The 2009 One Lap of America was an epic ride, cumulating into printed media coverage in a magazine distributed around the world. I realize the world might not get the same epic experience after reading about the One Lap of America as I did making the journty. After experiencing the trip and then reading somebody else’s perspective on the same experience, helped to memorialize the effect of “yes, that did just happen”.
2009 was also the first year that Motor Trend provided coverage of the One Lap of America. With Brock Yates being the editor for Car and Driver in the past, coverage remained exclusive up until 2009 when Motor Trend took over.
Last year the article about One Lap of America came out in August. After receiving my October 2010 edition of Motor Trend without any mention of the race, it appears that we will not have any published coverage of this event.
Motor Trend’s coverage for 2010 appears to be an exclusively online publishing focus. While I understand this model more than anybody, marking the end of the print coverage is a substantial blow to the event coverage.
Thursday, September 2, 2010Categorized under 2010 OneLap
There was a time where the DSM shootout also consisted of a full scale autocross, to offset those who wanted to do more than go straight. That event returned somewhat this year in the form of the Max Effort venue, a combination of drag race and the autocross. While a tamer more controlled version to what we did on One Lap of America, it sounded like the perfect setup for a prepped One Lap car.
It has been a few years since I myself have been to the DSM Shootout. I almost went this year, but managed to talk myself out. Luckily Chris Wirth went down to represent the One Lap team this year. Not only did he go down, but he secured a First Place in the street tire class of the new Max Effort event.
Credit: Jarrod Barnett @ Buschur Racing
Chris is good at driving, and apparently tuning his car, but he falls short on the marketing side of things. For some reason he neglected to take one picture of the car on this trip, so we are stuck playing a game of “Where’s Wirth?” on the internet, as we scour the forums in search of proof. Here we can see him lurking through the parking lot, somehow still wearing some of the One Lap stickers on the car. If anybody finds any more pictures let us know.
When I first got into cars it was always my goal to race on a real race track. It took me until I hit my mid 30′s to accomplish that goal but the moment I drove onto the track I knew my next goal was to be an instructor. That took a few more years but I reached that goal and have since moved my sights even higher with the One Lap of America race.
As my goals for racing grow with my experiences their still remains a big part of me that loves sharing my passion for racing and my knowledge of Watkins Glen. There is something that comes over me when I get into a students car. My voice gets loud and my tone gets stern…”brake..lift..gas..gas..gas!” I love being the cheerleader in the car and nothing makes me happier then to help somebody do what they thought they could never do. When given the oppertunity to take on the worst student in the bunch I jump at the chance. I want the student who can’t drive a strait line. I want the guy nobody can handle and I have a smile a mile wide when I help that student pass their first Porsche, and then their second…and third!
I have also had the pleasure to help some really good friends and family enjoy the thrill of the Glen. They have all since moved on to solo driving and are making their way to being instructors themselves. Its fun to hear their stories about epic battles and out braking the GT3′s into the corners. I get a little teary eyed when they say “I could hear you yelling in my ear…wait..wait..wait..wait…NOW!..gas..gas..gas!” . I can’t really put it into words but I guess I am a closet teacher because I never would have guessed in a million years that I would enjoy teaching people how to drive as much as I enjoy driving itself.
This past spring I had the pleasure of instructing Mark Holdren. Mark is retired now but his claim to fame is that he was a VP of marketing at our local Genesse Brewing Company. The Brewery has a rich history of supporting Motorsports and I have no doubt that Mark was at the heart of that. Mark also has the pleasure of dating my Mother in Law so he is family to me. Mark drives a neat Mini Cooper Clubman which is nothing more then a Frenchy powered go-cart.
Being Mark’s first time on a race track we started slow and worked through the basics. ”Brake, lift, gas…move on to the next turn” . Once we got the rhythm down we were able to pick up the pace. This is were my voice gets louder and the fun begins. We worked on driving the right line and not letting other peoples bad driving mess us up. We worked on braking deeper and later then your brain thinks it supposed to. Fighting that “pucker” effect until it was just a distant memory. We worked on getting on the gas early to balance the chassis and making sure we had our foot to the floor before the apex of the turn. In some cases we learned that the little Mini has more grip then we gave it credit for and in some cases more Hp too.
