Mark's Notes on CMP

Mark Vitacco · **Posted:** Tue Nov 04, 2003 3:17 pm

Greetings:

As noted in Stacy's write up, the CMP HPDE and TT went off extreamly well. This was, by far, the most enjoyable event I have been to at CMP
including the effort to help run the event. We were well staffed by both
THSCC and TZC members and officers which greatly helped keeping things running smoothly. We are also fortunate to have a truly great group of students (43 in all) who seemed to manage the technical track
with little difficluty. Passing and traffic management was at a level that
could set an example for any organization. This was only the second school I attended that did not have passing or curtiousy issues raised.
As expected in a late season event, there was a fair share of break downs,
mostly cooling system related and brake pad replacment. We had
26 car grid for Sat's Time Trial and 18 for Sunday. We started with
28 or 30 entered but both Doug Gubbins and John Hecimovich broke
transmissions Sat AM and two drivers in an M3 broke down en route,
so the field could have been even larger.

As Stacy mentioned, the grid was an interesting mix of machinery
starting with a pair (not one, but two) Rollex/GrandAm GT Cup 911
entered by Tom Minyard and his 17year old son Judson. Dad took
first place overall both days with 1:44.7 and 1:45.1 with son 2nd
overall both days at 1:49.1 and 1:46.9. Third overall both days
was the GT2 HSRA 240Z of Allen Giles with a 1:53.0 and 1:52.4.
We had the usual flock of Miata's lead by our own Karl Kauffman
running a best of 2:01.7. Forest Secosky was the fastest of the M3's
both days with a best of 1:54.9, a very strong performance. Running
very close to Forest was Mike Whitney in his ITA Civic with a best
of a 1:57.3. Dave Philips, who had a hard time keeping his 911 on
track at the less technical Roebling Road, had absolutly no problems
at CMP running a strok 6 place overall finish on Sunday, also in the
1:57's. Diane Hall received the Longest Tow award, making the trip
from Boston and ran a respectable 2:05 in her Spec Miata on Sat.
Instead of splitting ITB with Chris Schimell I managed to finish ahead
of Chris and Mark Pierce both days. Though truth be know, was due to
a still decent set of RA1's as opposed to a waisted mixed set
of what ever Chris could find to make the event. It will be a good
battle when we are back on fresh Hoosiers as funds permit.

Joel Haywood ran timing and ran it well under considerable presssure
of it being the first time doing it by himself. We hooked up the lights
wrong (in autocross configuration as opposed to TT configuration) and
had to abort the first run on Sunday, but after that it ran perfectly for
the rest of the day as well as all day Sat. In fact with the time change
there was direct low sunlight on the sensors both days running the event
between 4 and 5 pm. The sun has absolutly no ill-effects on the system at
all.

The only thing keeping the weekend from being perfect was that we were
not able to bring in CMP at a profit, even with 43 students on the books,
more that perticipated last year. The track managment is willing to work
with us on some of the per car fee's and a schedule change but we will
not make a full commitment until after we run VIR in 2004.

All went well untill it was time to leave, then all hell seamed to break
lose, but I'll leave that to another post. John King sould have a good
story about what it's like to drive a track perpaired 911 while Stacy King
will tell you what it's like to drive a M3 light weight. Greta Farkel
will tell you that she has a hot RX7, a really, really hot RX7 and why we
require TIme Trial cars to have fire extinguishers.

Joel Heywood · **Joined:** Thu Aug 28, 2003 5:51 pm **Posts:** 108

I wanted to say a quick thank you to Kevin Butler who came down and helped with grid checks and timing. Next time you should sign up and drive also.

Also thanks to Marty for finding my mistake with the lights! :oops:

Breaking things on the car before you goto a school seems to have an advantage, I was lucky enough not to have any problems during the event or on the way home. Since I took a different route home I cant wait to hear the rest of the stories.

Charlie Guthrie · **Joined:** Thu Aug 28, 2003 8:14 pm **Posts:** 832

Joel mentioned the ride home and wanted to hear other stories. I managed to hook up with the next generation of THSCC fanatics for the ride home. Jordon Denhoed and his pack of BMW junkies allowed me to tag along for the ride home. We were planning to use I95, but just as we were leaving the track, one of the guys got a call saying that I95 had big accident delays, so we opted for the US1 route instead. The drive was un eventful, mechanically. We did have to make a couple of stops searching for a locally sold gingerale (not sold in NC). We later stopped for Hardee burgers, but brought in the gingerale. The gingerale was good, but the comraderie was great. We killed more time than necessary for the meal, but we had a great time laughing at a broad range of topics.
I feel pretty good that there is a "next generation" of car junkies ready to step in and carry THSCC to future greatness.
As for the driving report....lots of open track. Just enough other drivers out there to be able to play with to keep it interesting; and to use as instant feedback as the following distances opened and closed as each car did something better/worse than the other. Too many people bailed out of the time trial on Sunday and left me in prime trophy position even though my Sunday times were lower than Saturday times. I felt that I was being held up on Saturday by my heat-cycled-out Toyo RA1's, so I swapped to 2+ year old Kumho's with one mismatched compound tire. The car seemed faster with the Kumhos, but I managed to cord two tires before the time trial. With so much sand stuck to the tires in the pits and with lots of tire worms on the tire, I had thought that the vibration was from the tire worms, but when I dusted off the tires before loading them in the trunk, I discovered that it's time to buy tires again.
Mike Whitney was right about the Toyo's, "you'll throw them away before you wear them out." There is still a hint of tread grooves on the tires, but they just dont seem to stick as well as they used to. In the tires defense, however, they have lasted almost twice as long as any tire I have run.
Charlie G

