The past 2 weeks have been quite busy so this posting is a bit delayed. There have already been a few recaps from others that attented these events, however here is my take on them. Happy reading



Autobahn Country Club Review
The fifth event of the NASA Midwest Region season was held at the Autobahn Country Club on the South track.
On Friday we decided to take the Evo to VS Motorsports in Buffalo Grove, IL for an allignment in the early afternoon and then make it to the track Friday evening to get a decent paddock spot picked out for the weekend. On the way to the shop we had some excitement when one of the tires on the trailer blew and left us standed on the side of the road. Thankfully we had a spare and all the tools needed to change the tire and be back on the road in a matter of minutes. Thankfully no damaged was done the trailer. Hopefully this was not a sign of how the weekend would go for us.
Once we reached the shop things were back to normal and seemed to go smoothly. The car was now ready to be droped at the track and things prepared for the next 2 days of racing. Due to NHRA events that were also going on in Joliet that weekend we had to stay at a motel further away from the track than usual.


Saturday morning the first session went well and the Evo felt good. The first session was fast enough to secure a 5th place grid position out of the 30 or so cars in TT that day. I was gridded right beside two other Evo's which made for some great pictures in the second session with the three of us running nose to tail. It was great to see three Evo's in the top grouping of cars. Hopefully this will be a continuing trend for the remainder of the season. Second session was ran as a 1:33.9 which was the best competition lap time the VS Motorsports Evo has recorded at Autobahn South. Since the last visit there in the spring several changes had been made to the car which seemed to have helped. Changes include softer front springs, splitter, and rear wing set to new height with extensions. It seemed that the new changes were helping and the car was getting faster. There were still a few corners however that some improvement could be made.
The third session of the day was immediately after lunch and the track was starting to get slick from the hot sun beating down on it. Track conditions the remainder of the day slowly got worse and the 1:33.9 turned out to be the best time for the day. Third place out of six copmetitors in TTS was the ending result for Saturday.


Sunday was forecasted to be even warmer than Saturday had been in the upper 80's. The morning was quite muggy and definately not an ideal day for turbo cars. The best bet was to get the best lap times in early in the day before the track became lousy once again in the afternoon with all the race classes laying down tons of rubber. In the first session a time of 1:33.538 was ran. This was slightly better than Saturday's time and was good enough for 4th place on grid. The Evo's had taken positions 1,2 and 4 on grid!
In the second session some minor changes were made to tire pressures and a time of 1:33.155 was ran. This was a new personal best at this track and was ran under some hot conditions.
The remainder of the day's session ended up being just slightly slower and no improvement over the second session time was made. Once again it was a third place finish in the class behind the same two cars as Saturday.


Final thoughts: the softer springs on the front seemed to help the car from skipping around so much on the bumpy surface at this track and helped the car turn in better and hold the line to apex. Only down side is that in corner 1 the rear inside tire is lifting quite a bit and forcing the car to slide around the corner more than it should. Some time could be gained in this corner if that were not happening...something to work on.


Thanks to all my family who came out to this event to support me and help with the racing duties. Thanks to VS Motorsports for a consistent car that keeps getting faster every time at this track.



Mid Ohio Weekend Review
After a good race weekend at Autobahn it was time to set our sights on the Mid Ohio event in Lexington, OH with the NASA Great Lakes Region. This was a huge event due to the fact a lot of cars were going to be using the July and August NASA Mid Ohio events to start preparing for Nationals which would be held at this track in September. Many of the competitors at these two regional events would end up being the same individuals competing at Nationals. It was time for everyone to get serious and see how they stack up against the competition in each class. The VS Motorsports Evo had the same strategy. See what the best lap times could be ran at this track and see how the times compared to others in the class that would undoubtably be some of the top runners in the class at Nationals. Here are the details of this quest.


Friday morning we left home at 4:30am to get on the road for our 9 hour drive to Lexington, OH. The trip went well (no flat tires this time) and we arrived at the track around 3:00 pm Eastern time. A fairly decent paddock spot was found and we got things set up for the upcoming weekend. A few hours were then spent at the track walking around to watch cars on track for the test day and visiting with a few friends at the track.


Saturday morning there was a buzz of excitement in the air and everyone was excited to get going. There were a total of 55 cars in the Time Trial group. That is lots of cars to all be on track at one time fighting for open track space to get that one fast lap...gotta love it!!!
First session of the day a time of 1:41 was ran. This matched the best time ran previously at this track last August when we visited for the first time but had very little track time that weekend. That time was good for 17th on grid out of the 55 cars. With so many cars being there it only took less than 3 laps to start to catch slower traffic. Some major improvement needed to take place if there was any chance of meeting the goal we had set for the weekend of running a 1:35 for the weekend.
In the second session a time of 1:40 was ran and it was decided that a tire change was a must due to the lack of grip the worn out Hoosiers on the car were providing.
Third session of the day was right after lunch and it was time to get serious! Lap times had better come down if there was any chance of ever becoming competitive at this track. With the slightly better tires and some better driving a time of 1:37.690 was ran. This put the Evo 7th on grid and was finally making good progress.
Fourth session of the day was in mid afternoon and the track was starting to get slick. Despite the condition a time of 1:37.149 was ran and slight improvement was made once again. With only one more session left in the day it was time to push hard. After having three race groups on track that afternoon the track was slick and most everyone had slower lap times...except for us! At time of 1:36.379 was ran to finish off the last session of the day. This time was not anywhere good enough for a podium finish, but it was definate improvement and times were heading in the right direction. Hopefully the next day would bring more additional reduction in times with more time spent on this very tecnically chanllenging track.


Sunday we arrived to the track to find it very foggy with nearly 0 visibility. The fog was going to have to lift before any racing was going to be allowed on track. Finally the fog started to lift around 9:30 in the morning and they allowed the TT group to go out for the first session behind a pace car. Few cars went out for that session. Many of us decided to wait until session 2 to go out.
By the time the second session rolled around the fog had cleared and the sun was starting to break through. It was HOT! For session number two the track was in good shape and everyone was able to push hard. After mentally getting set back from the fog delay a time of 1:37.025 was ran. This was a decent time, but slower than the time posted yesterday and not the direction we needed to go. After checking the tire presures we found that they were quite low and did not get up to temp as we anticipated. That defiantely was a contributing factor to the slower time. Traffic also made it impossible to get a clean lap that session.
It was already the third session after lunch and the weather was getting downright HOT. Time ran in the third session was a 1:37.391 once again due to cars gettin in the way of a clean lap.
In the fourth session a small amount of time was gained for a time of 1:36.681. The track was quickly getting worse and may of the competitors were packing up and leaving knowing it would be hard to get a better time for the day than what was ran in the previous session. Between the fourth and fifth sesssion there was a good amount of time to analyze Traqmate data from ealier sessions to see if someting could be learned to pick up some time. After close examination there were several corners indentified where some time could be made up. It was finally time for the 5th and final session of the weekend. There were only a handful of cars that stayed around for this last session. The Evo was second car out behing a TTU Corvette that wasn't going to be in the way at all. This was going to be the session to push and take advantage of the clear track space.
The track was very slick, but some adjustments we made to the JRZ coilovers really helped the car to rotate on cormer entry and avoid pushing through the corner like it had done on the slick track in the previous session. A lap time of 1:35.133 was ran and the goal for the weekend had been met! This was encouraging based on the fact it was done on tires with 18 heat cycles on them and a track that was far from ideal. Given better conditions this would have been even faster. It was a fifth place finish in the class for the day, however positions 2-5 in the class were seperated by less then 1 second. Now we were in the mix of things and had a competitive time!


Final thoughts: Good progress was made at learning this track and becoming comfortable enough with it to start to push the car. With more suspension adjustments, fresher tires and better track conditions there could definately be more time reduced off the lap times. Enough to consider going to Nationals in September??


Thanks to my father for the help at the track and issues he encountered getting the car ready for this event. The car ran great. Thanks to my sponsors VS Motorsports as well for their support. Looking forward to the event at Mid Ohio again in August. Big question is...go to Nationals???

 

Nice write up Jeff and congrats on laying down some great times

I predict that .33's aren't too far away If you get the chance on Thursday before the NASA event starts, 10/10th's Motorsports is having a one-day event; 3++ hours of track time.

They have a lot of experienced Mid-O instructors (including Danny Popp) so it might be worth a shot to see if he'd do a ride with and maybe share some secrets (at least that's what I'm going to try to do)

 

Congrats on the 1:35x. The track really gets fun at speed doesn't it!

See ya in August...

As for Nationals? I dunno dude. I'm signed up and I need to find another 1.5 seconds to hit my goal and be where I think I need to for a podium. They should split up the TT class; something like R, U, S, A going out together which should make the traffic issue much better. I'd have to assume there's people that'll go out every morning with fresh rubber - hell there's a few that do that at Regional events now!