At the end of the two days Mark walked away knowing he had done “it”. Not only did he get to drive around the famed Watkins Glen race track but he got to really drive the track. He experienced what it is to push yourself and your machine to its limits. He got to experience one of the greatest race tracks on the planet not from a chair in his living room but from behind the wheel. The way Milliken and his Cornell buddies designed it. A track that rewards patience and punishes the early entry. A track that when driven right has a rhythm to it and rewards the driver who can maintain the most momentum.
Mark was over the house last weekend to help celebrate my wife’s Birthday. He had just come back from watching some of the F1 qualifying and practice runs and he said it was a whole new experience for him after having driven the track. His eye was sharper now and it was easy to spot the drivers who were attacking the Glen and the ones who were just trying to survive. At one point he was able to see a driver heading into turn 1 with a little to much heat. He said to himself “you’re not going to make it!” and sure enough they didn’t. ”slow in fast out” still hold true even with the pro’s
When the gifts for my wife had run out a final gift was revealed. Mark had commissioned a good friend and local artiest, Richard Burandt, to paint a picture of me at Watkins Glen. It was Mark’s way of saying thank you for helping him reach one of his goals. To say I was “floored” would be too mild. I’ve had pictures taken of me and stories told but nothing matches the permanence of paint on canvas. Nothing matches the time and effort it takes to sit down and paint a picture. It makes me feel like I’ve made it. I’ve gotten to a place where all the work and effort has been captured in a medium that is meant to last. Almost like I am part of history. Maybe that’s a bit to corny but to anyone who’s spent a day in the hot sun challenging themselves to master the art of driving can tell you it can be a surreal, even romantic experience. Movies, books, magazines, TV shows have all been dedicated to capturing this spirit. It’s what makes racing addictive and its why I am hopelessly hooked.
“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.”
-Ernest Hemmingway
I want to thank Mark Holdren and Richard Burandt for their thoughtfulness and the wonderful painting. I will cherish it.
I had the pleasure to recently attend an AMS organized event at the Autobahn Country Club that ran the South Course for a six 30 minute session day. I drove there friday night which took about 10 hours thanks to a fatal accident closing down the main entry from the east to the Chicago area. There were literally hundreds of cars and trucks sitting on the highway and nobody really knew how long it would be. So I moved a few construction barrels out of the way and did a U-turn hoping I could challenge my Garmin Navigator to find a way around the mess.
Turns out Central Ave was a pretty good shortcut to another on ramp except that it was closed for construction. This sent me north of the highway into a “financially challenged” area of the city where you actually would really need an SUV to navigate these rough roads… and a bulletproof vest probably wouldn’t be a bad idea either! Luckily I made it to my hotel in time to have 4 hrs of sleep before heading to the track in the morning.
After arriving at Autobahn I had enough time to unload the car and get the car teched. Already it was pushing 80* F and the sun was bearing down with no relief in sight. After the drivers meeting to make sure everyone was on the same page, they sent the Intermediate and Advanced group out for some parade laps to get a feel for the course. Then I decided to follow some of the lines that the more seasoned drivers knew for this road course and ended up driving the car so hard that the brakes boiled about 20 minutes into the session. Luckily I was able to slow the car down with my feet out the door and bring the car into the pits for inspection. If it wasn’t for the fact that the Girodisc 2 piece rotors and Raybestos ST43 pads were so good at stopping It might have ended much more dangerously.
Luckily just a quick re-bleed of the Racing Blue brake fluid seemed to have brought them back to life and the second session was fine assuming I got some cooldown laps after doing 4-5 hot laps. Plans are to get another set of ducts to cool the rotors directly in addition to the ducts that cool the caliper area, swap to higher rated brake fluid, and swap in some titanium shims. By session 3 I started to feel more comfortable again but still decided to stick with learning the proper line and not really going for absolute best lap times. One thing that reared it’s ugly head again was the fuel sloshing around in the tank during longer G corners. The Evo X just does not like running below half tank or less on road courses and I was forced to let a race prepped BMW go by when it just wouldn’t hold the turns when powering out.
Session 4 was interesting in that I rounded the corner to the back straight and spotted a red waving flag. This can’t be good! I scanned the area and noticed a white Evo planted up on the tirewalls, apprently his brake line(s) ruptured at ~120 mph and he was unable to stop. It also turns out that 3 laps before I lost my oil cap after not screwing it down all the way and getting distracted by onlookers in the pits. Apparently Pep Boys sells an oil cap that has a threaded end but they had to look it up as a 2009 since the 2008 just failed to list it!