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

Charlie Guthrie wrote:

I felt that I was being held up on Saturday by my heat-cycled-out Toyo RA1's, so I swapped to 2+ year old Kumho's with one mismatched compound tire. The car seemed faster with the Kumhos, but I managed to cord two tires before the time trial. With so much sand stuck to the tires in the pits and with lots of tire worms on the tire, I had thought that the vibration was from the tire worms, but when I dusted off the tires before loading them in the trunk, I discovered that it's time to buy tires again.
Mike Whitney was right about the Toyo's, "you'll throw them away before you wear them out." There is still a hint of tread grooves on the tires, but they just dont seem to stick as well as they used to. In the tires defense, however, they have lasted almost twice as long as any tire I have run.
Charlie G

Charlie - I think you're mistaken about my comments. Hoosiers are the tires that get thrown away before they're worn out. Every set of Toyos I have used were absolutely fantastic right up until cord. They never, ever heat cycled out in my experience with 4 sets of tires on 2 cars. I'm really surprised at your experiences with them.

In summary for track use:

Heat cycle resistance: Toyo > Kumho V > Hoosier
Consistency: Toyo > Kumho V > Hoosier
New tire grip: Hoosier > Toyo > Kumho
Old tire grip: Toyo > Kumho V > Hoosier
Heat soak (fade) resistance: Toyo > Hoosier > Kumho V
Longevity (to cord): All close to the same

I don't think I will ever use anything but Toyo on track until something better comes out and is proven. I'll buy your "heat cycled out" tires if they're for sale

Mark Vitacco · **Posted:** Wed Nov 05, 2003 2:44 am

Charlie:

I have to echo Mike. RA1's have been very consistant in my experience.
When they start to go away I have found it is because the cords are
exposed. Perhaps your tires were very old or not properly stored?

RA1's are very much NOT like Kumo or Hooser, who indeed run out
of heat cycles long before they run out of tread. RA1's are very much
like a reguar street tire in this respect as well as driving feel in that I find
they actually improve as they wear. They need to be shaved down
to 3/32nd for dry track use, hense are sqmerish when new until they wear
down a bit, seem to grip better and remain more or less consistant until
they cord.

That has been my experneice with RA1 over several years

Frank Catena · **Joined:** Wed Aug 27, 2003 1:08 pm **Posts:** 418

Just a quick "thanks" to Mark, Stacy, Steve and the rest of the staff. Another great, well run event.
I really like CMP. For me it was a good mix of low speed sections and fast sections. I could "try new things" on the low speed corners without much risk. Well, excepting those gators ...
Frank

Charlie Guthrie · **Joined:** Thu Aug 28, 2003 8:14 pm **Posts:** 832

Mike Whitney wrote "Charlie - I think you're mistaken about my comments. Hoosiers are the tires that get thrown away before they're worn out. Every set of Toyos I have used were absolutely fantastic right up until cord. They never, ever heat cycled out in my experience with 4 sets of tires on 2 cars. I'm really surprised at your experiences with them."
And then Mark Vitacco confirmed the same.
I guess I'll have to find another excuse for being slow. Although, the Toyos did seem more loose than the Kumhos that I ran on Sunday, but they were aparrantly faster. The Kumhos were 14" vs 15" for the Toyo's, so the usual shift-up points were closer to the corner exit with the Kumhos than with the Toyos (giving the appearance of higher speeds).
I almost put the Toyos back on the car for the timetrial on Sunday afternoon because the Kumhos seemed to be going off. In fact they were corded at the start of the trial as evidenced by significant vibration which I wrote off as tire worms from tracking out wide in a couple of turns on warm up.

I was really counting on blaming the Toyos for making me slow. Now I guess I'll have to find another excuse AND another track event to run to try and fully wear those Toyos out; I can still see witness lines where the tread grooves were.
Charlie Guthrie

Dave Phillips · **Posted:** Fri Nov 07, 2003 3:22 pm

So I don't miss anyone, i will offer one collective thank you to everyone who worked so hard to put on a great event at CMP last weekend. Bravo!!!

Everything about my weekend was just plain fun. I'll let John King tell the story of the drive home with more detail and hopefully some pictures, but it will underscore the advantages of sticking together on the drives to and from the track. I am very glad that I could be a part of the effort to get John and his car and trailer home without further incident. It was something that everyone who was there can feel really good about.

I'd also like to thank Julie Brunner, who instructed me this weekend. She certainly did not let the challenge of trying to keep all four tires of her Hyudai on the ground distract her from providing some quality instruction.

I can't wait for VIR next year as the adventure continues.

Matt Nicholson · **Posted:** Mon Nov 10, 2003 12:25 am

If anything its the Kumhos that get tossed before they wear completely out. My last set of Kumhos (that I threw away) absolutely stunk after 4 weekends. They did not grip at all ever and would not wear out at all ever.

My first set of Toyos were brilliant up to the point they showed cord. Even then they felt great and I didn't even know they were corded until someone said "Hey, you corded a tire." They felt great to me.

Thumbs up for Toyos. Just wish they didn't cost $150 each....

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