Izzy's Custom Cages

Tomorrow marks my first time back on the track in a year! Getting excited! I'll be splitting the Test & Tune with my brother Steve and his ITA Neon. I've only driven the car once on track at a T&T so I'll be trying to get the feel for the car after we scrub the new tires in.

Woohoo!!! It's been waaaayyyyy too long!

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What a blast!!! That was the most fun I've had since my first time on the track! Even when there was a problem, it was still a blast to just be at the track racing.

Friday turned out awsome! Weatherman was predicting some rain but it stayed away from the track and ended up being a gorgeous day in the mid 80's. Steve took the first session in order to give the car a shakedown run as he'd know if anything was wrong. We traded a couple of sessions back and forth, swapping tires in the process to scrub in the new set of Toyo's for Saturdays Qual/Race.

During the first couple of sessions we were both having trouble with our line through the carousel. The car was understeering big time. It felt as though chunks of our poor tires were shearing off every lap. We started changing our line and approaches as well as bumping up the tire pressures. Ultimately the tire pressures were probably the key to what little approach we had for T5/6.

As I was coming in to the paddock space from session 6, the steering suddenly became very hard and Steve noticed a nice oil trail about 20' long behind me. The low pressure side of the power steering hose had split and was leaking profusely. We asked around for a 1/2” worm clamp to the very helpful racers paddocked around us, but none were to be found so it was off to the store. If we were lucky, we'd make it back in time to get a couple of laps in the next closed wheel session and then run the last session of the day. Unfortunately, there was a nice train that blocked us about 2 miles from the track which cost us loads of time. The rest of the day was shot since the tunnel into the track wasn't open for the T&T, and we just barely missed getting back in for the last session.

Saturday started out early with Steve on the track for Group 1 Practice/Qualifying. Minus one incident in turn one where the seas parted and there was a moving chicane in front of him, practice was fairly uneventful for Steve. He was able to get in the clear for a few good laps w/o running into any traffic. After qualifying, it was pretty much hurry up and wait.

Steve had a blast during the race as it was his first time in IT. Before now, he was in Showroom Stock and being an older SS car, was always a backmarker and was on the track at the same time as the Touring cars, A Sedans and other National classes. Finally, he was on track with similar cars! He had a great start and jumped about 6 spots after the green, and was on the outside in T1 going in three wide! Made for some great video I'm sure! After 2 or 3 laps, things settled down and Steve got bogged down while trying to let the ITE Viper by and decided to run the rest of the laps as practice. After all, all that was needed for a sucessful race was a finish! My practice and race went fairly predictably. We popped the pressures up in the tires and it definitely helped in the carosel, but still no line worth a darn. The race was a blast!!!! The most fun I've had since the first time I stepped foot on a track! Diced with a couple of cars for most of the race. Diced with an ITA 240sx, a ITS 280z and ITS Porche which was a blast! The 240 took advantage of my lack of talent in the carousel and motored by while I was scrubbing off speed. Had fun trying to catch back up until the ITS Porche just wouldn't let me by no matter how many times I had the corner. Oh well, a borrowed car is not a good time to play "whose corner is it?" About 1/2 way through the race, Sheila Burkette and I started dicing a little in her ITE RX8. Luckily for me, she was still used to her IT7 car and kept thinking 3rd gear was where 5th was! (I had the same problem for the first 2 session in the Neon... kept try to toss it into 5th like I have to in the RX) About the same time the cloud cover went away and the tires really started heating up. I consistantly understeered through T7 & 2 for the rest of the race. Pressure in the right front started too high I guess. Had one off track incident in T4, but the soft Showroom Stock setup was very forgiving and came back on track w/o incident.

Ended up running a low 1:19... which is apparently as fast as I can drive. I looked back at my lap times at Gateway and all my consistant times have been 1:19s... Ran a 1:17 once... but hit a concrete wall ;)