Fedja is a peach, and quick!

I am tempted Kyoo, but will see what happens at the Devens National Tour coming up in June.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Just a beauty shot - British Racing Green against a green background. Cain't hardly see the poor thing!



Looks better racing anyway!



Cheers,

Charlie

 

So a week from today we'll have our third NER Regional SOLO, the last event prior to the June 12th National which I delighted to say we'll be hosting at Devens. I do like the Match Tour but I it will be great to go back to basics and it has been some time since we've hosted an event with the traditional format at Moore Airfield.

So next weekend I think I may focus on two fundamentals - the first being look ahead! But the second one will be getting it done in three runs. Paul Z. forced me to work all day when I was running in H Stock in 2013, by getting faster right up to the last run - however it's possible to get too comfortable with six runs and that is not conducive to a good National result!

During our season opener, due to travel plans, I only took three. Our last event however was a full six, and my morning times were unimpressive. The afternoon saw me finding another 1.5 seconds on course using runs four through six - but at a National Tour that is NOT how it works!

So - a careful coursewalk, as good a plan as I can get, and a ten tenths first run should be part of my strategy for next Sunday. I must stay on course during that 1st run, but the lazy approach to speed based on gradually whittling away at my plan over a whole day will not be good preparation for June!

Sounds good in theory, right? We shall see what happens in practice!

Cheers,

Charlie

 

05:09 am - a torrent of photons leaves the surface of the sun and silently screams across the vacuum of space at 669,600,000 miles per hour...

05:15 - Gollum stops at the rocky border of East Gloucester, overlooking the Atlantic, traveling towards the sun at about 720 miles per hour at this latitude due to Earth's rotation

05:17 - that flood of particles greets my retina in a soundless collision, and I smile

05:18 - I say "Thank you for this morning Lord"

Ah... Sunrise!

 

Well, after a long wait (back order) it seems Gollum may soon breath a little easier!

"Good news! This e-mail verifies that all or part of your order from the K&N Store has shipped. To view the status of your order please visit our Order Status page."

Not by Sunday, but surely before the National Tour...

I do hope that we get some out of town company in G Street for the Tour - it would mix things up wonderfully. I kinda doubt whether any of the fast lads from Texas or California or North Carolina will travel that far - so Messieurs Scroggs, Burdette, Spratte or even McCann most likely won't be around.

But Lord knows New York and New Jersey have some hotshoes - perhaps they will come north?

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Who knew UPS was that quick? Gollum has a nice new air filter from K&N in time for tomorrow's event.

I did the full National prep just for practice, and have even found the missing bits of the GoPro mount so we shall have video after tomorrow.

Of course it seems that every time I use the camera I drive like an idiot, so that just might backfire!

78 degrees and no rain in the forecast - I am (as usual) like a kid on Christmas Eve the day before a race.

Giggle,

Charlie

 

Charlie,
Have fun tomorrow, go get them.Hope you have a fantastic day.
chuck

 

Thank you most kindly!

Cheers,

Charlie

 

So - get it done in three, and look ahead...

Well mebbe, then again mebbe not. Add in one more principle - which is, don't think on course. Thinking on course is a distraction which spoils the natural flow that properly aimed eyes can create through a practiced mind to control hands and feet.

I opened with an unusually aggressive first run, which felt great, and different from my norm, and overturned two cones. And then, contemplating my desire to get it done in only three runs, I thought.

Now thinking while sitting in the car in grid is fine, most helpful - but in this case I thunk a little too much, and some of that thinking became sand in the gears.

My next run was clean, but three tenths slower, and so I thunk more! I contemplated the fact that if I could perhaps stop tossing the car into sweepers and sliding it to control speed, but instead remember by Evo lessons and tighten my lines through the judicious and delicate use of the brake pedal (remember the brake pedal Charlie? that's the one in the middle?) that I might have my cake (the sub 62 second run) and eat it too (no cones). So I determined to change my approach and picked out the four points on the course where I'd breath on the brakes.

And thus, all wrinkled brow, I took my third run and was another three tenths slower!

If this was a National event I would have had to stand on my 2nd run, and take my lumps, and chew on the lesson about thinking on course. That 3rd run was a mess, full of slowness and hesitance, and muddiness.

1) 61.823+2 -- 2) 62.116 -- 3) 62.425
So in June - no thinking on course.

But this was a Regional, and so Gollum and I had a chance to learn from my mistake in the afternoon, and I had plenty of motivation to do so as Barbara's Focus ST was nipping at my heels as she continues to get faster in her new FWD ride. She had a dirty 61.9 on her 5th run which surely served me notice that I'd better get cracking or eat crow!

So I returned to the aggression of the first run, and forced my eyes well down the course, and finally at the end of the day was rewarded with what I knew the car could do - which was enough.

