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[924RACR]

Was back out again this past weekend, at Waterford, this time for an SCCA Regional... ran strong all weekend except for the practice session.

Oblig 2-wheelin' pic:
http://www.waterfordhills.com/gallery/jgj29302.jpg

In only the second lap of practice/qual (first hot lap after warming up the tires) the #3 plug lead popped off, so I had to park it. Started the qualifying race (8 laps to determine starting order for the Regional race) in dead last, with 6 cars in front of me I knew I could pass.

Passed 4 of them on the first lap, and 2 on the second and third laps. The last one, a Spec Miata running in ITA, hung on to trail me and eventually caught me - the car wasn't handling properly, so I was not as fast as I had been on previous weekends. On the very last lap, he snuck up the inside in Turn 1 and got back in front as my car understeered badly around the outside. I hung on trying to keep pace and look for an opportunity, and got a great run through 5 onto the back straight. I pulled to the inside to look to out-brake him, but he hung tough and took it deeper than I was going to be able to on the inside, so I backed out of it and fell back into line behind him, to try for another opportunity later. But then, as soon as I'd fallen back in line, he overshot the apex, swung out into the marbles, and turned completely sideways in front of me! I ducked to the inside and continued past to take the position and the checker.

This put me in 4th in class for the actual race. However, we had a lot of work to do to the suspension to get the handling better. After talking amongst ourselves, and consulting many more experienced racers for advice, we stiffened the rear swaybar, stiffened the rear shocks, and bumped up the front tire pressures.

The main race was a scorcher, 20 laps right after lunch in the heat of a nasty Michigan summer day. We started out very strong, got an excellent start and moved up a few spots on ITS cars we were gridded with - including Denny Voss's ITS 944. However, we let them by within the 1st lap, knowing that there was a long race ahead, and there would be no way to keep pace with them. Better to back off and not fight the inevitable, just maintain the position. As it turned out, the 2nd place ITA car spun out and parked it on the 2nd lap, putting us in 2nd place. The car that had gridded 3rd, but started in back (due to not showing up at the grid in time) finally caught us and passed by - at 3-4 seconds a lap faster, there wasn't much point in fighting the inevitable. However, we maintained our pace, hung in despite the heat, and picked up 3rd place in class easily.

A very successful weekend, very tiring, but still very rewarding!

Up next is a month or two off to relax, recover, play with some of the other projects, and catch up with the social calendar.

Next set of upgrades to the car will hopefully be spherical bearings for the rear trailing arms, and a set of Bilstein race shocks/struts. Unfortunately, that may not happen until the winter.

One final note of thanks to Jason at Paragon for last-minute shipping of a replacement strut plate to replace the one I'd bent up while jumping the car last year, he did an excellent job of getting it to me in time to pop it on for this weekend...

_________________
Vaughan Scott
Webmeister
'79 924 #77 SCCA H Prod racecar
'82 931 Plat. Silver
#25 Hidari Firefly P2 sports prototype