NASA-Eagles Canyon, HPDE/TT/Club Race Oct 11-12, 2008

[Fair!]

Pictures! http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/gallery/6220603_T6jYA

The Vorshlag crew attended the Saturday races on the inaugural NASA weekend at Eagles Canyon Raceway. The track has been partially repaved/repaired and they deemed it ready for racing. 2.5 mile track with 11 turns and 70' of elevation change. A really fun track.



Getting to the site was a bit of a trek into the back country, as it was ~16 miles off of any highway down country roads. The remoteness was probably to avoid encroaching development and looming noise restrictions, but it makes it difficult to leave the site to find food, hotel, parts, etc - its all 20 minutes away. Luckily they now have food on site, fuel (of sorts), bathrooms, a driver's lounge, a small bleacher section on a hill that overlooks most of the track (see pics), and almost enough paddock space for all racer to setup on pavement. They still don't have garages, landscaping/erosion control is a bit of a mess, they still need more paddock space (we parked in a gravel pit), and the track is pretty damn bumpy in two areas. There's some nasty runoff areas that could use attention as well. All in all, pretty good for what's really their first year of operation.

OK, so Amy, Brian and I all signed up for the NASA event online - Amy for HPDE1 (beginner - she hadn't done a DE in 10 years), and Brian and I for Time Trial. We get there and had a bit of trouble finding the place, so that put us on site a bit late (7:45). To say it was a bit disorganized would be a fair statement - the huge tech line hadn't started to move yet, registration was a bit unsorted, but the beginner's class had already started so it was a bit of a cluster. We got the cars teched eventually but found out there were only 4 instructors for all of the beginner DE drivers, so I was "deputized" to be Amy's instructor. That worked out great and she and I had a blast during 3 of her 4 HPDE1 sessions. They also had 5 loaner transponders - we had rented 2 but only got 1, so Brian and I had to swap it out to both get times in TT. Several TT competitors never got a transponder on Saturday.


Our paddock was on gravel, but we later just parked in a little used pre-grid area and left them there all day when not on course.

We saw lots of folks out there - Jeff Wirtz kicking butt in his CMC classed 3rd gen Camaro (set pole in qualifying and won the first race). I'll let him give his updates in this thread. We worked out a deal where his car will have ASTs very soon, which we've been meaning to do this season.


Wirtz' Camaro winning the first race Saturday. Race 2 - inverted start!

We also saw Stuart and the Maxey's, plus Dave B, a forum member here. Dave was a big help all day and stepped in while I was on course to get the EVO aligned after Brian's first plow-intensive session proved it needed as much camber as the soft stock suspension would allow. Thanks Dave!


The EVO X is a leaning machine...

Again, I'll let Brian go over his impressions of the EVO X, running in TTB. The Alpha car ran in TTU and I had a blast driving it. My first session was fun and informative, but I quickly got stuck behind slower TTU and TTS cars for most of the first session. Still, it let me learn the track while forcing me to drive at 8/10ths. I finally had the (now charged) rental transponder on the car for session 2 and started near the front of the grid, so I got a clean track and 5 good laps in without seeing another car in front or behind, posting a few 1:59s and a best of 1:57 on the 2.5 mile course. I didn't run session 2 and 3 for the day but I think the closest any TT competitors got were 2:02's (a heavily modded TTS RX7-TT and a TTU C6-Z06 with mods) from what we saw of the printed results from sessions 1-3 on Saturday. No telling what they ran in session 4 or on Sunday, but I think my time was enough for the TTU win? Who knows when NASA will post results.

I was very happy with the handling, brakes (ABS was fixed by replacing the ABS computer), and the power was adequate... right until I head a terrifying knocking sound at the end of session 2.


The Alpha car was fast and furious... until it wiped a rod bearing

We think its a rod bearing. Normally we run +1 qt in the LS1, as these motors need the extra volume on a road course, but I was lax and ran it with only the normal ~6 qts of oil (just at the "full" mark). With lateral cornering in the 1.5g range on long, sustained corners it must have sucked air and it wiped a rod bearing. I shut it down seconds after hearing the noise but the damage was done. Once the motor cooled off (oil thickened) the engine fired up and sounded fine, but we know its "not long for this earth" so we'll start a tear down immediately. Oh well, it was only a junkyard motor that has been abused for 2 years of racing. Now we have an excuse to do some power and reliability mods. Oiling system improvements are on order, of course.