Hopefully I’ll have time to run another track day at Road America with AMS as I had a great time and got another track under my belt reasonably well. Basically this was “The 24 Hours of Autobahn” for me since I drove ~20 hours round trip, 1 hour extra to reach the open house at AMS. and spent about 3 hrs total out on the track. It turns out that 24 hours of driving in 3 days really takes it’s toll and felt worse than the One Lap trip since there was no co-driver to share the overload of driving!
Session 3 video (available in 720p):
I started to have fun with the car and avoided abusing the brakes too much knowing I had to drive home after this event!
Session 4 video (available in 720p):
This video has a few laps with a passenger along for the ride, then as we round the turn to the back straight I noticed a red flag waving and spotted a white Evo up on the tire wall.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010Categorized under 2010 OneLap
What do you do to occupy your time in the painfully slow months following One Lap of America? Teach teens how to drive of course. This past weekend Sean and Stephen decided to offer some instruction seat time with the Street Survival program, put on through the Genesee Valley BMW Club. We did have a Street Survival sticker on the One Lap cars this year, as it is a Tire Rack supported event, carried out nationwide.
If you are not familiar with this program, here is the premise. You take teenage drivers, who are just getting, or about to get their license and teach them how to deal with emergency situations on the road. While some of them have only just started driving, there is a high rate of accidents among teenage drivers, which this program focuses on reducing. You do this by setting up a series of simulations using cones in a large parking lot, so the teens can learn how the car will react when they need it to. By learning proper braking techniques and learning how to react when the car looses traction, they gain a huge advantage on the road, where you can’t really practice for such events.
Homework
The day before class, I took at look at the student instructor pairings and found out my student was driving a 2001 Subaru Forester. It happens to be the same car that my neighbor has, so I asked to take it for a test drive to make sure I knew how the car would handle. Besides determining that my neighbor needs new brakes on every corner of the car, it helped me to know what sort of expectations to see out of the car itself. After stepping out of a 400+ horsepower One Lap car, it was pretty easy to handle because everything was in slow motion. It also pivots real easy if you want it to, so I knew focusing on braking and turning at the same time would be a big advantage in this car.
Instructing
Volunteering for this event was an easy one, because it has to be the most fun and rewarding driving schools on the planet for an instructor. I was leery on what to expect in regards to results the first time out, but now I know why this program is such a success. It grabs the drivers before they have been corrupted with years of bad habits, and they listen without the burden of all of those expectations. Sean was already a veteran of instructing the program and still had a yellow shirt to prove it. I can say with confidence that I will use my yellow shirt again with pride.
Media Coverage
Despite an overcast and foggy day, there were a few news crews that came out to document the class. You can catch up on the articles and video clips through their websites.
John Holtz BMW was a sponsor of the event, while all of the people running this event were volunteers. Parents and volunteers helped out to keep the courses moving and cones upright.
Instructing the instructors was none other than Stu Sacks, a veteran One Lapper who gave us our advice the first year we entered the event.
Larry Eksten from Eksten Autoworks was out there running the cars through tech and pumping up tires. I gave Larry a hand in the morning to get the compressor running, which just happens to be the same compressor I have at home, making me look really smart for about a minute.
Tim Horton’s in Henrietta (Winton and Jefferson) provided breakfast and coffee. Mark’s Pizzeria in Greece brought in pizza and sandwiches for lunch.
More Information
To find out more information about the Street Survival program, visit their website for upcoming events in your area.
I didn’t grab as many action photos as I was hoping for, but when they opened the track up at the end of the day for a track walk, we took advantage of the time out there to get some pictures of the cars together on the track.
So what does one do before the 2011 One Lap of America?
Tune the nut behind the wheel and improve the car so that it’s ready for next years event!
I’ll share some experiences with how my Evo X faired at the May 24/25th HPDE event down at Watkins Glen earlier this week. I was coming down off a high placing well at the One Lap event and wanted to see what the car could do at my home track by pushing it a bit harder without breaking anything. Well at the end of my first video I found the one weakness the car might have and did a small off track detour but it wasn’t anything too major. Luckily they had just revamped Watkins Glen for safety and areas that were gravel traps were now paved over with improved safety walls set in place in case the paved run off areas weren’t enough to recover.
