CIR 300 lap team endurance this sunday
12-29-2006, 03:23 PM
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I want too, but I dont think my friends have enough money after the holidays. Im pretty fast in the karts, so if anyone needs someone else on there team let me know. Im in for sunday if its still possible.
01-01-2007, 01:53 PM
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http://new.photos.yahoo.com/scottllambert/...460762381909270
11 teams raced this past Sunday, 3 in lightweight and the balance in heavyweight. In order to fill out the LW grid, they weighted down the carts of the 2 lightest teams (consisting of youngsters, all members of the CIR Junior League) so that their average was on par with the 3rd lightest, a group of gen-y kids.
Of the 8 heavyweight teams, many were true heavyweights. In fact, I was quite surprised with the size of many of these guys. I walked into this thinking most teams would be lightweight, but I was severely mistaken. I was further surprised to find that these older, heavy guys were REALLY fast. Many were committed drivers, with shoes, suits, and custom painted lids. Several looked familiar from my participation with TSSCC autocross.
My team was comprised of myself (blue lid w/ orange stripes), my uncle Don (yellow lid), who attended an s2k CIR miniGP with me earlier this year, and my 17 year old cousin Mike (white lid), who was making his first race cart appearance. Drew had the thankless but pivotal role of grabbing water and food, taking pictures, and being an extra set of hands when needed.The CIR crew went out of their way to accommodate us - carts were selected by drawing a number out of a hat, but they allowed us an alternate so as to accommodate our (ahem my) need for a slightly roomier seat. In the end, the cart we originally drew had the roomiest seat of our two alternatives so we stuck with trusty #19.
The event required 8 driver changes and one fuel stop. First team to hit 300 laps wins. The driver change and fuel procedure was simple. For a driver change, after pulling into the pit, one of the CIR crew holds the brake pedal while drivers switch, and out you go. The trick was to ensure your relief was in fact waiting to hop in when you arrived in the pit. You also didn't want to do this while another team was changing as they could hold you up. The refuel was done on the opposite side of the track. To refuel, pull off the track and stop prior to the refuel room. Hand your cart over to CIR crew, who then take your cart through the room, top off your tank, and bring it out the other side of the room (think of the room like a carport), at which point they hand the cart back to you and you pull back into the race. The carts were said to be able to run about 150-170 laps on a tank, so you had to get your refuel done in a fairly tight window lest you have to refuel again before the end of the race.
Prior to the race itself CIR ran a 20 minute time trial to allow all the drivers to practice driver changes and familiarize themselves with the track, as well as turn a fast lap for grid placement. The driver that was in the cart at the end of the time trial would also start the race as the carts were not allowed to pit between the time trial and the race itself. Of note: there was no refueling between the time trial and the race. Checking the math you can see that refuel window just shrunk to a porthole.
For the time trial, we put Mike in first to acquaint him with the cart and track, then Don, and then myself. Mike used about 8 minutes of the 20, then Don went out for about 5, and I filled out the balance trying to figure out how to get around the track without sliding - something I knew was critical but didn't realize completely why this was so. My original understanding of the penalty of sliding was that doing so scrubs off too much speed and therefore leaves the driver with less momentum and the necessity to accelerate from lower down in the rev range of the motor where there is less power. I also knew that, not unlike my understanding of how motorcycle tires fare through out the course of a race, kart tires had a range of operating temperature whereby they give maximum traction. Too cold and the tires slip. Too hot and they get greasy and slip. What I didn't realize was how much sliding around corners like a drift racer was heating up the tires - so much in fact that there was a snowball effect - by taking corners sideways I was overcooking the tires such that I would have to continue to drift the corners with limited traction rather than drive around them, and therein was the fastest way around the track. The winner, then, was the driver (or team of drivers) that could most closely set corner speed to be at the limit of adhesion without resorting to the crutch of drifting. This knowledge took 2 full seconds off my lap times and put me in the position during my last session to actually drive competitively with the slower half of the groups racing.
At the end of the race, there were 2 of the 3 LW teams within 1 lap of each other, 2 HW teams also within 1 lap of each other. The next part of the field was made up of about 6 teams, all within a couple laps of each other, but about 20 laps down from the lead; it was with this group that I was actually able to engage in some dicing towards the end of the race. Finally, we were on our own as the 3rd group unto ourselves, 48 laps down from the lead. Overall, our team's fastest lap was 32.9 seconds, but most of our laps were in the 35 second range on average. The lead pack was running high 30's on average and the mid pack was running high 32s. The overall fastest lap of the day was in the low 30s. By the end of the race Mike was putting down laps like a veteran, making times comparable to my own. At the end, Mike was in the seat, swapping with me for the last 20 laps.
Drama finally played out in the last 10 laps of racing. The first place HW team ran out of gas (they timed their stop too early). As per the rules, the entire race was halted while the CIR crew cleared the dead cart from the track. The drama was supplied when CIR failed to restart the race after clearing the cart; they waited until the cart was refueled and placed back into grid order, but at the back. Had the race been restarted as per the rules, the 2nd place team would easily have put several laps on before the team that ran out of gas returned. With 4 laps remaining after the restart, the team that ran out of gas made their way quickly through the field, passing the 2nd place group for the lead. Review of this after the race was complete caused CIR to award the 1st place trophy to the 2nd place team and 2nd place to the team that ran out of gas. Our team received recognition as one of the rookie teams in the event.
Going into the event yesterday, I already had a pulled shoulder from skiing the day before. Today I'm hobbling around with both shoulders and my neck very sort. I also have a bruise on my left leg from where I would wedge it against the steering wheel to support myself in turns. Sue tells me she's not going to let me do these anymore because I'm worthless the day after an event, but I think we need to just scale things back a little. After all, they have 200 lap events every month...
