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Neal and I ran 3rd heat, on Hoosier A6’s on Saturday. Grip levels were better than the bus lot but a bit worse than MW on first runs and about same as MW on later runs. Overall, grip was better than I had been led to believe.
Part of that is because the asphalt is more “seasoned” than it was when some folks ran it earlier in the year. This should improve further with age. One interesting note is there was a huge amount of sand on the surface – I was told that’s also a characteristic of new asphalt, so here’s hoping that improves too. It made running the popular line absolutely mandatory – if you got off-line and into the sand there was no grip whatsoever and the sand was about one car width off the cones.
Many areas where there were seams had been sealed and then ground flat – whatever method was used for the grinding left small ridges (envision dragging a very fine tooth rake through white sand on a golf course) and valleys in the surface and the car would lose traction and “skip” as it went over those. Made for some interesting turns.
Another interesting thing was once there was a fair amount of rubber down the tires sometimes reacted weird – it’s like they would grip and release and grip and release, sort of a stuttering affect. Should be interesting in September for us Thurs/Fri folks.
Another comment was that it seemed hard to judge the “edge” of grip – heard many comments from folks who said it was grip, grip, grip, gone with no warning at the limit. I personally never figured out the surface well enough to approach that, but that’s what a lot of folks said.
The lot has a fair amount of slope, for drainage, so expect some heavily off-camber turns on one or both nationals courses. And a general note, don’t be surprised at the unpleasant odor if there’s a breeze out of the southwest – there’s apparently a dairy somewhere in that direction J.
In general it was what we expected - much less grip than Forbes, fairly tight turns that advantage the lighter cars and/or all-wheel drive cars, a strong need to run tight lines to minimize distance but also to stay on the popular line, and an imperative to be smooth on throttle and brake usage (saw lots of spins from folks who missed that point). Still, hard to judge what it will be like in late September with temperatures 20 – 30 degrees cooler than last weekend so be prepared to adjust things on the fly. And of course it will rain in September – seems like it always does – and I’m NOT looking forward to running on this surface in the rain.
Part of that is because the asphalt is more “seasoned” than it was when some folks ran it earlier in the year. This should improve further with age. One interesting note is there was a huge amount of sand on the surface – I was told that’s also a characteristic of new asphalt, so here’s hoping that improves too. It made running the popular line absolutely mandatory – if you got off-line and into the sand there was no grip whatsoever and the sand was about one car width off the cones.
Many areas where there were seams had been sealed and then ground flat – whatever method was used for the grinding left small ridges (envision dragging a very fine tooth rake through white sand on a golf course) and valleys in the surface and the car would lose traction and “skip” as it went over those. Made for some interesting turns.
Another interesting thing was once there was a fair amount of rubber down the tires sometimes reacted weird – it’s like they would grip and release and grip and release, sort of a stuttering affect. Should be interesting in September for us Thurs/Fri folks.
Another comment was that it seemed hard to judge the “edge” of grip – heard many comments from folks who said it was grip, grip, grip, gone with no warning at the limit. I personally never figured out the surface well enough to approach that, but that’s what a lot of folks said.
The lot has a fair amount of slope, for drainage, so expect some heavily off-camber turns on one or both nationals courses. And a general note, don’t be surprised at the unpleasant odor if there’s a breeze out of the southwest – there’s apparently a dairy somewhere in that direction J.
In general it was what we expected - much less grip than Forbes, fairly tight turns that advantage the lighter cars and/or all-wheel drive cars, a strong need to run tight lines to minimize distance but also to stay on the popular line, and an imperative to be smooth on throttle and brake usage (saw lots of spins from folks who missed that point). Still, hard to judge what it will be like in late September with temperatures 20 – 30 degrees cooler than last weekend so be prepared to adjust things on the fly. And of course it will rain in September – seems like it always does – and I’m NOT looking forward to running on this surface in the rain.
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