EvoJoeRacing: NNJ SCCA Preparing for Pro Solo
EvoJoeRacing: NNJ SCCA Preparing for Pro Solo
Hey Guys,
This past Saturday May 14th was my second race of the season, first with the Northern New Jersey SCCA of the season. The event was held at Meadowlands Stadium in there beautiful, fresh paved parking lot. This event was completely sold out with 145 entries which was completely expected since the Pro Solo event is this upcoming weekend at Meadowlands and a lot of Pro drivers came down to practice at the location.
Since the Pro Solo is only a week away, NNJ SCCA decided to set up the course and run the event similar to how the Pro will be run. They set up the drag race start, no tree unfortunately, with a 60' timer. The course was fast and open! After the drag start there was a slight right turn that set up into a sweeping left turn which was pretty much open throttle in 2nd gear exiting into a fast 3 cone slalom (25 paces between cones). The TRE rear diff was amazing in this turn! I was able to control a slide through this turn and be full throttle exiting into the slalom. After the slalom was a sweeping right hand 180deg turn exiting to an offset gate to the left which set up for the 4 set staggered Waloms ( slaloms with 4 cones at each set). I had my foot on the floor through this section. The STANCE coilovers had the car snapping into position at the higher speeds. After the Waloms was a gradually decreasing radius right hand 180 turn which set up into another fast 4 cone slalom. The STANCE suspension loved these slaloms. After the slalom was a hard braking sharp left 90deg turn about 100feet to another sharp left 90deg turn. The second left i was using the TRE rear diff to its fullest potential. I was able to set up wide and punch it when i got to the cone. The back end would step out just enough to clear the cone and help for a hard acceleration through the next gate. After the gate was a sharp 90deg right turn which set up into a fast 3 cone slalom followed by a right hand turn to the finish. The course was a really fun and fast course.
NNJ runs their events in three heats. You race 1 heat, work 1 heat and rest 1 heat. The SM division was scheduled to race the 1st heat. I had 5 or 6 cars racing in the SM division, 3 M3's a WRX and a GTR. With the large number of entries we only were able to get 5 runs. First run i took it easy just to get used to the course, check out braking points and seeing how the lines felt. I ended up running a 48 second lap with no penalties. Shocked me since majority of the times i was seeing was 50-53 seconds (granted there were the stock classes running with us as well) 2nd and 3rd runs i began to push it a little harder. Still not launching off the line wanted to test sections to see what type of speed i could carry. I was running 44 and 45 second laps. Made a couple stupid mistakes by turning in to early and clipping a cone, and braking to late and sliding through a cone.... and it was all at the very last turn before the finish. Ugh.. BUT on a positive note i didnt clip any cones on the slaloms which seemed to be my enemy at the last event. After the third run as i was checking my tire pressures i realized that my driver side front rim was wet on the inside. I looked around and there was no puddles, no water anywhere. The underbody of the car was dry, all the other rims were dry. I was leaking something. I checked under the hood to see if it was maybe an overflow or maybe some water left over from cleaning my car spilled out somewhere, but the car was completely dry. Checked under the car, nothing was wet, saw nothing dripping and no leaks. I was inspecting the brake lines when i saw a little drip form on the bottom of the caliper. It had barely and scent to it but felt like a lubricating fluid. It looked like my caliper was leaking brake fluid. When i was racing i felt no change in pedal pressure and my reservoir was still full. I turned the car on and had someone come over to watch the caliper. I pumped the brakes 10 times or so and nothing leaked out. I decided to continue to race and just monitor it. My 4th and final run i decided to go ***** out and launch the car. From what I was seeing as far as times was 2.0 to 2.2 average for all the cars. The GTR was averaging a 1.85 60'. I put the car in 2step and launched the hell out of her. This was the first time i launched the car with the new set up and man what a huge difference from the stock suspension and 6 speed. After the run i pulled back into the paddock area and everyone was came over to me saying that "That was awesome!" lol gotta love the Evo launch. The timing and scoring came over and told me my 60' was the fastest of the day so far at a 1.67. Last and final run of the day. I pulled up to the line and EVERYONE came over to the line, took out their phones, and recorded the launch. I put it in 2step launched and i really felt the car grip this time, it pulled really hard off the line. When I came back into the Paddock they said it was a 1.64. I was extremely happy with that.