It seems that while the threshold braking is amazing with the Girodisc 2 piece front rotors and Rabyestos ST-43 pads, even the Yokohama AD08 have their limits for traction when on the binders hard. At Watkins Glen there seems to be numerous braking zones that are downhill, and once the ABS engages fully, it really doesn’t slow the car down nearly as well when compared to threshold braking where the ABS is just about to kick in. What caught me off guard at times was when I would get a late pass point bye in the black (advanced) run group, most of the cars weren’t lifting as we approached the turn so being stuck passing offline meant I had to extend my braking zone into the apex of the turn, make corrections at the apex based on how early I entered, and then power out with relative safety if I did it right.
When I really stomped on the brakes and got full ABS to kick in, the car became very greasy and didn’t want to rotate very well at all when at the limits. I had the ASC turned off one touch which meant at least the power was not being cut, but the ABS were supposed to still be there to assist in steering the car to where I had the wheel pointed which didn’t always seem to be the case. It seemed that if the system was overwhelmed it would just understeer and kick in antilocks so much that I likely had to let off the brakes, correct the angle, and then get on them again in order to make it work. I probably could have also gotten on the power and power drifted the car around the turns when overcooked but figured it should work with using braking control as well. I experimented with turning the ASC off for 5 second push so that the ABS assist for turning was off as well but never got into a situation where I could definitively say it made the difference.
Last year I vividly remembered that the Porsche GT3′s were about equal on the track for power, braking, and handling where as a certain black 2007 Z06 driven by a nice guy named David was tearing up the track when he had race rubber and most everyone else was on steet tires. Well this year with the Coilovers, stickier street tires, and possibly slightly better driving I noticed a change. While the power on the straights was still similar since I detuned the car to around 500 crank hp at 25 psi, I could outbrake those GT3′s and easily turn inside of them in the corners now. The Z06 that I attempted to pace last year which warped my brakes after 1 lap overdriving the car was now within sight for a couple laps, and by the last session of the 2nd day I was able to keep pace doing 2:15 laps and the car seemed to hold up fine without any worries. After talking it seems that when he gets a clean lap he can lap around 2:10 or slightly better so my next goal will be to tweak a few things to see if I can pull that pace off on a street tire setup through increased reliable power (~650 crank HP goal), wider street tires (295mm?), and possibly a few suspension changes.
Overall the BC Racing ER series coilovers performed quite well and I increased the stiffness of my shocks bound (compression) and rebound to a stiffer 20 (of 30) setting all around with a few tweaks after that. Overall the car had minimal tire rollover on those settings with the -2.5* front and -1.5* rear camber settings and the stiffer shock setup. Still you could really toss the car around and not have any worries that the car would suddely experience snap oversteer, and besides the ABS taking over control at times, the car turned in amazingly well for 20+ minutes of track time and allowed accurate vehicle placement without having to muscle the car. As I pushed the limits a bit more on the 2nd day, I started learning the technique to get more bite out of the tires where you release the wheel and turn in again. The only places the car felt a bit dangerous was up the esses so I was still letting off slightly and boosting 20 psi until the car felt more settled before powering up to the back straight where I was reaching 145-150mph before getting on the binders at the 400 ft mark leading into the bus stop.
The only major issue I had was fuel starvation, and with the new found handling and more aggressive cornering it turns out that a 2nd session is not possible without topping off the tank since the left hand exit from the off camber turn 9 caused fuel starvation I would rather not experience again. Luckily I brought my 5 gallon fuel tank and just refilled that when making my mid day refueling trip in town. Plans are to get a fuel surge tank setup in place along with a 400 LPH fuel pump matched to the Deatschwerks 1500cc injectors I have yet to install. Basically at 7 MPG I go through about 1 gallon of fuel every two laps at Watkins Glen long course (3.4 miles) and that means after 12 laps (~27 minutes) the car is approaching half a tank of fuel.
I’ve got about 50 minutes of in car video footage from the various sessions over the 2 day HPDE and tried to list a brief summary under each video. The first one has the most traffic where I must have passed over 20 cars during the entire session and the last video shows that Z06 on race rubber that I’m keeping pace with just barely. So go to full screen mode and turn up the sound because it’s “almost” as good as being there yourself.
You’ll have to double click the videos to enter youtube in order to see the full descriptions.
