King Tut

NASA Southeast region sent out an e-mail saying they needed instructors for their event at Roebling Road Raceway the weekend after NASA Championships. It's a shortish 7 hour drive over, so I signed up as there was supposed to be 6 cars in TT4. Those 6 cars turned into 5 cars on Saturday and then only 4 cars on Sunday as a Mustang broke on Saturday. I got the win both days without really having to push myself. I set a goal of 18s, and I ran a 1:18.7 on Sunday. Of course I forgot to turn on the camera for that session, but I did get good video of what it is like to start at the back of a NASA TT session and work through the field to get open track to set a laptime as my transponder fuse wasn't working in warmup:

King Tut

My Round 5 weekend didn't go as I had planned. I knew I was bringing a car more than capable of taking out the Street Mod AWD Track Record. Unfortunately, the car, weather, and driver let me down. I had developed an exhaust leak in my turbo manifold that meant I wasn't making the boost I was expecting. I didn't discover it till Sunday morning, and I decided not to drive the car in the driest session of the weekend. My best lap was in the drying conditions in the 2nd session on Saturday. I am not happy with my laps or my driving. I really needed another session in the dry to get my braking points and turn in points setup. I got to let my buddy Promo drive the Evo in one session as well. He was only slightly slower than my crappy laps in his first flyer. All my laps this weekend were on the A052s as my plan was to swap to the RE71Rs on Sunday. I ended up finishing in 3rd place with a 1:37.6 while the Street Mod AWD Track Record was reset by Shawn in his Evo with a 1:36.8 I believe. We were both running stock Evo 9 turbos that weekend. It's nice that less than a second separated the top 3. I have decided to compete for the championship in Street Mod next season, and I will be making some fairly large changes to the car in the off season to convert it from a NASA TT4 car to a full Gridlfe Street Mod car. Here are my best laps and some night laps:

Ayoustin

iTrader: (2)

How was running at night? Not something I've done and not totally sure I want to hahaha

King Tut

Let's put it this way. It's the only time I have gone 4 wheels off on my cool down lap ever, haha. I misjudged the exit of turn 3 and off into the dirt I went. It was much better to be running in a pack of cars with multiple sets of headlights.

Ayoustin

iTrader: (2)

yea I'll take a pass on that. For now.

King Tut

So this update is a little late. I ran with the NASA NOLA Region at NOLA Motorsports Park in October. It was a crossover event with the NASA Texas Region running the best 2.75 mile configuration. It was my first time taking a double loss as I got 2nd out of 7 both days with Jason Jones and his Harrop Supercharged Scion FRS got the win both days. It was nice to still take home 2 fresh Hoosiers for 2nd place. I love the NASA Hoosier contingency. We both gave it our best that weekend bringing sticker Hoosier R7s. At the end of the day he got me by 3 tenths on Saturday, and he decimated the track record on Sunday putting down a blazing fast 1:50.7. I did set a new personal best and ran a 1:52.0 which is only 1.3 seconds off the new track record. The biggest takeaway is that the AWD modifiers and the fact that I weighed in at 3360 lbs while Jason was running at 2760 lbs or 600 lbs lighter puts us at a large disadvantage in TT4. I know a few of us would like to try and get Greg to modify the TT4 AWD modifier. I really feel like the Evo's best place is up in TT3 where the AWD modifier is more reasonable despite the fact you are making more power and better able to use the AWD to apply that power. The downsides is that Aero is wide open in TT3 and you better have a damn good aero package to compete. That is why I really like TT4 as it still lets you run a damn fast car with a relatively simple formula of a good low drag 2D wing and a simple 4" front splitter. I have one more NASA NOLA Region event again on the 2.75 mile config of the NOLA Motorsports Park. I am hoping the weather will be great this weekend to try and improve on my best laptime and get closer to Jason Jones. I already have the NASA NOLA Region TT4 Championship and NOLA Super Lap (best NASA TT driver) locked up. This weekend will most likely be my final NASA TT4 weekend as I convert the car to a full Gridlife Street Mod car for 2019. Here is the video of my best lap in my sticker session on Saturday of the last event. As you will see this is really NOT NOT NOT how you want a sticker tire session to go. I lost my first lap thanks to the new Corvette C7 ZR1 in turn 1, and I backed it down to setup for lap 2. Well that let Terry Fair in his TT3 Mustang close the gap, and unfortunately he was on A7s and decided that going side by side into the brake zone for Turn 1 was a great idea hence ruining both of our 2nd laps as he gave me an I'm sorry wave. We spoke afterwards and he told me he didn't think he would get a 3rd lap on that heavy car on the A7s so he pushed the pass. I then backed off again and let the two Scion FRS by (both are supercharged). I thought I had left enough gap only to find out on the 3rd lap that I did not leave enough gap, and I had to pass him on the front straight. Then I was finally able to run the lap I wanted to after most of the fast was already gone from the tires. I like to think that under ideal conditions I could have dropped another half a second and put in a 1:51.5, but oh well: