Stacy King wrote:
... turn 8 (THE most important corner at CMP!)
Yeah T8 is definitely a turn with a lot of payoff. I recognized after June's event that I was giving up a lot of speed there. It was one of my goals to improve there next time back.
Looking at T8 with my Traqmate data, I have it set up as a segment that begins with the braking zone and ends in the track out where the lateral Gs stop. I then compared averages of my best 3 laps between June & Oct.
My average speed through the T8 segment went from 76.53 mph to 78.21 mph - an increase on the average of 1.68 mph
My average minimum speed through the T8 segment went from 62.14 mph to 63.86 mph - an increase on the average of 1.72 mph. Without closer scrutinization, I assume the min speed to be speed through the apex of T8.
I noticed the average braking zone Gs increased also. They went from .855 to .949. That's almost a 10% improvement, so I guess the brake investment was worth it. If nothing else, they were definitely more confidence inspiring.
Then I start wondering were the brakes really why I had more braking Gs? I noticed my entry speeds into the braking zone were higher too. They had gone from 105.82 to 110.53 - up 4.71 mph.
So then I went back to the exit of the Carousel and looked at the exit speeds there. I went from 81.14 to 82.53 - 1.39 mph
I'm not sure what all that means. It proves the faster you exit the previous turn, the faster you'll be at the end of that straight(plus you'll be there sooner!) What did I do to accomplish that? At this point I'll just say I was faster. As you can see, Traqmate can become a very deep, black hole.
The differences in the car between June & Oct were:
Jume: 15-16 lbs max boost
8 month old 225/50/15 RA-1s on 15x7 rims with just the grooves left.
1.8 brakes/HT-10 front pads
Rear shocks set to Mid damping
Oct: 13-14 lbs max boost
brandy new 225/45/15 RA-1s on 15x8 rims
brake upgrade w/Wilwood 4 piston calipers/HT-10 pads in front and RX7 calipers in back
Rear shocks set to full hard damping to tune out the bunny hop coming out of Carousel.
A lot of folks would think the June tires were in their prime state of stickiness. I've always felt that brand new RA-1s are faster than 8 month old ones.
Yeah, the brakes got to be making a difference. I can actually work on threshold braking without worrying about the brakes going squirrelly at the end of the zone.
If anything, dialing out the rear hop let me scoot out of Carousel faster. That was probably the biggest improvement made on the car.
Stacy King wrote:
...it looks to me like you're drifting in on some of your approaches... I also think that was a contributing factor for the spin in the video as well, though it's hard to tell if you drifted in, or you were trying to maximize your already shortened braking zone.
Yeah, I noticed the car wanting to drift itself around at the initiation of braking. Since the tires were new, I'm attributing that to tread squirm. That being said, I noticed I have a tendency to cheat in early on turns after riding with Brad on Friday. I concentrated on using more track on turn approaches after that - especially T3 - I was cheating in on it the worst.
As for the spin, I think I was trying to identify if the next car ahead was Remchak!
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