This past weekend was the Packwod National tour. Both myself and Gearcruncher were there as well as Bruce. Bruce has previously ran 3-4 tours on the west coast as well as the spring Nationals and handily won all of them. This one wasn't too much different. I'll tell my side of the event, I'm sure GC will be along shortly to add more.
Also, just incase anyone isn't familiar with SCCA National Tours, you get 3 runs per day, different courses each day, and the times are added together.
Bruce, GC and myself were all pretty much prepped the same. Bruce was on all MPP components with SuperSport springs on RE71RS. GC has non-MPP KWs on A052s, and myself with RW Ohlins, their HPDE springs and RE71RS.
Event started well enough. It was cool and low overcast, and we were in the first run group. We ran right after each other so we didn't know each other's results until all 3 of us were done.
My first run went OK until the end when I tried to stay on the power thru an offset leading to the finish. With not enough heat in the tires, I plowed right thru a set of cones. Raw time would have put me up by 6/10ths, so I was optimistic for future runs.
2nd run was better since I didn't cone it away, but was only faster by 0.15s. Not exactly what I wanted, but was happy when I heard both Bruce and GC coned their runs. Felt like it was finally getting some heat in the tires.
3rd run I was sitting at the line and saw Bruce take off. I could tell he was on a flyer. I took off and did ok for the first half, but on a sharp right I carried too much speed and pushed into a cone. Still thinking about it, a couple gates later, I tagged another. Pretty much gave uo on the rest of the run. Ended up raw timing 0.002 faster than my second run. I had mid 48sec runs prior, and as I went thru the gate, I knew that a mid/high 47sec was possible if I hadn't screwed up.
And it was confirmed when I parked and found our Bruce's flyer put him 9/10ths faster than me. GC finished just behind me by a 1/10th.
First day hindsight.... I massively overdrove the course. What upset me more was I knew it after the first run and didn't learn from it. I kept doing it. I dont know that it would have been enough to beat Bruce the first day, but it would have been closer.
2nd day started with heavy overcast and cold temps. Taking the learnings from the previous day, I made sure I didn't overdrive the car. The run went well with no heat in the tires, and I was pretty happy with it. Unfortunately I was 0.15sec behind Bruce, and GC was a tenth behind me.
2nd run, went faster, no cones and saw opportunities for more speed. Felt pretty good till I found out Bruce was 7/10ths faster. That meant I was 1.6sec behind him for the event. Not good at all. Also found out GC was 3/10ths quicker, which bumped him up to 2nd for the event. Well, I guess there's always hero 3rd run hopes.
3rd run... good launch, faster where I thought I could be, no cones, felt faster. Then I get across the line.... 0.025 slower? WTH??
I look at the times and all 3 of us went slower, even though we all felt like we drove faster. As it turns out, the entire course got slower between the 2nd and 3rd runs. A slight cold front pushed in and affected the entire run groups 3rd runs. About 20min later it started raining slighty.
Weekend recap, finally met GC and Bruce. Bruce is a fast man with plenty of knowledgeable race support behind him. You could tell he's dedicated going all out this year to try to win Nationals in Sept.
It was good to meet you GC, and hopefully you'll make it to Nats too.
For my Tesla... it's tough because it's mostly my DD. It needs even stiffer springs than the 11k/13k its running, but then I'll really be sacrificing more comfort than I care to. We will see. I'll do Nats with what I have, but may switch to MPP COs with custom rates and valving. Also want to see how the Teslas do in the different classes. We would have dominated XS as we were prepped, and there's still a bit more we could do for XS. LSDs, cut fenders, custom suspensions, 335s....
. I just wanted to be clear that this isn’t a newly-paved racing surface in case there was some unspoken understanding that I missed (which doesn’t seem to be the case). Still, there are sections of my closest road course that are this rough and I was able to turn much harder than I have been able to since the swap to Sports.
