NoCones

From Buckley:
After day one runs:
Isley
Goeke (about 0.7 back, I think)
C. Thompson (about another 0.2 back?)
Buckley (another .03 or so back)

sounded like it might be a wet one tomorrow...

altiain

iTrader: (3)

It's not looking good for baghead in STU...

Street Touring Ultra Drivers: 8 Trophies: 3
T 1 31 Max Hayter 2006 Subaru WRX ST Yokohama 36.436 36.858 RL 38.795(1) 71.677
Trabuco Canyon, CA Timmons Subaru/Team Blew Racing 36.305 35.876 35.241 35.942 20
T 2 90 James J Balducci 2005 Subaru WRX-ST Yokohama 36.794 36.401 38.925(1) 37.018 71.919
Tempe, AZ AZSOLO 36.344 35.518 35.885 36.097 (0.242) 16
T 3 76 David Heinrich 2003 Mitsubishi Evo B Bridgestone 37.561 36.919 36.790 36.679 72.350
Zeeland, MI Racecomp Engineering/GTWorx.com 45.237 35.791 35.671 36.310 (0.431) 13
4 97 Richard K Jung 2003 Mitsubishi Evolu Yokohama 38.820 40.391(1) 37.165 36.894 72.970
Laguna Niguel, CA Enkei, Vishnu, Bilstein, CiroDesign 36.404 DNF 36.401 36.076 (0.620) 11
5 27 Michael C Neary 1995 BMW M-Tricy Yokohama 38.584 39.457(1) 36.952 48.384(2) 73.083
Eldersburg, MD Vorshlag Motorsports/StranoParts.com 38.891(1) 36.275 36.431 36.131 (0.113) 9
6 196 Paul Magyar 2005 Subaru WRX ST Yokohama 38.555 38.119 37.363 37.020 73.701
[96] Plano, TX Equipe Rapide / Vorshlag Motorsports 37.559 36.990 36.681 44.996(1) (0.618) 7
7 96 Jeremy Michael Joh2005 Subaru Impreza WYokohama 38.599 38.463 37.458 37.480 74.204
[196] Dallas, TX Vorshlag Motorsports 45.099 37.341 36.746 37.183 (0.503) 6
8 93 Mark A Sipe 2005 Mazda RX-8 Wh Yokohama 42.158(1) 38.529 38.293 38.305 78.214
Reno, NV KONI RACING SHOCKS 40.913(1) 39.921(1) 44.114 48.298 (4.010) 5


Link to Friday results

mwood

Mark's car looked very loose, just couldn't keep the tail under it...

The asphalt here is SLICK stuff...it's progressive in its breakaway, but it just doesn't have much grip. The 4wd cars are just killing it, in every class that they are normally even just half way competitive...me thinks we will see people jumping onto a serious AWD bandwagon, going forward...at least as long as the "big show" is at HPT...unless the surface miraculously changes...

shinronin

unless i read the results incorrectly debbie's times in the PM session were better than mark's. something's obviously amiss with the car and/or mark's just had a bad day. but AWD is clearly at an advantage when both mark and mike neary aren't doing well.

McCalll

I just rolled in this afternoon and everyone is saying its definitely an AWD friendly surface and the Pro course was very point and shoot. Heck after looking at the Pro Finale results, the top STis in STU actually ran faster than BS. This does not bode well for me this week running STU

shinronin

the feedback from philly members at nationals has been that it's been cold and rainy and, as you say, the surface is sandy and slick. blark.

Ike

I find the fact that an STI is leading AS right now shocking. I figured the STI and Evo would be whooping up in STU, but something is screwy in the universe when an AWD turbo car is leading in a stock category.

TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

Well I'm bummed . Car was almost undrivable right out of the box; major oversteer. We even took the rear sway bar off in the afternoon session and it was still ridiculously loose. This is with a Racing Beat front bar with additional endlink holes drilled to make it stiffer (and we were using the softer OE auto trans rear bar in the morning session) 500# front springs and 325# rear springs, the front shocks full stiff and the rear shocks full soft, etc. By all accounts this is much more front stiffness bias than any of the spring/bar kits. Out of desparation we replaced the 500# front springs with 850# springs for Sunday morning. It was better, but still too loose; I completely looped it on my last run. This is F'ing crazy, WTF????

The only thing we could figure at the time is that the rear shock valving is way too stiff for this surface. Fortunately the Koni truck showed up today and they did a complete revalve on the rear shocks, making them significantly softer. So I just finished putting the rear shocks and springs back together, swapping the front springs back, reconfiguring the swaybars etc. I'm not getting much rest these days. Then we discovered one small problem.