4) 62.195+1 -- 5) 61.541+2 -- 6) 61.753

But again, it took six runs. So I've work to do, but I foreswear trying to think during a run. My brains are a bit too digital for the analog flow of a course - it just makes me grumpy!

It is no footnote for me to report with glee that on this day Kimsoo didn't just raw time me in her little FJB kart, she out-PAX'd me as well! A very fine drive by a seasoned competitor, size and age notwithstanding.

Her raw time was a 58.5 which put her at 16th on PAX, to my humble 23rd. Just to add spice to the sauce she also raw-timed her distinguished father by .211 - who was running in a Super Street Modified Miata! Now that take some doing!

Once I've trimmed it a bit I'll put that sixth run up here for your dining and dancing pleasure - I think the GoPro captured it.

Cheers,

Charlie

Results: Final, PAX, Raw

Video:

Ps: Didja catch that Model A Hot Rod to my right as I rolled down to the starting line? That thing was a work of art and a hoot, and surprisingly quick for leaf springs. Once it was a dirt track car...

 

Thanks to my friend who loaned me his computer so I could get that video off the camera. Mine could not do it!

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Charlie,
That video was cool, those cones come up pretty fast. Your Mini seems to corner like its on rails, lots of fun, makes me want to auto cross again. Congrats on your run, times look excellent. So are you happy with the car at this point, or are there still some opportunities you are going to pursue?
chuck

 

Thanks Chuck - to be honest it would be easy to make the car worse at the moment, or at least not improve it. I'd seriously consider some Koni Yellows, but apart from that the car is as you describe.

The sport suspension is really quite good, and the balance is also. Here again could I do a touch more rear bar? Perhaps, but it's just not essential.

The next thing the car needs is a faster driver, so the National Tour in June to make me eager for improvement, followed by another Evo School in July to give me some good coaching.

The car is fine I think.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

0:55 Model A Hot Rod at right - with old drive shafts re-purposed to make exhaust collectors!
2:09 late turn in to the first right hander - a foot off that apex cone
2:20 set up for the right hand sweeper should be wider, notice the pinch as the wall on left appears
2:36 leaving the slalom, I am late getting to the right and am again pinched by the wall on left
2:56 again I am not setting up wide enough or turning early enough leaving the taxiway to the right
--- that tire squeal is the price of a poor line - I had to tighten when the car didn't want to

Nothing is ever good enough - every run has its mistakes!

Cheers,

Charlie

 

My dad use to say, the best way to make his car go faster was to modify the nut behind the wheel. I always cracked up when he said it. :-) It was his way of teaching a young gear head that endless spending was not always the answer, practice and mental prep would result in great improvements. You are very cerebral about your racing and the results have been seen by your performance. Thanks again for sharing.
chuck

 

So now I like TPMS.

I had a heck of a week last week, spending over 20 hours troubleshooting excessive CPU use (100%) on a my company laptop. After exhausting all my own knowledge and that of three colleagues in the Desktop Support team I wound up begging to my dear friend who runs the whole program. Long story short at 8:00 pm Thursday night I took action.

Action in this case amounted to accepting the offer of a new laptop, to be prepared for me in Matawan NJ (that's 5 hours and 330 miles one way) and available on Friday.

So at 9:30 pm off I went, arriving at my favorite flea-bag hotel in Hazlet around 2:45 am. After visiting with friends at the Matawan office, having delivered my gravely ill 4 year old Dell for exchange, I was headed north again at 1 pm on Friday in some haste to slip past the traffic in New York, New Jersey, and as much of Connecticut as I could manage.

So full of Red Bull and with both hands on the wheel I was all the way to the western Massachusetts Turnpike looking ahead to Worcester around 6:00 pm when the TPMS called my attention.

I paid attention - shifting gently from the passing lane where I had been hurtling along as a speed which propriety prohibits me specifying here, all the way to a level shoulder where I deployed my trusty tire pressure gauge (which lives permanently in the passenger door compartment).

My baseline pressures on the street are 38f and 40r, and at this moment beside the turnpike at 80 degrees having been driving for hours at good speed I observed:
Fronts -> 43 psi! (Note to self: +4 psi for high speed running due to heat!)
Left Rear -> 45 psi (Same note)
Right Rear -> 32 psi



So the TPMS kicked off with a variance of slightly over 10 pounds right to left on the back axle, which is interesting.

Now mind you 32 psi is still enough air so that high speed running would not have put the integrity of the tire at risk, and the sensitivity of the TPMS system is a comfort to me, as it would be of little use should it allow a tire to deflate to 20 psi before complaining. At some point the heat created in the sidewalls with low pressures and high speeds can cause a tire to have a catastrophic failure I do believe, and trying to catch Gollum under such a circumstance, in traffic, and in the left most lane, is a predicament I would prefer to avoid.

