I finally have a chance to catch my breath after what has seemed like a storm of activity to start the 2007 season. Here is the recap.
CFRA Season Preparation
The first CFRA event was two weeks ago at Laguna Seca. I'd had a few things I'd planned to do during the off-season. I managed to get everything important done, namely purchasing and installing a HANS device, which is required by CFRA for 2007. Installing the HANS anchors on my helmet turned out to be easier than I feared. Some careful measuring and then drilling two 1/4" holes for the anchors are all that is needed.
The tires and brakes were still in fine shape for at least a couple of events. Unfortunately, my front end still has lots of rock chips gathered over its 100,000 mile lifetime, and I have yet to get the front end repainted as I would like to do.
Laguna Seca, February 16
Weather is always a big question this early in the year. We've had problems with fog at Laguna Seca causing a delay to the start of track time and even an aborted session because of poor visibility. Walking out of the hotel room at 6 AM I feared the worst, because the fog in Salinas was thick and the ground was wet. Fortunately, about half-way on Highway 68 to the track, the fog vanished and the sun shined from a clear blue sky. The weather was just about perfect.
The HANS device is very easy to get used to. There is sufficient lateral head movement to see the side mirrors with no problem. The only problem I had was getting used to the fit of the shoulder padding across the collarbone. It was occasionally irritating during the day, and I noticed later that my skin had some redness across the collarbone. This will probably just take getting used to. My existing Simpson harnesses' 3" belts are wider than the HANS collar, so although they tighten down just fine, the fit there is probably not ideal.
On my previous day at Laguna Seca I'd managed to break 1:50 for the first time, setting a personal best of 1:48.292. In today's first session after a couple of laps to get acclimated I did a 1:52, 53, 50, and ended with a 1:48.94, so I was very happy with the start of the day. In the second morning practice session the 12 laps were all between 1:48 and 52 even with a little traffic, including a new personal best of 1:48.11. For qualifying I was able to improve a little more and in 13 laps there were 3 48's and 4 47's, with a new personal best of 1:47.416 on the AMB system on the last lap. This put me on row 4, 8th on grid, next to David's Z06.
As we waited for the green flag to drop there was a bit of an accordion effect and I ended up too low in 3rd gear to get a great start. David of course pulled way in the Z06 but the next row back didn't get a better start. As David went under the bridge I was able to tuck in behind him and the inside line all the way through turn 1 and down to turn 2. David braked a lot earlier and I almost had a shot at taking the inside, but played it safe and stayed back. Nick, who started directly behind me, used the Evo VIII's horsepower to pull almost even with David on the outside of 2, and got a good launch out of 2 to pass me going into 3.
Over Turn 1 at the start.
Entering Turn 2 (Photos by Sean Lau)
The first half of the race then consisted of Nick pulling away bit by bit while I saw Robert's new orange Lotus Exige S finally appearing in my mirrors. He'd qualified slower, complaining about heat cycled-out tires, but had found more speed during the race. With a few laps remaining he got closer, and I started gaining back ground on Nick as his brakes started to fade and he had to brake a lot earlier in some corners. We ran pretty closely for the last three laps but neither I nor Robert was faster enough to do anything. Coming out the last corner we had a drag race to the finish but I stayed in front of him by a mere 0.165 seconds. My lap times were 1:56, 49, 48, 48, 48, 47, 47, 47, 47, and 47, with a new personal best of 1:47.31, finishing in 7th place overall due to drop-outs up front, and first in class.
PCA Season Preparation
Literally the day after Laguna Seca I had to get my car teched for the PCA time trial series. So the car drove directly from Laguna Seca to home to S-Car-Go. Fortunately the tires and brakes were still in good shape. What I didn't expect was that the PCA requirements would require two updates: first, my fire extinguisher was 2 years and a few days old, making it "expired" by a few days; second, my Simpson harnesses have a manufacture date of June 1999, which makes them invalid as of this year for PCA. The car itself passed with no issues beyond tightening a drop link. A trip to the hardware store remedied the fire extinguisher.
For the harness, I drove immediately over to Wine Country Motorsports at nearby Infineon Raceway, checked out their selection, and bought a Scroth Profi II-6 HANS harness. What's nice about this harness is that the 2" shoulder belts fit the HANS better, the 2" lap belts provide a better, safer fit, and the lap belts can be configured for either pull-up or pull-down operation. I may try flipping them into pull-up orientation because it's always been awkward to tighten with pull-down in the race seat. This time around I went with black instead of red to better fit the car's black interior.
Sears Point, February 24
Once again, early season weather was the major concern for the first time trial weekend at Sears Point. A week earlier it looked good, but as the date grew closer rain became the certain forecast: likely rain on Saturday, definite rain on Sunday. My track tires had plenty of life left for dry running, but would be no fun in the wet. I knew I'd have to drive up on street tires, and trailer the track tires in order to have a wet/dry tire option. I was hoping to improve on my personal best of 1:57.452 back in November, but with mixed weather this would be unlikely.
It was cold but dry and fairly clear on Saturday morning. So in the first session the track was dry. But just before the second morning session, we got some very light rain. It was enough to get the track damp, turning the asphalt black. Sears Point is very tricky in the wet, and there is not much room to recover if you make a mistake. I really tiptoed around for the first few laps. But the rain (really more of a mist) did not worsen, and a bit of a dry line began to emerge. I reminded myself that the track was really just barely damp at that point, and to stop being such a chicken as the dry line formed. I pressed a little harder on each lap, and the car simply complied. I braked quite early at turn 11 for lack of any room for error there; and I noticed the ABS just letting me know there was not the normal amount of traction braking at turn 4. And turns 1-2-3 had to be taken with a lot of caution, really easing off the gas almost as soon as crossing start/finish. But by the end of the session I was getting comfortable driving in the damp and managed 2:08's.
After lunch the track dried out and I was able to get back to a dry style of attacking the brake zones and corners. In the first afternoon session I did a 2:00.84, and then in the second afternoon session I broke the 2-minute mark and whittled it down to 1:57.53, just a tenth of a second from my personal best. I always seem to improve right away on Sunday mornings of time trial weekends (everything seems to sink in overnight), so I knew a new personal best was in the cards for Sunday morning or the timed laps in the afternoon.
But by the time I left for home Saturday evening, the rain came back, and it came back hard. Worse, the weather reports called for continued rain on Sunday. And sure enough, it rained a lot overnight, and kept raining off and on Sunday morning. The track looked as slick as ice, and very few cars ventured out. There was a brief break in the weather, but it was barely enough time for a dry line to form before the rain came back. GGR cancelled the afternoon timed runs as expected; so many of the cars in the club are track-only monsters that don't even have wet weather tires they can put on, and that in combination with an abundance of caution in not wanting to see people driving competitively in wet conditions, means that if it's wet, the time trial portion is cancelled. This has happened now for 3 or 4 years in a row at the opening Sears Point event.
