I’ve been working over the winter on converting the car over to the new class. I’m actually slowing it down a bit by getting rid of my coil-over suspension, stickier Hankook tires, modified engine, etc. Selling a lot of those parts off has been financing the new spec parts. While I was shooting for a $0 changeover cost, it was at least less than $1000. I was working on the car right down to the Friday that I headed up to Mid-Ohio. I didn’t have a chance to confirm anything and didn’t want to spend the money on the test day, so I was headed in blind. The reigning SE30 Regional Champion, Simon Hunter, was running this weekend and my hope was just to be able to run with him for a little bit!
This first race had low attendance, as weather can often be sketchy at Mid-Ohio in April (we’ve had snow before) and it was Easter weekend. I had my friend Denny and his friend Jason paddocked with me, as they were attending the driving school. Simon Hunter and Tom White were the only others in-class. In practice on Saturday, the car was oversteering quite a bit, so I looked at a couple countermeasures. I first borrowed a set of wheel spacers from Simon to widen my rear track, but I also suspected that my rear sway bar end-links were binding and making the rear sway bar act stiffer than it was. So, I removed the spacers I had in them, hoping that it would give them enough additional motion so as to not bind up.
I was running on the new spec tire, the Toyo R888's, on Saturday, and Simon was clearly faster. But, I was able to battle with him. It was my first SpecE30 race, and I was happy that I led for part of it before he managed to get back by me! The oversteer in my car was gone and the racing was clean from my perspective, despite the fact that we were running among several other racing classes at the same time. The only incident that I was involved in was when an ’86 Porsche 911 tried passing me on the outside at the end of the back straight. I didn’t see him there and when I did, he was running with 2 wheels in the grass. I tried to move over to give him room, but when he pulled the car back on, he over-compensated and shot across the track. He grazed the wall, but there was no serious damage. We talked later and determined that there was no fault on my part.
My left front wheel bearing had been making vibrating and was getting progressively worse. I was unsure about the condition, so I had made sure that someone would have a spare at the track (Simon to the rescue). I replaced the wheel bearing, including swapping over wheel studs, in 45 minutes, making it to grid with about 2 minutes to spare! I’m no master mechanic, so I felt pretty good about this!
In the second race on Saturday, I got a jump on Simon on the start and put 4 cars between us. I led from the first lap to the last, but throughout the race I watched him pick off one car at a time until he got down to just me and him. I was just praying for that white flag to come out before he could get to me! He got up to my back bumper in the Keyhole and drafted me down the back straight. I defended the inside line going into T7, so he was forced to make his move on the outside. We went side-by-side up and over Madness and it wasn’t until we were coming out of T9 that I was able to pull back ahead of him. The white flag came out when we went by the starter’s stand. One to go! Simon was on my bumper again through the Keyhole and we replicated what had happened on the previous lap. Again, we were side-by-side as we went up over Madness. Except this time, I got loose as we crested the hill and I couldn’t make the drive down to T9 to get that dive-bomb I needed to stay in the lead! Simon pulled ahead and I followed him across the finish line. He had gotten by me on the last damn lap! It frustrated me, for sure, but I was thrilled to even be giving him a hard time!
We had an awards ceremony on Saturday and they announced the winners from the morning’s race. When my name was called, I went up to receive what I assumed would be my 2nd place trophy. But I was given first place… It turned out that Simon had hit a Porsche 944 during the first race and was moved to the back of the field (3rd place) for that race. Sometimes you’re fast and sometimes you’re lucky. That time I was lucky!
Saturday night, we watched Simon’s in-car video from when he was behind me. That was very telling, as it was clear to me that I had not adjusted myself to the new suspension and was generally over-driving the tires. I was turning in far too quickly and could be using significantly more trail-braking than my old suspension would have allowed. I reflected on this and made mental notes for Sunday.
My R888's were wearing extremely quickly down the center. The left front was almost to the carcass (they were brand new, shaven to 4/32”). I had read about this issue with these tires and realized that I was facing the dreaded “groove of doom”. I ran my practice tires in the morning (the older Toyo RA-1's) and found that I was eating up Simon. I had changed some things on my line, so I’ll take a little bit of the credit, but the car was just turning and hooking up so much better than on the R888’s.
It turned out the tires had made a huge difference, so I ran the RA-1 practice tires in the race. I got a good jump on the start again and I led from the first lap to the last. Simon was back there, but he was never able to catch me! This time I won “legitimately”, making it much more satisfying! NASA counts the best 2 finishes from the weekend, so I'm starting off the season with 2 wins!
There's been a lot of discussion on the message boards about these R888's grooving down the center and the suggestion is to run HIGHER pressures, contrary to common belief. Something like 47 psi hot. Simon tried it between practice and qualifying/race and he said he was definitely faster with the higher pressures. I'll try it at the next race (Putnam in May) and see if I can salvage these tires. It’s depressing to have a set of Toyos last only 2 weekends! So, it was a good start to the season and I’m hoping to keep it up as the competition steps up!
