After a couple of rod bearing issues taking my POS 944spec racer, and me out of racing for a while, the wagon is back on track duty. I should have stuck with the reliable car all along
I ran it very gently at our May NASA event, because the clutch was starting to slip, and I was about 10k mile past due to replace the timing belt.
I did both of those jobs a couple of weeks ago, and I can proudly say, they went very smoothly. I had the engine swinging by a chain in about 3 1/2 hours, and it tool about half a day to do the belt and clutch and stab it back in. I also discovered a questionable wheel bearing upfront, which I took care of before hitting the track.
I am on a very low budget most of the time, but especially now, since I'm paying somebody else to rebuild the
POr
Sche engine this time. I got some cheapo Sumitomo HTR Z tires ($62 at tirerack) and headed up to Pueblo Motorsports Park (Colorado) for our usual NASA Rocky Mountain midsummer event. The wagon is now classed TTD since I am back to the stock intercooler, no more front lip and splitter, and running on street radials.
I received my instructors license earlier this year and made my student my main focus, running time trials basically for s**ts and giggles, since I knew I would be a bit slower this year, and I just wanted to have fun and work on my driving. My student was quite a challenge too !
It was hotter than hell when I arrived on Fri night. The track was running open drags (the main straight of the road course is a drag strip) and I thought about paying the $15 to collect a couple of time slips, but realized sleep was more important.
Sat morning was surprisingly cooler, and stayed that way until after lunch. In the morning sessions, I ran what I knew would be my fastest times of the weekend. Those laps were about 3 seconds slower than what I was running last year on R comps. Good enough to be tops in TTD Saturday until one of the other instructors went out in my competitors M3 and beat me by 1.5 seconds (ouch)
The rest of the day and weekend, for that matter, I just goofed off during the HPDE 4/TT sessions, working on car control as the Sumitomos got hot and greasy. I spent a lot of laps getting sideways, riding as much curb as I could to unsettle the car, and pretty much being a hooligan !! Lots of fun, not very fast, but a great way to drive at, and a little past the limit, to refine technique, especially driving off line. We had an awesome bunch of drivers in our group, which created some interesting traffic, and passing opportunities without ever putting each other at risk, even when going three wide into some turns. What a hoot !!
I did post the fastest time in TTD for Sunday
I'll add pics later if anybody snapped some I can use. I can't recommend enough to get yourself and your Subaru (or whatever) out on track, esp with NASA for the time of your life. Most fun you can have fully clothed
I'll report on my first ever autoX next weekend, Cheers
The wagon is back on the track !
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