11 teams raced this past Sunday, 3 in lightweight and the balance in heavyweight. In order to fill out the LW grid, they weighted down the carts of the 2 lightest teams (consisting of youngsters, all members of the CIR Junior League) so that their average was on par with the 3rd lightest, a group of gen-y kids.
Of the 8 heavyweight teams, many were true heavyweights. In fact, I was quite surprised with the size of many of these guys. I walked into this thinking most teams would be lightweight, but I was severely mistaken. I was further surprised to find that these older, heavy guys were REALLY fast. Many were committed drivers, with shoes, suits, and custom painted lids. Several looked familiar from my participation with TSSCC autocross.
My team was comprised of myself (blue lid w/ orange stripes), my uncle Don (yellow lid), who attended an s2k CIR miniGP with me earlier this year, and my 17 year old cousin Mike (white lid), who was making his first race cart appearance. Drew had the thankless but pivotal role of grabbing water and food, taking pictures, and being an extra set of hands when needed.The CIR crew went out of their way to accommodate us - carts were selected by drawing a number out of a hat, but they allowed us an alternate so as to accommodate our (ahem my) need for a slightly roomier seat. In the end, the cart we originally drew had the roomiest seat of our two alternatives so we stuck with trusty #19.
The event required 8 driver changes and one fuel stop. First team to hit 300 laps wins. The driver change and fuel procedure was simple. For a driver change, after pulling into the pit, one of the CIR crew holds the brake pedal while drivers switch, and out you go. The trick was to ensure your relief was in fact waiting to hop in when you arrived in the pit. You also didn't want to do this while another team was changing as they could hold you up. The refuel was done on the opposite side of the track. To refuel, pull off the track and stop prior to the refuel room. Hand your cart over to CIR crew, who then take your cart through the room, top off your tank, and bring it out the other side of the room (think of the room like a carport), at which point they hand the cart back to you and you pull back into the race. The carts were said to be able to run about 150-170 laps on a tank, so you had to get your refuel done in a fairly tight window lest you have to refuel again before the end of the race.
Prior to the race itself CIR ran a 20 minute time trial to allow all the drivers to practice driver changes and familiarize themselves with the track, as well as turn a fast lap for grid placement. The driver that was in the cart at the end of the time trial would also start the race as the carts were not allowed to pit between the time trial and the race itself. Of note: there was no refueling between the time trial and the race. Checking the math you can see that refuel window just shrunk to a porthole.
For the time trial, we put Mike in first to acquaint him with the cart and track, then Don, and then myself. Mike used about 8 minutes of the 20, then Don went out for about 5, and I filled out the balance trying to figure out how to get around the track without sliding - something I knew was critical but didn't realize completely why this was so. My original understanding of the penalty of sliding was that doing so scrubs off too much speed and therefore leaves the driver with less momentum and the necessity to accelerate from lower down in the rev range of the motor where there is less power. I also knew that, not unlike my understanding of how motorcycle tires fare through out the course of a race, kart tires had a range of operating temperature whereby they give maximum traction. Too cold and the tires slip. Too hot and they get greasy and slip. What I didn't realize was how much sliding around corners like a drift racer was heating up the tires - so much in fact that there was a snowball effect - by taking corners sideways I was overcooking the tires such that I would have to continue to drift the corners with limited traction rather than drive around them, and therein was the fastest way around the track. The winner, then, was the driver (or team of drivers) that could most closely set corner speed to be at the limit of adhesion without resorting to the crutch of drifting. This knowledge took 2 full seconds off my lap times and put me in the position during my last session to actually drive competitively with the slower half of the groups racing.
At the end of the race, there were 2 of the 3 LW teams within 1 lap of each other, 2 HW teams also within 1 lap of each other. The next part of the field was made up of about 6 teams, all within a couple laps of each other, but about 20 laps down from the lead; it was with this group that I was actually able to engage in some dicing towards the end of the race. Finally, we were on our own as the 3rd group unto ourselves, 48 laps down from the lead. Overall, our team's fastest lap was 32.9 seconds, but most of our laps were in the 35 second range on average. The lead pack was running high 30's on average and the mid pack was running high 32s. The overall fastest lap of the day was in the low 30s. By the end of the race Mike was putting down laps like a veteran, making times comparable to my own. At the end, Mike was in the seat, swapping with me for the last 20 laps.
Drama finally played out in the last 10 laps of racing. The first place HW team ran out of gas (they timed their stop too early). As per the rules, the entire race was halted while the CIR crew cleared the dead cart from the track. The drama was supplied when CIR failed to restart the race after clearing the cart; they waited until the cart was refueled and placed back into grid order, but at the back. Had the race been restarted as per the rules, the 2nd place team would easily have put several laps on before the team that ran out of gas returned. With 4 laps remaining after the restart, the team that ran out of gas made their way quickly through the field, passing the 2nd place group for the lead. Review of this after the race was complete caused CIR to award the 1st place trophy to the 2nd place team and 2nd place to the team that ran out of gas. Our team received recognition as one of the rookie teams in the event.
Going into the event yesterday, I already had a pulled shoulder from skiing the day before. Today I'm hobbling around with both shoulders and my neck very sort. I also have a bruise on my left leg from where I would wedge it against the steering wheel to support myself in turns. Sue tells me she's not going to let me do these anymore because I'm worthless the day after an event, but I think we need to just scale things back a little. After all, they have 200 lap events every month...
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