But Gollum warned me in time, and I found a nice nail neatly driven in at the inner edge of the tread, flush with the surface and obviously a wound which was so cleanly made that the rate of deflation was pretty slow.

So!

Next exit, asking the toll taker for directions to a garage (which were cheerfully and accurately given) put me at an old school two-bay garage on Route 20 within 5 minutes, where Scott the proprietor made repairs in about 15 minutes charging only $15 for a great save.

So the good news is that Gollum's TPMS system works very nicely indeed - after the reset procedure was initiated and I was back on the Pike headed eastbound, the center console gave me pressure readings for all four tires that looked dead accurate.

I checked the right rear this morning, and all is well but of course I do now need to order two more of those magic Bridgestone Potenza RE-71Rs from Tire Rack because:
1. damned if I'll trust a plug, let alone run one at Nationals, and
2. damned if I'll have a wear mismatch left to right either with varying tread depths to confuse the handling.

So ouch on that, BUT it could have been MUCH worse indeed!

So I'm still grinning.

Peace,

Charlie

 

A plug without a patch should be considered temporary at best.

 

Amen to that - the new tires arrive Tuesday...

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Well the new rubber arrives today, and given that the fronts are now a fair bit more worn than the rears I'll swap front to back. That means I'll have sticker tires on the front and the rears will the old fronts.

So that's not bad, but the fronts will want some proper prep before Nationals so how to do that?

Ah hah! The Porsche Club is running at Devens on Sunday - so I sneak in and register as a guest with them, which they gracefully tolerate.

With this approach I've the pleasure of running with that crowd, which I haven't done for a couple of years, and likewise bed in the new rubber, and finally get some seat time only a week before Nationals. What's not to like?

We've now attracted 150 entrants for the Devens National Tour, and the G Street class has swelled to 8 entrants. I'm delighted and looking forward to a stern test of Gollum's and my abilities...

Cheers,

Charlie

 

More boring anecdotes while waiting for the next race.

The folks at Auto-Dyne in Beverly rule - they are a great shop. They've put Hoosiers on rims for me, which most shops shy away from. And they were more than equal to the task of sorting out Gollum's little boo-boo. So much so they did it twice.

The sharp and polite gent that wrote the work order heard me clearly (mind you Gollum presents as having a fair bit of wear on the fronts, and far less on the rears, and the new tires must go out back due to the boo boo, right?) and thus the trap was set. The instructions were:

Please put the new tires on the back axle, and then throw out the right rear because it has a plug, and make sure the left rear goes into the boot - and finally please rotate all four back to front, with tq @ 90 lbs and pressures at 38f 42r. No problem. Got it!

So of course the delightful gent that actually carried out the work put rotated front to back (now the worn fronts are in the back) and then put the new tires on the back, and then came out and said he couldn't find the plug! Right...

So we chatted, and this poor suffering professional had to do the m&b again on all four corners! Ah well, we were both philosophical about it.

But this morning poor Gollum pulled his occasional trick of cold starting and then sounding like a tin can full of shaken roof nails for a 10 seconds (which is about 1 out of 20 starts and which I have ignored as being a lazy hydraulic cam chain tensioner) and then startled me by reporting "Drive train malfunction - please drive moderately"...

That one I do NOT ignore - so next Thursday Gollum goes to the shop to have his codes read, and to ensure that he is fully healthy and will not be injured by the exertions at Nationals.

He'll also get detailed again which a damned foolish thing for me to do because it pretty well guarantees that it will rain cats and dogs at the National Tour...

Which is why the new tires are on the front!

There is madness in my method, n'est-ce pas?

Bien-tot,

Charlie

 

In my case, the "can of nails" was a turbo that killed itself due to a clogged oil line... same error... hope your story is better!

 

Me too, and my sympathies!

I kinda doubt that's where I am headed, 'cause after 10 seconds or so that rattle disappears and Gollum behaves perfectly.

If the turbo was oil-starved that would be a pretty vicious death spiral.

I am not at this point concerned enough to skip the Porsche event on Sunday, as this intermittent has been around for a long time without any significant variance or evidence of progression - except that message this morning which has not re-appeared.


Fingers crossed.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Well now Mama didn't raise any fools that lived, so this morning when Gollum imitated the nail can and advised me to drive moderately for the 2nd time I didn't hesitate.

Have I mentioned that my friends at Mini of Peabody rule? Of course I have!

So I ran over there and found that Gary their General Manager was setting his office up in the room where the two racing simulators have lived for the last couple of years. Of course I forgave him for that, and of course I went out in the simulator that had not yet been disassembled and ran 20 laps of Brands Hatch in a Mini. Sic transit gloria. But I digress.

In the meantime, my favorite mechancial guru Joel gracefully agreed to check the codes in Gollum's history and to tell me whether I would be a suicidal *** to run the car before next Thursday's service appointment.