I just bought another set of the Enkei wheels from Goodwin Racing which are suppose to be 18 x 9.5 x 45mm offset. Turns out that we received two 45mm offset wheels and two 38mm offset wheels. By some small miracle of dumb luck we had both the 38mm wheels on the front axle, but the wider front track and narrower rear track had to be contributing to some of the oversteer issue. We tried swapping the 38mm wheels to the back, but additional 7mm offset is putting the tire out just far enough to rub the rear fender lips. We have another set of 45mm wheels with full tread tires that we'll have to swap two of our shaved tires onto in the morning. Fortunately we're signed up to run both practice sessions tomorrow, so we're hoping to be able to dial this issue away.

On a more positive note the Racing Beat software flash feels great! Unfortunately the extra power only exacerbates a seriously loose car so the performance potential is masked by the handling problem. I was absolutely crushed by people I beat back at the Denver Pro six weeks ago. This totally sucks ....

rotor-te-rex

For those unaware of results at SCCA.com:

B Stock (lighter wheels, shocks, exhaust, other minor mods on sticky R compounds)
1st Joe Goeke..............RX8 71.530 (36.062, 35.468) KUMHO
2nd Jason Isley (ULLOSE) RX8 71.616 (35.963, 35.122) KUMHO
3rd Carter Thompson 350Z 71.807 KUMHO
4th Aaron Buckley (B1immer) RX8 72.451 ONLY HOOSIERS
5th Coulsen RX8 72.716
6th Jennifer Isley RX8 72.888
7th Caplan RX8 72.946
8th Davis RX8 73.017
9th Jones RX8 73.643
10th Anna Goeke RX8 74.157
11th Jim Thompson 350Z 74.330
12th Hohl RX8 74.597

STU (numerous mods to suspension on 140 wear rating street tires)
1st Heytor STi 70.961
2nd Heinrich EVO 71.681
3rd Balducci STi 71.919
8th Sipe (TeamRX8) 74.784 (37.842, 36.942)

Note that Sipe reduced his time by 3.4 seconds on Day 2. Not sure if due to dryer surface, or numerous suspension changes to reduce oversteer. (STU winner in an STi on same smaller Yokos improved by less than a second on Day 2 and was faster than B Stock on R tires)

Anybody know what size Hoosiers Aaron Buckley was using in B Stock? I noted quite a few classes, besides BS, dominated by Hoosier. Also traditional Miata drivers changed to Solstice and dominated running nearly as fast as B Stock.

For perspective the winners of the fastest stock class, SS, ran:

Thomason (911 GT3) 67.978
Stewart (911 GT3) 68.608
Braun (Elise) 69.000

Given the loose surface, these high-powered rear engine cars were still able to get the power down, like the STi that won A Stock, beating the C4 Corvettes and S2000s. Fastest C5 Z06, the past dominant car in SS class, finished 5th.

It will be interesting to see how things change for the regular National Championship with longer courses that deemphasize the start.

clyde

This is only of limited perspective. The run order had a major impact on times. Those that ran later had drier courses with more rubber down (as well as more sand if you got the slightest bit off the established line). For the classes mentioned in this thread, AS ran Heat 2, BS and CS were Heat 3, SS Heat 4, and STU Heat 7.

Yes it will. One of the courses has a Pro type start. BS runs Heat 2, so we *might* have the choice of running the fast line compared to the tight line that Heat 5 drivers will be foreced to take.

NoCones

285/30R18

mwood

The Hoosier/Kumho story at HPT could prove to be interesting...is it a matter of which tire gives the optimal size or is one compound better for the HPT surface? No way of knowing...yet.

I think Joe and Jason continue to put down a very persuasive argument for sticking with the 245 Kumho on a BS RX8, though

TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

Softening the rear shocks helped a lot in the practices. Car was still too loose, but at least managable, which showed us we were heading in the right direction. So we followed up on this and did exactly what you're not suppose to do at the BIG event ...


we completely reconfigured the TeamRX8 suspension!


We revalved the rear shocks again to make them less aggressive, revalved the front shocks to make them much more aggressive, changed the front springs from 500# to 600#, lowered the ride height from 25.5" to 24.5" to the fender lip front & rear, increased the camber settings, and reset the toe settings. Our unofficial off-site testing looked really good.

Today's the big day; do or die ...

LostAngel

Good luck TeamRX8!!

Did you actually feel power gains? How was the butt dyno?