Day 1 – Session 3 (Heavy Traffic, passing 15 cars in this 10 min clip)
Day 1 – Session 4 (Passing Steve’s near stock Evo X on back stretch, caught silver Z06)
Day 2 – Session 1 (Late Passing Exercise with Steve at start, later doing some 2:16 laps)
Day 2 – Session 2 (4 wheel drifts down the chute and late passing practice)
Day 2 – Session 3 (Pacing Black Z06 through traffic with around 2:15 lap times)
Saturday, May 29, 2010Categorized under 2010 OneLap
Now that One Lap is over and I am back to reality, its time to fix the VR-4 and get her ready for a couple of days at my home track, Watkins Glen. If you’ve followed us along our journey you know the VR-4 had some issues. We popped a head gasket right off the bat, tossed a rocker arm at Hallet, the radiator was oozing in a couple of spots, we had brake issues, front wheel bearing issues, broken wheel studs, and one really cool off road excursion.
The first thing I did when I got home is re-installed my Baer track brake kit. That didn’t take much time and like an old friend, it was nice to have them back. Then I got on the ball and started ordering parts. Brakes, rotors, a new radiator, and material to build brake cooling ducts and a bigger radiator catch can were all desperately needed. After putting it off as long as I could I finally dug into the head gasket. The first thing I found was a 2″ split in the intercooler pipe coupler that connects to the throttle body. The amazing thing is I think its been split since mid week during One Lap. Another testament to ECMlink and its V3 speed density. The car didn’t miss a beat even with the huge leak.
I knew the radiator had issues. It may have been damaged due to the bad head gasket or it could have just failed because it couldn’t take the abuse. Either way I have a new one ready to go and after a little welding it should slip right in. Inspecting the old radiator I found at least three areas that were leaking where the core connects to the end tanks.
I could tell just by looking at the car that I “tweaked” the front end when I went off at Hallet. The evidence was hard to miss as one of the front wheels has about a degree more camber then the other and that tire also shows some wear on the inside indicating a toe issue as well. Something caught my eye while working on the head gasket…I think something moved on one of the RRE caster/camber plates
Once I got the head off the car and inspected things I was happy to find that the rocker which had fallen out actually stayed put. There is a noticeable grove in the cam lobe which means it will have to be replaced but there isn’t enough time before the Glen so I am just going to leave it as is.
At first glance the head gasket surface between the head/block looked good but once I pealed the gasket from the head I found three areas where not only had the gasket leaked but big chunks of it were missing. That’s some real gasket carnage!
A new head gasket is on and my fingers are crossed that it will hold. This time I’ll keep the boost to 25psi or less and not attempt any more of those 33psi dyno runs.
Its also time to say good-bye to a good friend. The Forced Performance FP3052 that Art Hoffman loaned us for the race is off the car and ready to be shipped back. With all the problems we had this year that turbo was flawless. It pulled like a freight train in every gear and with the tuning we did this year lag was not an issue. A big thanks to Art Hoffman for lending his support again this year and for Forced Performance for making sure it gets back to Art in perfect shape.
After 9 days of driving with over 4500 miles under our belts, we returned from a successful rookie year fielding my 2008 Mitsubishi Evolution X. With 1st place in the Mid-Priced Sedan class out of 10 cars and 7th overall out of 68 cars, it’s hard to imagine that we could have done any better for our first year out. Our strategy for this year was to shoot for a top 20 finish without risking the car since it’s also a daily driver. Since we didn’t previously drive any of the tracks before this event, we knew that our morning sessions would be about learning the course and that the afternoon session we hoped to improve more than the rest of the field on average. You know when the entry list includes Leh Keen in a well prepared Porsche GT2, last year’s champion GTR team, another GTR piloted by Catesby Jones and Jose Callado, and a well sorted out Corvette pilotted by Danny Popp and the team, you are going to be up against some stiff competition in the top 10. As the events progressed it was obvious those teams were a cut above the rest and we had our work cut out for us.
