May GRA event at Auto Club Speedway

With the rotation of the run groups, we are now the first run group of the day. This means that we have to be there early to walk the course, register and do everything else.

It gets light earlier now and I still end up leaving at O dark 30, before the sun rises. This gets me in to the Speedway by 6:30AM. It's already light and some folks are busy setting up. Jason hasn't arrived yet, so I have a few minutes to socialize.

Once Jason arrives, we unload the Civic and go for our course walk. The car had already been teched from the Saturday practice. Interesting course. Three slow turns and the rest are sweepers of some sort. All the left hand sweepers are fairly large with a decreasing radius exit on all of them.

Jason has had his fair share of mechanical problems with the car this week and a lot has been done to the car in the last two weeks to repair an aging car. It is very unusual for Jason to still be working on the car on Friday - usually everything is done and the car is loaded and ready to go. (Thanks Jason!) Jason and Jon have also been experimenting with some fine tuning on the car and both of them are very excited about the changes.

Jason ran the car in practice and did a little more tuning. There should not be anything dramatic about the changes and I'm looking forward to driving the car. Their excitement is rubbing off on me.

Keep in mind that this is the first time that we have raced in Fontana since the beginning of the year and I've never driven the car on RE-11's at Fontana. Based on Jason's experience yesterday, the car feels good and should allow us to put power down earlier in the turn and should feel good in the sweepers.



While waiting to take our first runs, Jason is in the car and I'm expecting this car to feel VERY nice. Jason goes out and takes his first run with one cone near the start. I didn't see any drama and from what I could see, the run looked uneventful.

My turn. I'm strapping in and thinking about what Jason has said. I get to the first fast right hand off camber sweeper going up the hill. Instead of grip and maybe a little understeer, the car starts 4 wheel drifting. The comes a tight, slow left hand turn. One wheel locks up and the car starts rotating - ok, I've been here before, I get on the gas to stop the car from spinning. No spin, but not much front grip either. Now comes a really fast right hand bumpy sweeper. Jason was able to feed in the power and go to the floor. I go through the turn with quite a bit of throttle modulation and end up washing out to the left side and it feels like I just missed the cones. Now for a slower left hand turn. With the speed that we have been carrying, I start lifting as I enter the turn and the tail starts rotating before I get on the brakes. No problem, I'll just get back on the gas. But there was a problem - there was no front grip. Once I started accelerating again, the car was washing out and would not turn anyway and I end up DNF'ing the run. The next big left hand sweeper finds the tail rotating a little again. I make it through this turn uneventfully. The slow right hand turn is one that I bounce my way through the turn and there isn't much grip either. Now we build up some speed to come in to a decreasing radius sweeper. The car starts rotating on corner entry again, making for a hairy decreasing radius turn. With all the sliding and pushing, my time ends up being in the 62 second range.

The rest of the runs for both of us are relatively uneventful. The spectators are entertained because the lead appears to be changing with each driver that completes a run. Now that I know what to expect, the tail never rotates quite as much anymore in the turn. The push never goes away and I end up in the 59.4xx, but am not able to go any faster.

At the end of the day, we finish 4th and 5th respectively. I'm frustrated with my inability to find speed today. I guess I need more seat time. It is nice to have lots of competition though.



A very big thanks goes out to Moe of Hyper16Valve for coming through with critical spare parts for us in a very short amount of time so that we didn't have to miss this event. If you need an EF mechanic, I highly recommend Moe.


Fun Pic of the day...
Caption (Bridgestone or NOTHING!!)