We traveled to Lincoln, NE last weekend to race with the Nebraska Region SCCA club on the famed Lincoln Air Park facility (home of the SCCA nationals). It was the first time I've raced in over two months and also the first time on course with the new Detroit Locker in the rear diff, new extra stiff rear springs, and also the new Forgeline wheels wrapped with super sticky Bridgestone RE71 rubber. Racing on the concrete at LAP was the perfect test bed to see how all the new changes work and to get ready for the CAM Invitational coming up in a few weeks there.
We got 4 runs on a SCCA Nationals style course and after just the first couple of elements of the first run, I knew things with the car were MUCH improved. First, the grip from the tires is unbelievable... Second, the locker completely changed the way the rear of the car reacts mid corner to corner exit. I kind of snuck up on things, pushing the car harder and harder in spots trying to find the edge...in most places I never did find the edge which means I still didn't push hard enough.
The car still lifts the inside rear tire on corner entry, rear sway bar is disconnected and rear shock rebound is backed out way softer than I've ever ran it before. What is different though is in most cases it doesn't seem to upset the car. Only if I get back into the gas with one tire still up will is spin the other tire and slide a bit. I played with it in a couple of right hand turns in the later runs and was still able to be real aggressive with the throttle and the car never felt like it was getting ready to step out.
It's not optimum for sure but it's a lot better than it was before. Some sort of rear roll center relocation device is going to be the only cure for this I'm afraid, in the meantime I'll just keep dealing with it.
I never did get comfortable enough to really push it hard in the slaloms, and there were several long slaloms on this course. I'm sure there is more speed to be had there, probably enough to have got me the win this weekend. I thought about staying around for some fun runs after the awards ceremony to work on the slaloms a bit but we had been on the road for 3 days and still had to load up and had another 3 hour drive to get home...so I bailed. I think the locker has changed the way the car feels in the slaloms and I'll get used to it pretty quickly. I know this, the locker never did make the car feel pushy at all, the 40# Ron Sutton springs in it make it very autocross friendly with the sticky street tires.
Anyway, here are all 4 of my runs...watching them back re-enforced what I felt from the driver seat, it corners fantastic...sticks like crazy...and the driver needs to up his game to get the most out of the new setup. Just a bit of salty language at the very end...sorry 'bout that.
I knew I was just a couple tenths short of the car in front of me and I didn't get it on that run.