Exciting battle, guys! Congrats to all the trophy winners.

 

NB Miata can get it done. Good driving by all the S2k folks!

edit: just checked over at Miata.net, and it seems the NB is running the infamous 195 Toyo on 8 inch wheels. That may explain some of it.

 

Congrats to Darrin! I talked with him about his setup and plans for the year. He plans to stick with this car and setup for the remainder of the year. No spring Nats for them but should be at Blytheville. Both David and Darin feel the car won't do as well at the other sites. We will see. I know the Miata was on the scales with at least one S2000, but I will let those guys tell that story.

Great seeing many s2k guys out and meetig some new faces! My next official event will be Blytheville and bringing a gun to a gun fight! jk ... just to be clear, these courses were really technical (esp for street tires and bigger cars) and the top guys won due to driving. Looking at the setups doesn't matter as much for this eventr, just proper balance.

-Marc

 

First off, congrats to Dissimo. He probably doesn't lurk here but he drove his **** off. He always does. Good racing for sure.

The course: the course was mostly offsets linked together with one turn around and one slalom. The way the offsets were linked together meant that the car was almost always under a lateral load and that you were always modulating throttle. This placed a premium on lateral grip and less of a premium on pure power. Honestly, I'm happy that our larger cars can hang with the light weights on a course like this. Basically, it was a speed maintenance course and you had to be ahead of everything. If you got behind anywhere, you paid for it for a long time. I guess that means it was technical.

The 195 Toyo: I have quite a bit of experience with this. All toyos of all build dates use the same rubber. The 2007s are now harder than the 2010s and the 2011s and it shows when on course. The thing that makes the 195 magical is that it is constructed of ONLY the good rubber. The larger sizes are about 6/32s of the good stuff and 2/32s of this other, much harder rubber. When any other size Toyo besides a 195 wears down past 3/32 it will start to fall off fast. That's why the 195 is so great, you can wear it down to almost slick and it's good still. It's very soft rubber.

Recap of my event: I decided that I would run the Hankooks on day one. My codriver and I put some decent heat into the tire and used tire blankets between all runs. I think they came up to temp... not sure though. I ran about 36psi front and rear. The tires were good when you drive them right up to their sliding point but if you go past that, you pay. The times just get pretty slow when you over drive them. I had poor sleep for a couple of nights before the event and I partied a bit too hard on Friday night so my mental game was lacking. Oh well. A lesson learned?

Day 2, I took care of myself on saturday night and got some good sleep. My head was much more in it and I think it showed. I also decided to run the Dunlops just for testing purposes. I figured it was an early enough event in the season and why not? The Dunlops are a much easier tire to drive. They are more forgiving and more predictable. If you over drive or brake too late, they don't bite you as hard as the Kooks. They also don't grip quite as well but I think that washes out and is pretty minimal. With only three runs to get it done, I'd rather run a tire that is more forgiving. Anyway, I stood on the first run and was sure that my last run was going to be faster... but it wasn't. Bizarre. I'd like to have had some good data on that one. I'll have to examine the video (I'll post the fastest run from each day later on).

Over all, I think my car might be a little pushy as I was mostly worried about plowing into things on corner entry. I will probably loosen the front sway bar some for the next event.

Congrats to everyone and it sure was fun. See you in Blytheville!

-Matt

 

Well said Matt.

Some people wanted to compare weights. So for them, I weighed in at 2,650 on my converted delete at 1/2 tank.

Weight savings:

Moton CS
GREDDY TI-c
6# battery
PF-01 Wheels
Gendron FSB
MX-5 RSB
Berk HFC
PLM header

 

Great weekend for sure! To be even moderately competitive in this group of drivers is awesome. I think that had I had a better Saturday I would have easily been top 10, if not in the trophies.

Thanks to Marc and Matt for sharing some words of wisdom while in grid and working course. I picked up a few pointers, and know what I need to keep working on. I will post videos of my runs later, and would greatly appreciate some input. I know where I screwed up Saturday that cost me huge time, I haven't had time to watch Sundays video.

I also had my car weighed, same day, same scales. Car weighed 2699#
2006
1/3 tank of fuel, verified on fill-up Sunday afternoon
KW Clubsport
Saner Front Bar
No rear bar
Lightweight battery (same one Josh is running, I forget what it is)
BERK header
BERK HFC
Greddy Ti-C


Darrin weighed his Miata just after me. It was 2150(?). He was actually a little disappointed with its weight. Apparently the MR2s can get stupid light.

 

The battery is deka etx14, it weights 12lbs. I'm switching to either a 3.5lbs battery or a 4.98lbs battery once I get the rest of the car put together and have some spare money. The 3.5 pound battery has 500 CCA and may require a balancer every once in a while the other has 540 CCA and may not require balancing.


Did walker weight his? I've heard rumors

Granted all scales are different so numbers range from race to race. I know one guy that said he was 2580 at nats and could be lighter now. My car at last weight In was 2650 with a half tank but I think with some money it can hit 2600. Thats my goal. (bat, another seat, wheels, and a couple other things)

 

I'd question any of Saturday's weights. Frankenstook was 1944 on Friday. We added fuel, gopro, and traqmate, and it was 1920 on Saturday. I don't buy that one bit. Then it was 1949 today.

 

Hens the need for same scale, same day as marc tells me all the time. In for Geoff Walkers weight.

 

We weighed a few people on the scales and they were spot on. My weight, Darrins weight, and my brothers weight were all spot on on Saturday.