Well right after our heat was over, the timing computers decided to fail. All the information from our heat seamed to be lost. Luckily they had a back up computer to run the rest of the day but heat 1 times were officially unrecoverable. What a let down. Well i spoke with the guys in my class and asked what their best times were and after gathering the information it seams as though i would have placed 2nd. My fastest time was a 44.3. One of the M3's had put down a time on his last lap of 44.1. His last lap happened to be his 8th run on the course since he had 3 re-runs because of timing errors. The GTR was running around a 47.5.
The weekend was a success in my mind. We found some bugs in the car and are ironing them out this week before the Pro Solo event this coming weekend May 21-22. After seeing some of the pictures of the car in the turns I realized that the car still has some serious roll to it. Even though the car is rigid, it was tripoding and leaning big time. The good thing though is that it was tri-poding in the right places. The rear wheel was lifting on brake and turn in but was on the ground at apex and exit. So i just need to make some adjustments to the Dampening on the coilovers to see what will work best.
Heres a nice shot of the tri-pod:
I am extremely happy with the car and its current set up. I cannot wait to race in the Pro Solo this weekend. I know I wont be competitive in the SM division as i will be racing on Z1 Star spec 255/35 street tires while everyone else will be running Hoosiers, BUT, my goal is the put up some fast times and make people say "You ran that time with street tires?" Im confident its going to be a fun weekend.
Pictures are up on my website if you guys wish to see them:
http://www.evojoeracing.com/Photos/2...SCCAMay14.html
~ EvoJoe
This past Saturday May 14th was my second race of the season, first with the Northern New Jersey SCCA of the season. The event was held at Meadowlands Stadium in there beautiful, fresh paved parking lot. This event was completely sold out with 145 entries which was completely expected since the Pro Solo event is this upcoming weekend at Meadowlands and a lot of Pro drivers came down to practice at the location.
Since the Pro Solo is only a week away, NNJ SCCA decided to set up the course and run the event similar to how the Pro will be run. They set up the drag race start, no tree unfortunately, with a 60' timer. The course was fast and open! After the drag start there was a slight right turn that set up into a sweeping left turn which was pretty much open throttle in 2nd gear exiting into a fast 3 cone slalom (25 paces between cones). The TRE rear diff was amazing in this turn! I was able to control a slide through this turn and be full throttle exiting into the slalom. After the slalom was a sweeping right hand 180deg turn exiting to an offset gate to the left which set up for the 4 set staggered Waloms ( slaloms with 4 cones at each set). I had my foot on the floor through this section. The STANCE coilovers had the car snapping into position at the higher speeds. After the Waloms was a gradually decreasing radius right hand 180 turn which set up into another fast 4 cone slalom. The STANCE suspension loved these slaloms. After the slalom was a hard braking sharp left 90deg turn about 100feet to another sharp left 90deg turn. The second left i was using the TRE rear diff to its fullest potential. I was able to set up wide and punch it when i got to the cone. The back end would step out just enough to clear the cone and help for a hard acceleration through the next gate. After the gate was a sharp 90deg right turn which set up into a fast 3 cone slalom followed by a right hand turn to the finish. The course was a really fun and fast course.