When the laps were done and Joel came back, the word was (1) there has been a bulletin for the B38 having to do with the software that controls the variable timing on the exhaust camshaft, and (2) there just might be a spring in that sub-assembly that could be a little stronger, and therefore that (3) Joel would prefer that I come in a day sooner just to ensure that nothing untoward could prevent me from competing at Nationals next weekend. Finally Joel suggested that running with the Porsches was not likely to hurt the car, but that if I saw something unhappy I should pay attention.

Perfect - so the service appointment is now a day earlier, and I get my warm-up, and Gollum should be right as rain for the battles on the 13th and 14th.

'Tis a grand pleasure having such a strong partnership with such a capable group, and I am most grateful for it!

Cheers,

Charlie

 

I have such a love/hate relationship with the Porsche. I don't like lobsters either.

I suspect (but no-one has ever admitted it to me) that I may once as a wee younger been placed on the kitchen floor in my Grandfather's house in opposition to a lobster - no doubt entertaining to the grown-ups but perhaps horrifying to me. That's my excuse anyway.

With respect to the Porsche however I have clear memories of being beaten like a rug by a 914 2.0 in 1977 when I was running my Triumph Spitfire in contests that were conducted in the Air National Guard ramp at Pease Air Force Base. That nasty little go-kart of a car whipped me badly and I have never recovered.

But how long can one nurse a grudge?

This past Sunday there was an entire spectrum of Porsche ranging from the aforementioned 914, a lovely 904, and a selection of late seventies 911s - all the way to the mighty RS3 and a few 2015 99x models as well. Jewel-like cars lovingly tended by their owners, and all of them forged in the vast competition tradition that defines that marque.

And what a lovely relaxed and entertaining event the North Country PCA present - full of camaraderie and good humor. I am indebted to Joe K. and the other volunteer organizers for allowing Gollum and me to attend.

We got eight good runs on an entertaining course that provided in my case a great exercise in looking ahead - and that is what I focused on as preparation for next weeks Nationals.

Gollum ran without a hitch fortunately, and I spend the morning trying to break the 68 second mark on this long course (I failed) and the afternoon taking chances and having fun (I succeeded - not sure I had a single clean run in the afternoon, and did knock off a 69.085).

As predicted there were many guests, and the PCA folks had a full event containing 80 registered competitors. At 8 runs per that's less than 700 runs in total as opposed to the 950-990 that we see with the SCCA NER events, and thus we are all done at about 3:30 pm.

Quite civilized and very good fun!

The results will appear here in due course, but Gollum had a good day out. It is pointless to gloat about how many expensive cars we raw-timed, because as we all know autocross is 90% driver, and damned difficult, and no kudos are earned by competing with folks who are not truly intent on mastering this difficult challenge.

I think the biggest grin of the day for me was watching one of my NER colleagues, who attends auto-crosses in lovely summer dresses wearing extremely large and stylish hats, wheel her Cayman around the course at truly astonishing speeds. She was one of the instructors on the day, and I suspect a few drivers that could have learned a lot from her might have missed the chance just because such a vision of June can hardly know much about the gritty business of flogging fast cars around twisty courses, right? WRONG!! The lady in question is of course Rachel Baker...

And then finally, and perennially, it's always great fun to see Scruffy's RS3 eat when the throttle is open - that lime green rocket is a treat for the senses.

The bummer of the day was hearing a 993 leave the line and then stop with a brief crack echoing from the drive train as something expensive gave up the ghost. That car left the event on a flat bed trailer, and my sympathies go out to the owner.

But in summary, a perfect Sunday and my gratitude to the Porschefiles!

Cheers,

Charlie

PS: I did not bother with the GoPro, but others did! Here is a most entertaining look at the course from a quick participant! (You are correct, that is NOT a Porsche!). Thanks to Justin Chen for that thrill...

 

Amazing video, you guys have such quick reaction times, those cones come up so fast. Every time you post videos I am just blown away by the quickness of you guys. Great stuff, congratulations on a successful weekend.
chuck

 

That video is pretty exciting. That's a S2000 being flogged really hard - and I seem to recall it was wearing Hoosiers, but Mr. Chen who I believe is our star driver was top PAX for the 1st Porsche club event, and I suspect did it again with that run.

I particularly like the amount of opposite lock he used on the last big left hand sweeper a few elements before the finish.

But as you rightly observe things do happen fast, which is why it's such a mental game. The fast folks have a clear plan, and by looking ahead they do not have to rely too much on reactions except where the plan is imperfect or the car does something quite unexpected!

This is what took me a few years to really appreciate - one can come into autocross with good driving skills and still be many seconds off the pace. Walking the course, building and improving a plan, and the ability to see the course correctly and not be fooled by the designer are skills that have taken me ten years to practice. (and I am still not one of the fast folks).

Cheers,

Charlie