the SAME mph. But, between the eighth and the quarter, he gained over 50mph!! And, trapped over 130mph. Jeezus. I got my doors sucked off. I managed a 12.6 @ 111mph.

It shouldn't go without mentioning that the weather was horrible for drag racing today. The humidity was near 100%, D.A. was poor, the temp was over 100 degrees at the track surface. The air temp was 85.

We got a second chance to improve our times and I knew I could pick up at least 3 tenths. I had a chance to improve the 60' by .2 sec and during the first run, I hit the soft-rev limiter @ 7400rpm for less than a split second on the 3-4 shift. I lined up against the same t.t. vette for the 2nd pass, and this time I nailed it. I hit a 1.8 60' and banged out the gears fairly well for a 12.5 @ 114mph. Not bad considering the weather.

Would you believe that out of 70+ horsepower junkie cars that my 2nd pass was good enough for 8th overall? Vettes, Vipers, supercharged rusting cobras and so forth were having problems making power in the heat. Many of the cars ahead of me were also turbocharged. Check out the results @ http://www.onelapofamerica.com/history/2007/results/showResults.shtml?y=2007&res=EV14


The APR S4 was a half second behind us and the S6 did a 14.0 something or other. The Babcocks did a 13.9.

So, overall it was a good day. But, we're looking like we're out of a podium finish with only 3 more events to go. The DNF at Pueblo hosed us up good.

Anyhow, we've been selling Autospeed all the way. There are a lot of people taking notice that these rare sedans are making a lot of noise at this weeklong super-car-guy vacation.

Z-Tuned (Alex)

Great to see all these B5 S4's representing. Looking forward to reading the C&D article.

rktskicar

Nice work! How many events are left?

daves4izzle::ASP 3-

Read more carefully...

GrandPaJohn

Because he hardly includes your car in any of his shots. For example, of the 117 photos he took yesterday, not one of you? Similar shortcomings in prior days. As a matter of fact, very few shots of any of the S4's. I guess he doesn't think our cars are sexy enough. :-(<ul><li><a href="http://www.highlanddesignstudio.com/motorsport/oloa/oloa-2007/oloa-2007.html">photos</a></li></ul>

EricVonHa

no, we didn't ****'em off. Our car is too fast. He doesn't have enough time to aim!

daves4izzle::ASP 3-

Good answer! Heh.

[badmoon]

OMG that is a hideous website!