My first "official" Solo 1

[pballance]

Some of you may remember my post about walking away from drivers school and my comment that I was going to try some time trials, track days etc.

Well, I competed in my first SEDIV TT event at Nashville Speedway this past weekend. Beautiful weather, 4 cars in ITS and 3 of them were Z cars and I managed to run off track :018: :018: :018:

I needed to have the offs! One time was deliberate as I had missed my breaking point and chose to hit grass rather than spin, the other time I dropped the right rear wheel into the grass coming out of the bus stop and despite trying to drive out of it I still spun to the inside. Both times were in practice.

I managed to best the other Z's and even a 944 to take first in ITS.

Thanks for the support you guys have shown. Now I just need more seat time!

Paul

[bldn10]

Paul, has anything been done to lessen the pounding the cars take in the transition from the oval to the infield?

[BlueStreak]

Paul - GREAT JOB!

Bill,
Nope - hence the reason for my not attending. Don't get me wrong, this is a fantastic facility, and a well run event with great workers. However, if your car is as low and stiff as mine, the transition off of the backstraight is just too painful for the car. I've watched in-car of people running closer to stock suspension (GregM's FSP Jetta), and for them, it's tolerable. In my car though, it's not something I want to do.

[pballance]

Hi Bill,

No, the transition CAN be rough. I had 3 practice sessions. 2 15 minutes and one 20 minute session. During the first session I stayed exclusively on the apron. During the other sessions i tryed some different lines and actually found an entry spot and exit spot that the transition was very smooth. In fact I didn,t have the stones to full throttle it off of the banking onto the apron at 1 but the transition was so smooth for me I think I could have. I was much deeper into 1 for that and was past the painted stripe for pit out before trying to transition. Anywhere else was still pretty rough.

My suspension is not that soft and I am at the minimum ride height and it still made the car very unsettled in transition onto and from the banking if I was at any other places along the route.

Hope that helps, my times were about 5 seconds off last years ITS pace but I did turn a 1:15.xxx in practice. If I had put on my other tires I might have dropped another second. I was on 2+ year old A-3's

Paul

[seckerich]

Check out the Solo 1 hillclimb we had this weekend at Wolf Ridge.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6828384792967124301

That will make your knees shake!!

Congratulations on getting out there and running. Look forward to racing with you in S next year.

[Butch Kummer]

The transistion on both the front straight and the back straight at Nashville CAN be extremely abrupt if you try and "square off" the turns. If you turn in a little earlier, however, it's not bad at all. We're running over 145 down the front straight and even racing wheel-to-wheel into T-1 (last Labor Day) I never felt I was in danger of tearing up the equipment or out of control. I know one guy broke a front spindle on an ITS (?) car, but he also waited until very late to make the transistion onto the apron (almost to NASCAR One).

I never even noticed the transistion on the back straight, but then I also turn in very early there as well. Perhaps the fast line in a less-powerful car is to stay on the concrete until the last possible moment, but I don't (or understand why anyone would want to) use that line. The left off the concrete is followed by an immediate right, so what good does it do to take a late entry? Turn in early, brake later, and maximize your entry speed rather than the mid-corner speed.

The Atlanta and Mid-South regions will be hosting a Double SARRC / Double Mid-Am (the "Music City Double Barrel Shoot-Out") on Sept 1 & 2 this year. We're hoping/expecting to have over 200 cars in attendance, so while I certainly appreciate anyone's choice to not attend (I don't like Roebling, for instance) maybe you should try some different lines during the test day before making a final decision.

Butch Kummer
Atlanta Region Competition Director
Taxi-cab Driver

[pballance]

You know, I never noticed any transition coming out of the infield or into the bus-stop. That was a fairly straight forward part of the track and they have added some concrete to the exit of the bus stop that makes it even easier.

The "back straight"(i guess) ie after the bus stop and past start/finish really was not that bad, just a little unsettling when the suspension loaded and unloaded when transitioning and preparing for 1. It is real easy to see how much fun it would be to race in that area. :) Lots of room, lots of run off, and was smooth, as I said earlier. Yeah, in places the transitions feel rough to a newbie, but I found them to be managable and fun.

It is a really fun track and the facilites are TOP NOTCH. I will be back and I hope to race there instead of TT as well.

[wbp]

Nashville Superspeedway has adding rumble strip curbing to the road course on the schedule for this summer. The track has a very busy schedule now and has had a hard time working in a week to do this work.

[JeffYoung]

PB, that's good news. Hope to see you out in ITS next year. Lots of Zs coming back out - Mike M. David Spillman, Ron Earp, Steve and Bryan Parrish, John Williams, David Plott, Bob Pharr is racing this weekend, REx Deffenbaugh's Z is inching back to running order, could be a good year for Zs.

Jeff