NNJ runs their events in three heats. You race 1 heat, work 1 heat and rest 1 heat. The SM division was scheduled to race the 1st heat. I had 5 or 6 cars racing in the SM division, 3 M3's a WRX and a GTR. With the large number of entries we only were able to get 5 runs. First run i took it easy just to get used to the course, check out braking points and seeing how the lines felt. I ended up running a 48 second lap with no penalties. Shocked me since majority of the times i was seeing was 50-53 seconds (granted there were the stock classes running with us as well) 2nd and 3rd runs i began to push it a little harder. Still not launching off the line wanted to test sections to see what type of speed i could carry. I was running 44 and 45 second laps. Made a couple stupid mistakes by turning in to early and clipping a cone, and braking to late and sliding through a cone.... and it was all at the very last turn before the finish. Ugh.. BUT on a positive note i didnt clip any cones on the slaloms which seemed to be my enemy at the last event. After the third run as i was checking my tire pressures i realized that my driver side front rim was wet on the inside. I looked around and there was no puddles, no water anywhere. The underbody of the car was dry, all the other rims were dry. I was leaking something. I checked under the hood to see if it was maybe an overflow or maybe some water left over from cleaning my car spilled out somewhere, but the car was completely dry. Checked under the car, nothing was wet, saw nothing dripping and no leaks. I was inspecting the brake lines when i saw a little drip form on the bottom of the caliper. It had barely and scent to it but felt like a lubricating fluid. It looked like my caliper was leaking brake fluid. When i was racing i felt no change in pedal pressure and my reservoir was still full. I turned the car on and had someone come over to watch the caliper. I pumped the brakes 10 times or so and nothing leaked out. I decided to continue to race and just monitor it. My 4th and final run i decided to go ***** out and launch the car. From what I was seeing as far as times was 2.0 to 2.2 average for all the cars. The GTR was averaging a 1.85 60'. I put the car in 2step and launched the hell out of her. This was the first time i launched the car with the new set up and man what a huge difference from the stock suspension and 6 speed. After the run i pulled back into the paddock area and everyone was came over to me saying that "That was awesome!" lol gotta love the Evo launch. The timing and scoring came over and told me my 60' was the fastest of the day so far at a 1.67. Last and final run of the day. I pulled up to the line and EVERYONE came over to the line, took out their phones, and recorded the launch. I put it in 2step launched and i really felt the car grip this time, it pulled really hard off the line. When I came back into the Paddock they said it was a 1.64. I was extremely happy with that.
Well right after our heat was over, the timing computers decided to fail. All the information from our heat seamed to be lost. Luckily they had a back up computer to run the rest of the day but heat 1 times were officially unrecoverable. What a let down. Well i spoke with the guys in my class and asked what their best times were and after gathering the information it seams as though i would have placed 2nd. My fastest time was a 44.3. One of the M3's had put down a time on his last lap of 44.1. His last lap happened to be his 8th run on the course since he had 3 re-runs because of timing errors. The GTR was running around a 47.5.
The weekend was a success in my mind. We found some bugs in the car and are ironing them out this week before the Pro Solo event this coming weekend May 21-22. After seeing some of the pictures of the car in the turns I realized that the car still has some serious roll to it. Even though the car is rigid, it was tripoding and leaning big time. The good thing though is that it was tri-poding in the right places. The rear wheel was lifting on brake and turn in but was on the ground at apex and exit. So i just need to make some adjustments to the Dampening on the coilovers to see what will work best.
Heres a nice shot of the tri-pod:
I am extremely happy with the car and its current set up. I cannot wait to race in the Pro Solo this weekend. I know I wont be competitive in the SM division as i will be racing on Z1 Star spec 255/35 street tires while everyone else will be running Hoosiers, BUT, my goal is the put up some fast times and make people say "You ran that time with street tires?" Im confident its going to be a fun weekend.
Pictures are up on my website if you guys wish to see them:
http://www.evojoeracing.com/Photos/2...SCCAMay14.html
~ EvoJoe
Hey whats up bud. Thanks! The event was absolutely awesome! I definitely think if i had Hoosiers i could have gave the other guys a challenge but im super pumped with how the weekend turned out.
If you guys are local, you should come down to more of the NNJ events. Ill be racing with them all season.
Hope to race with you guys again!
If you guys are local, you should come down to more of the NNJ events. Ill be racing with them all season.
Hope to race with you guys again!
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EvoJoeRacing
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Oct 21, 2011 06:37 AM