As Brock Yates Jr said to the rookie class this year, “it doesn’t matter how well you run, if you aren’t there on the last day, you don’t have a shot”. Prophetic words, or maybe just lots of experience being passed down to the next generation of one lappers. From day 1, the first goal was always just to finish and being there on the last day can be it’s own victory. Going into a race event like this you have to know up front that reliability & consistency is absolutely key when it comes to accumulating points for overall placement. While our teammates Tim and Steve in the VR4 were battling brake issues for a combo that needed some more track testing, the Girodisc 2 piece rotors and Raybestos ST43 pads that were provided by Tunersnation and Girodisc were absolutely flawless. While the race pads weren’t recommended for street driving, I didn’t want to compromise ultimate braking power and there was no way we wanted to swap pads every event. Luckily these are some long lasting pads as they wore less than 2mm for the entire week of driving and weren’t that hard to tolerate for the mostly highway driving between events. The pads always had ample stopping power and when mated to the Girodisc 2 piece rotors, the combination gave positive, direct feedback at the limit. Knowing that your car is going to haul down from 150mph to speeds that will allow you to survive corners that you have never seen before can make all the difference in the world with car confidence.
With the typical time attack format you are given some practice sessions on the road course before going for your best hot laps. With One Lap of America, you get a single scouting lap and then begin 3 hot laps from a standing start. When it comes to clicking off fast laps, having previous track experience on that particular road course can play a huge role as does having ample seat time with your current car setup. Our team unfortunately had neither as we were still tweaking suspension setups up to the day we left for South Bend. Neither one of us had any track time on the new setup and the first time Sean drove the Evo X at the limit was at Mid-America. Luckily we found that the car really shined in it’s ability to keep itself on the track despite being piloted by drivers that didn’t always know what to expect around the next corner. If we had to assign a number to it, we were able to consistently drive 8-9 tenths, where as most of the other drivers were attacking corners at 9-10 tenths from what we saw. Keeping the ASC off with a single button push meant that the annoying power cut feature was turned off while retaining the ABS assist to help turn the car when a bit over driven. The AYC (Active Yaw Control) setup on this Evo X mated to the BC Racing ER series suspension on 10k springs gives the car slight oversteer at the limits and predictable handling. The guys at Darkside Engineering were great when deciding the rough setup we should go with and they were pretty much right on as to where we should start the suspension tuning. We ended up keeping the suspension on middle of the road street friendly settings that were just stiff enough for the smooth tracks, excellent for bumpy tracks, and livable on the street. We found out quickly that the wet skidpad can be a handful if the rear end is too stiff and you have ASC turned off completely.
When you are at the track from 8 am until 3 pm and then have an 8 hour ahead of you before even thinking about sleep, the last thing you want to worry about is fixing the car or resolving an issue. This was a key reason we decided to detune the car down to 25 psi where it was likely only making around 500 crank HP. Spending that extra week on car preparation and maintenance goes a long way to making sure you finish an event like this as well. Missing even one event with a DNF is a huge hurdle to overcome and the #6 Subaru Sti that we were battling for the class win was a prime example. Their driving was excellent on the road courses but due to a 52nd result on the Wet Skid pad, they were forced into catch up mode through the first half of the events. We edged them out at the drag strip mid way through which helped us stay ahead and remain 1st in class.
We knew all things being equal, we would have had to crank up the boost and get more aggressive with the driving to hold them off for the second half which was a dangerous proposition being our first year out. As fate would have it, they literally drove the wheels off the car and the launches at the drag strip took their toll resulting in a snapped axle at the Gateway oval and a double DNF for the day. At that point, we decided that sticking with the same strategy we had from the beginning would be our best plan in order to hold onto the class win and still stay in the top 10 overall standing: be consistent, drive 8 tenths, and finish each event. If we had more experience with the road courses we were driving on and more seat time in the car, we could have pushed for a top 5 finish but the risk for failure and breaking the car was too great. Even if we did push harder, the cars at the top were very well-prepared with incredibly fast drivers and it would taken more than an extra tenth to catch them.
Next year we will definitely be pushing the car harder and hopefully drive a few of the tracks before the event starts. Based on the numbers, we’ll need to pick up the pace 2-3 sec a lap to stay competitive in class and 6-7 seconds per lap to even think about challenging the front runners. Next time around we plan on having all of the improvements track tested so that there won’t be any surprises and more seat time behind the wheel will be critical as well. The BC Racing ER series coilovers held up excellent for the events, although with all the rough public roads we tortured the car through, we found that some of the components started to loosen up and needed to be tightened down again. When going over the car after the event, the driver’s side rear swaybar nut was missing so that’s one more place we’ll have to watch like a hawk when tracking this car. Running through a checklist before each days events is likely a very good idea since even small problems can end up being a nightmare when at speed on these tracks.
