Congratulations to Martin K!!! That was a huge and well deserved win for him; He drove amazing both days and you can see it in his videos, also congrats to Nick B and Sam S. It was great to see a variety of cars in STU.

We already knew the top 3 positions were going to be between these guys… I was happy with 4th place since these 3 guys are on another level.
I had about 4 red lights a cone in my fastest right side and an off course LOL…I was trying and pushing really hard to at least close the gap…but I seriously doubt that my car had over 2.8 seconds to catch 1st place…

The STI win doesn’t help the fact that some people want wider tires for AWD cars (me), but I think that we had other things going on, however, this is my personal opinion and many may disagree.

_This was a Pro solo and obviously AWD has an advantage…I don’t know what was going on but my car was taking off great every run.

_About the 60’ times, I was told that the distance was less than 60’ maybe 55’ but I am not sure about this, even my car was doing 1.9s and I think I got some high 1.8s and I usually do 2.0; I was on RE71R for the first time so maybe they helped

_Temperature- It was definitely cold Saturday morning 60s? and cloudy all day, we had some rain Saturday night so Sunday morning was a bit damp, (not really wet) however Sunday was a little warmer and sunny, but I don’t think the surface was really hot; this was great weather AWD/ turbo cars 

_I think Nick B had some set up issues with the 350Z and they changed some things for Sunday. Sam S Corvette, I don’t think this car was fully prep for STU, also he had some issues and wasn’t able to run Sunday.

_The course- Start surface was great for AWD launch (maybe low traction); the low STI/ EVO gearing wasn’t a problem, I didn’t get close to red line in second ever, and I run into that issue a lot; the actual course (my opinion) didn’t really favor AWD or RWD, I felt it had a good mix of both elements.

 

Got a link to any videos from the event?

 

Sounds like perfect gearing/power course for Sti's. If we never hit the limiter they'll win with there torque/gearing advantage.

Luckily Pro's are not taken into account for car rule changes. Though I'd bet its in the back of their mind...

You'll need the US MAP sensor for sure.

 

Martin
1st Place STI


Nick B
2nd Place 350Z


Sam S
3rd Place C5 Corvette




I didn’t upload my videos yet…but I don’t think there is anything to see or learn from mine

 

Hoosierstones. I am a believer.


Also they definitely need spraying, like the Dunlops... Maybe not as bad, but I was generating a LOT of heat.


-Bryan

 

Our cars are heavy and 245s are pretty small for all that. I didn't spray mine in the morning and times went slower. In afternoon with spraying I ended up faster.

To be fair, I also mocked with shock settings pretty badly during the day, and that didn't help at all. Another thing is that this was my first time out with Stones (switched from RS3s), so some more getting used time is needed.

With all of that, I will keep spraying those things since they don't mind being on the cooler side of things at the start and they end up pretty hot when they come in.

 

I didn't spray mine at the last event, and I regret it. The front tires got surprisingly hot, and understeer was out of control.

I could probably use some more setup changes to counter the understeer anyway. I keep looking at the rear diff restack, but I'm worried that will be another weekend project that turns in to a two-week downtime while I wait for replacement parts*to show up.

I'll be spraying heavily at the next event to see if I do better with the tires at a more reasonable temperature.

 

Are most of your guys spraying tires after every run? I find that with my Dunlops they get greasy if I try to do back to back runs without spraying them down...as such I've been spraying mine down for years now dating back to the Z1's to Zii's to my current Zii ss.

 

I was running an STU Evo this past weekend with 80-90 run ZIISS and we had to spray pretty much every run and they were still seemingly falling off mid run. I'm hoping the 'stones take heat much better.

 

Yes, both my old ZII and current ZII* require copious amounts of water after each run. It is not uncommon for me to have to refill my sprayer with the water in my cooler from melted ice. Silly Texas heat.

 

Prepare to be disappointed.

 

To be fair, Rich and I were forced to basically hotlap the car due to a small run group (less than 5 minutes between runs) so we had very little cool-down time with ambient temperatures in the high 80s. My brake pedal was mushy going into the first braking zone on my last run and it dropped to the floor when I pulled into paddock afterwards

As for the RE-71R's heat tolerance, there doesn't seem to be a clear answer with regards to spraying the tire; at the same event, Mark Scroggs in his G Street Focus ST sprayed after a few of his runs (he usually doesn't spray, if I remember right) and the gap between his slowest and fastest runs was ~.2 seconds.

 

Like I said in the build thread.. I was considering stiffer springs after my first event on the Stones. I was really surprised that at Fedex of all places my car was pushing when it had been perfectly neutral on last year's Z2s. I only have 4 runs on them and definitely have no idea where the limits are yet.

 

The front tires were hot to the point of painful the first time I ran them after 3 reasonably well spaced out runs. I sprayed during the 3 afternoon runs and I went significantly faster. I'm not saying that the spraying made them faster, but the car handled considerably better at a minimum.


Almost definitely during the summer months. The Dunlops needed to be cool to the touch before a run, in my experience. The Bridgestones didn't need to be so cool, but I definitely had to spray the fronts. The rears didn't need spraying, however if I get the car to loosen up more to my liking, or if I had a co-driver, they might have needed the water too.


-Bryan

 

Thanks for your impressions

I'll probably be trying a set after these ZII Star Specs are totally finished, which should be soon. 99 runs, 50 of them at Crows Landing and 2 of them are at the wear bars (other 2 are around 3-4/32", rotated 4 times).