I figure I could give a little update on the first big event in the STi. We arrived at Blytheville by 10:45am local time, which is about 4.5 hours earlier than we normally arrive. Luckily, they had a short practice course setup in addition to the practice starts, which is very unusual for a ProSolo.
We unloaded the car and noticed the first issue, of many for the day. The tow strap for the right rear was cut about ¾ of the way through. The lower arm of the rear suspension was acting like a pair of scissors combined with the subframe of the STi. Not good, but we acquired a spare for the trip home. (the straps were 4 years old and Bryan bought 4 new ones for the future events)
After setting the pressures on the nearly used up tires we brought (and ran at Danville a couple of weeks earlier), we hit the practice course. The course had a short slalom, sweeper, lane change and chute finish. We bought 8 tickets, with a plan to rotate the tires and buy 8 more. Bryan made 4 runs and then it was my turn. On my first run as I exited the slalom and entered the sweeper, I felt one of the front end links break. These were McMaster Carr specials that I put together to try to use a custom 34mm front sway bar that didn’t fit properly. The end link sheared on the bar end. The positive was that I had a 32mm bar too with Kart Boy end links that I used at Danville with good results.
I installed the new bar and was back to the practice course. I made 3 more runs, we rotated the tires and made 8 more. The tires were nearly dead, so it was time to hit some practice starts. Launching this car, at least for practice starts turned out to be easier than first thought. Line up, put the car in 1st, keep the revs moving from 4500 to 5500 and when the light come down, floor it and let out the clutch. Bryan and I did 8 practice starts, with 60’ times ranging from 1.71 to 1.79 seconds. Not too shabby.
After doing our practice starts, we removed the tires and dropped them off at R&S Racing’s trailer to mount up some fresh rubber. I have bought Hoosiers from R&S for about the last 3 years. They price match TireRack’s price and mount tires for $10 a piece
After getting out of the 93º heat for about an hour, we went over to R&S to pick up the tires. There was a slight problem... There were three 295’s mounted up and one 285. The stickers on the tires were all labeled 295/30/18, but one was actually a 285. Thanks Hoosier
After R&S called TireRack to try to get a 295 over-nighted, we learned that it couldn’t arrive until Monday. Not good. Luckily, I knew Kevin Youngers and the other FS Mustangs all run 295’s, so I started making the rounds. Kevin had a set of 18 run Hoosiers on the car that was just flipped, along with a set of mounted new Hoosiers. We worked out a deal to buy two new 295’s for Kevin in exchange for his 18 run tires. Not ideal, but better than it could have been. Our old tires were showing a slight amount of cord and we couldn’t run a single tire with that size differential without doing damage to the center differential on the car. R&S dismounted and mounted all of the tires free of charge.
After I helped Kevin and R&S swap over tires, the next bad news came. Bryan had made a couple of walks of the course, and to say it wasn’t a typical ProSolo course was an understatement. It was a transition nightmare. We probably had 2 spots where the STi would shine: the start and the turnaround, with the latter being questionable
Here is a video of one of Bryan’s runs showing the NSX/S2000 friendly transition fest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSsCRnCc5z4
As you can see, not good. Combine all of the transitioning with a ton of 2nd gear limiter *everywhere*.
After the first session on Saturday, Bryan rotated the tires. When I returned from working, I noticed a baseball size puddle under the passenger rear tire. The passenger rear shock was leaking heavily. It turns out that the nitrogen piggyback was hitting the rear sway bar causing the seal on the canister to rupture the seal.
There wasn’t much I could do about it. We ran it like it was for it wasn’t long before all of the fluid ran out. The next two sessions didn’t go very well. Bryan I both redlit and coned away decent runs, certainly not good enough to win, but surprisingly not horrible either. I edged Bryan out by a few thousandths, but still finished a 5th out of 7. Again, not good
On a positive note, I was able to pull 1.698 60’ time on my first launch of the event. Even launching at rev-limit, we couldn’t spin the tires once the tires were warm for there was too much grip. We got 60’ times from about 1.71 to low 1.8’s for the remainder of the event.
After getting home and taking an inventory of what needed to be done, I removed the rear shocks and put on the stockers. I was going to have them refreshed prior to DC (AST has a 1 day turn time), but decided to wait to have all four refreshed prior to the Toledo ProSolo in July.
I called and complained to Hoosier about their distribution problem and they did us right by selling us a set of tires at over $400 off including shipping.
I am looking forward to DC this weekend. I picked up an extra set of stock wheels and mounted up the Blytheville tires on there, while putting the new rubber on the lighter K3’s. I was able to get 8 mounted 295’s in the STi hatch area too
See everyone on Friday! - AB
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