I will edit the in-car footage from the Alpha car and get it posted. You can hear the poor motor's last death throws in the video, too.

[Fair!]

More TT competitors


More TT competitors


Left: Nissan GTR running in TTS, I think? (2:09 laps I believe) Right: Picture of the clubhouse building.

Amy's drive in the E30 was very solid - she looked like a pro out there, nailing every downshift, braking point, and passing everything in her run group. She and I were joking through each session, and had a great time running together. Several times she was held up badly by a new DE driver in a very fast race car, but after staying glued to his bumper for several laps she finally got the point by and went around effortlessly. There was nothing in HPDE1 that could keep up with the power of the 318is! hehe. Another driver spun on track in front of her, but she passed him safely after he came to a stop. Amy never put a tire out of bounds but still pushed it into nice neutral drifts on a few hard laps.


Left: Amy and I hanging out on the pit wall next to all of the instructors. Right: Amy tearing it up on track

The rest of the time we usually got clear point bys (mostly from a ton of Spec RX7 racers and Miatas in her group) and she worked on her lines, braking points, and shifting. By day's end she was flat footing it through sections others were braking in, and out braking most cars into the big corners by 200+ feet. She was totally calm and picked this course up like she does any autocross course - quickly and methodically. She was ready for Solo by her 2nd session but I rode with her for the first 3, just so I could learn the course better and maybe point out a few things. We got a NASA instructor to ride with her for the very shortened 4th session and he agreed that she was ready for Solo. Next time we'll run her in HPDE 2 or 3 and try to get her signed off for her Time Trial license. Maybe she can run the E30 in TTE, if we keep it for much longer.


More on track pics of Amy in the '91 318is

She was on cloud 9 all the next day and she can't wait to get back out on track! We didn't sign up for Sunday's events, but instead did a brutal mountain bike ride followed by a day at the State Fair, so it was a jam packed weekend. Amy is out of town next weekend for the BMWCCA Eagles Canyon vent, so I might run the E30 in place of the Alpha car there. I will get the video camera set-up in the E30 to show off the road course awesomeness of the M42 power.

I'll post the data we took in the E30 from the DL1 data logger when Hanchey has a minute to crunch the numbers. I didn't get a chance to time her laps but the DL1 will show us what she ran, what the grip numbers looked like, etc.

[John in Houston]

Bejeesus! That Evo is huge next to the E30/E36!

[hancheyb]

Originally Posted by John in Houston

Bejeesus! That Evo is huge next to the E30/E36!

We were aligning both cars and the track of the Evo with 245s is MORE than the 275s on 17x10s on the LS1 car!

[Fair!]

Originally Posted by John in Houston

Bejeesus! That Evo is huge next to the E30/E36!

Left to right: 3600 pounds, 72" track - 2350 pounds, 67" track - 2500 pounds, 70" track.

We need to put the EVO on a diet...

[hancheyb]

I drove an Evo, not MY Evo mind you. Boy, the last time I was on the track was in the LS1 car. The Evo in stock condition is no LS1 car. The body roll, ugh! The plowing, oh noes! It was definitely good to get a baseline in the Evo, but not what I'd call "a blast". It definitely gives us things to work on which is what we needed to know. So far I think it needs:

1. More camber (got the drawing right here) It was plowing hard on every corner exit.
2. More spring rate (fronts are built!), the LEAN is painful!
3. More tire (it needs some 285s BAD, that 3600 pounds hurts!), overpowering the 245s bad. Checking clearance this week.
4. More brakes (got the pads ready to go), fronts would fade if you worked them too hard.
5. Mirrors! The blind spots are really bad. I couldn't see the apex on all left handers. The mirrors are HUGE.
6. Exhaust, I can't even hear it on track!

Finally, there's a major issue I won't discuss at this point. We'll be doing some checking this week for solutions.

Brian

[John in Houston]

Originally Posted by hancheyb

I drove an Evo, not MY Evo mind you.

It wasn't yours?

[hancheyb]

Awesome finish Jeff. We were just talking about the location of the transponder on Saturday. Maybe you should have stuck it in front of the car.

[Thinkkker]

Excellent stuff! So is there a TT points system or anything? I would think with the lack of transponders this could make it difficult to do.

Im going to have to look into this since I will not be able to get into a true wheel to wheel ride for a while.

[DBeck]

Great day at the track. Until the bearing issue the LS Alpha car was like a gun at a knife fight!