The Yokohama AD08 tires were also impressive as they are some of the best street tire handling I’ve ever driven on. With about 7mm of starting tread depth, we found that the inside edges of the front tires wore about 2mm where as the rest of the tire wore about 1mm with the -2.5* front and -1.5* rear camber settings and close to zero toe. Finding a tire that performs any better would be hard to do but we’re looking forward to more testing this season at Watkins Glen to see what might work even better in wider sizes. Before the event we took a serious look at the Dunlop Direzza Star Spec’s as they had been run by our team mates in the VR4. We had initially wanted to use that tire, but as they did not have any sizes we could use on the 19″ wheels, we were forced to go with the more expensive Yokohama’s. Would the Direzza’s have worked as well as the Yokohama’s for this event? We would certainly welcome the chance to compare the two to find the best options for the money.
Gas mileage wise we were able to double check how accurate the in dash calculator really is. While at the track we were getting a horrid 6-7 MPG, on the highway we saw a much more eco friendly 27-30 MPG. After some refills I double checked the mileage based on replacing the fuel and miles traveled and it appears that it is only about 5% optimistic at worst. That means an indicated 28 MPG was about 27 MPG actual which isn’t too shabby considering 2 people and a fair amount of tools and gear in the car for the trip. We tried to make sure we were always topped off for all the road courses but were tight on time when we arrived at NJMP. Turns out that just under a half a tank WILL result in fuel starvation when pulling that long right hand sweeper at WOT that lasts a good 15 seconds. You can be assured that we’ll have a good anti-surge fuel system in place for next year!
We want to give a big shout out to all of our sponsors this year, but especially our main sponsors:
TunersNation Garfield at TunersNation has been fantastic to work with. He was always on top of what we were looking for, was always willing to help in any way he could, and was sincerely looking to help us succeed. There is no doubt in our minds without his help, we wouldn’t have performed as well as we did. Be sure he will do what is needed to help you out for any of your parts needs.
GiroDisc Johann and Martin at Girodisc have been providing great products for the Evo community. The 2 piece floating rotors they provided to us through Garfield are no different. Right out of the box, they are about as close to brake art as you can get. The quality was incredible and the functionality was even better. When you are throwing a 3600 lb car down a track at 140+ mph, the last thing you want to worry about is your brakes. The floating rotor designed kept them straight, true, and effective at all heat ranges and pedal pressures. Mated with the Raybestos ST43 pads and some well routed ducting, they didn’t show one sign of warping, gouging or runout issues. You beat the crap out of them and they just keep coming back for more. Sean was so impressed, he is looking to replace his brake setup on his Evo IX track/autocross car with the same rotor setup.
ThreeSpeed
Harry has been a long time supporter of the DSM and Galant VR4 communities and a long time friend to the Galant VR4 OLOA team. His scattershields are top notch and are run on some of the fastest 4G63 powered cars. His support of the team, both the EvoX and the Galant VR4, helped us be in a position to be successful in our One Lap of America campaign.
Darkside Engineering The guys at Darkside Engineering worked with us when we were looking to upgrade our suspension to something that would give us the handling and durability we needed to run the One Lap. Their suggestion was the BC ER Series coilovers and we were very happy with the results. The ER series gave us the adjustability and flexibility we needed to get the car in shape in a short amount of time. Without Darkside’s help in the initial setup, the car would not have been as behaved as it was as we would have spent much of our time dialing in the basics instead of testing entry, mid-corner and exit states. For a mid-priced sportsman suspension, the BC ER series are extremely capable and definitely worth a look if you are looking to get into tracking days, autocrosses, or just make your car handle better.
Here are some in car videos of the Evo X in action. Eventually we’ll have a full set uploaded to our main site so be sure to check back later. We’ll try and answer any questions people may have here as well as post an update when major updates are done to the site. Next year we’ll probably run with an external dump tube, for now you’ll have to turn up the volume a bit to hear the car.
Chris Wirth at NJMP Lightning Raceway – Session 2 (complete with overcooked corner in 2nd hot lap)
Sean Caron at Nelson Ledges – Session 2
We had a great time meeting tons of new people and will definitely be back next year. Thanks to some great new sponsors that are going to make funding this trip much easier in the future, we will be raising money for a good charity for next year and have fun doing it! If you would like to get involved in our 2011 One Lap bid, please feel free to contact us through the RochesterDSM One Lap page for more details. Thanks for reading!
