THSCC Forums

Many local folks finished in the trophies !

Jims got 2 and 3 in ES (9 drivers) , Donna got 5th (final trophy spot) in GS open class (15 drivers), Eric P. was 4th in CS (15 drivers) and Chris took home the gold in CSL (4 drivers), with a 3 second margin of victory. GH Sharp was 3rd in DS (26 drivers), Tim Aro finished first in CSP and Rod Mc George was 3rd.

http://www.scca.org/_Filelibrary/File/s ... ur-sun.pdf

Just to give an idea of the "PAX Sucks" mentality, take a look at the final PAX results:

http://www.scca-chicago.com/solo/indexe ... toledo.pdf

Amazing what a properly setup and driven A-Mod car can do, but look at the highest ES car, down in 23rd place! Even with a soft index number the best GS car was in 59th, and the top STS car was 128th!!!!
Looks like it was a bit of a power course, and more importantly favored cars with the stickiest tires.

Can anyone in the club imagine someone going 13 seconds faster than Jim F. on a 49 second course (49 seconds for Jim).

All of this just supports the notion that PAX is rather arbitrary and certainly site and course design dependant. These words from a guy that actually thinks PAX is pretty good!

On the other hand, this might be a wake up call for all the folks in the "fast" classes. Many of the local FTD people complain about PAX, yet it is quite possible for those cars to come out on TOP.

Scott

Scott,

Some great driving by Tarheelers. The upper midwest is not exactly short of well driven and prepared cars!

Take a look at which run group some of the "slow PAX" classes like ES ran (first). Rumor has it that conditions weren't as good then. However, it doesn't explain to me why SM was slower than ESP, let alone FS.

The only use for PAX or any other class to class comparison is when all relevant factors are considered in an objective manner IMHO. One relevant factor in National events is run group and the resulting effect on course conditions and tire temps.

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

Good points Dick. I was taking pavement temps during the event and there was a 30 degree spread from first heat (CSL, GS, and ES) compared to later in the afternoon. Plus, the surface seemed to get faster as the event went on as the concrete dust go cleared out. The pax at a National event is a nice piece of info, but the conditions change so much even during an average event, that it's really unfair to compare classes...especially Heat #1 times to Heat #5 times. Plus, as the day goes on, the later heat drivers benefit from information passed on from earlier classes. For example, all the Heat #1 drivers figured out by their last runs that a particular section was 3rd gear floored through most of it. By the middle of the day everyone knew that by Run #1 - this is a big deal.

Eric

Plus I'm convinced that the surface in Toledo just really comes in over the course of an event. It's absolutely amazing working course how much dust gets chewed out of the groove during an event. Working out there you can get covered with it when the wind is right and a car ends up way outside the normal line later in the day.

Cutting all that fine material out leaves a much more coarse surface that's gonna grip better and accept some rubber to be left down. I almost think that surface may be slippier than asphalt in early runs, but then starts to get like good concrete by the end of a day, especially when temps are changing like Eric noted.

Of course, I wasn't there for the tour this past weekend, but I was there last year and I was at the ProSolo the weekend before.


--Donnie

At the ProSolo last weekend, the surface was really sticky by sunday 3rd heat and definetly by the challenge runs. We (in STX) picked up about 0.6 to 0.7 sunday morning on either side.

-Tom

Later heats learning from the early heats was very evident on Saturday where the Sam Strano designed course had a tightly boxed in pivot turn just before the finish (tighter than the ones on the main runway at Sanford). I guess Sam wanted to prove that you DO find pivot turns on National courses! As with all pivot turns, it was very difficult to find a line where you could carry momentum through it but not push out at the end. Donna had to practically park it on her final and fastest run on Sat when she carried just a little too much speed into it and pushed out. She might have finished much higher otherwise. She was just a couple thousandths off Mark Chiles on Sunday.

_________________
SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.

OOPs, Jack Burns was the course designer not Sam. Sorry Sam!

_________________
SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.