Time for a little bit of an update, I guess. The car has been pretty well static aside from the gear change back in June, which leaves the work to be done on my end.
We're a year in to running the car, and I've been sneaking up on finding the limits while mostly leaving all the settings alone.
This event was also notable because it was the first one I've driven the car too, which felt pretty good aside from forgetting to back the shocks down for the trip over.
Ran into Chris (GrabberGT) on the way - I call this one "Meanwhile, in Texas"
My dad drove the Z again, made for a good photo op while waiting for trophies
My first cone!
The last couple trips I wanted to focus on reigning everything in a bit. In the last videos I posted, it was a spray and pray, dive bomb everything and figure it out later approach. This time the focus was to keep speeds in check and be tighter on the cones.
I managed to be much more controlled in most areas, and way tighter on the cones - to the point of only having one clean run out of 5
This one, incidentally the first, was thankfully enough for the class win and top CAM time, but 28th overall PAX (
class and
PAX results). Progress, but I was still pretty frustrated with the cones.
A brief intermission..
Fast forward to two weeks ago, and a back to back weekend between two different clubs, NTAXS and Equipe Rapide. In late July. In Texas.
NTAXS runs a slightly different format, with each car taking all their runs of the session back to back. This leaves only a couple of minutes between each, which isn't very Camaro friendly even in moderate weather. Enter the Z!
This paid off in two ways, giving me a chance to drive it in anger again for the first time in months, and to instruct my dad in back to back sessions with us co-driving. He's coming along great over the last few events, and really having a blast. It's been good fun watching him progress, and has helped my driving as well.
His best run:
And mine (where's my 200 extra horsepower, 50mm more tire, and 3.5 degrees of camber up front?!)
Even on worn out tires and bone stock suspension, it's such a fun car to throw around. We ended up the day 3rd (I coned away a time good enough for 2nd, ugh) and 11th in a pretty big class of 24.
Back to regularly scheduled programming
The next day it was back to the big lot at Lone Star Park for some wide open, gravel slinging, hill climbing fun. Already a little beat from the heat the day before, I trudged out bright and early Sunday morning (this time I remembered to back the shocks off 3 clicks all around, at least).
I was sweating before I even got to the track, and things just got hotter from there.
Falken - tires so fast you have to tape the numbers on!
The course was big, and fast, with an optional crossover that you could really fly into and out of.
The first run cost me a 6 and a CAM class magnet off the driver's side, both of which were returned, thankfully. I brought a new run log sheet to keep track of tire and brake temps, but there just wasn't enough time between runs to keep this up after the first since I was by myself.
What I did see was pretty promising, with only a few degrees difference from the outside to the inside of the fronts, and brake temps being pretty close front to rear as well. Not bad for a complete shot in the dark on alignment, and word of mouth from Mike at Wilwood on tire pressure settings.
With no support car, packing got a little creative. Here's the number carriage system - worked out well
Due to some confusion during the event on classing, I ended up with the win in CAM-C, rather than CAM-T, over Aaron Sockwell in the DuSold 6G Mustang, with the only clean run I had in the morning.
While the grip isn't great, and the gravel is wreaking total havoc on our paint, I LOVE this place. Nothing like topping the hill at nearly 70 mph then jamming the brakes into a deeply downhill off-camber turn. Not your typical autocross, for sure.
This was a fun trip, but man was I beat by the time I got home. The car did great, handling the heat like a champ (it was 114 in the driver's seat when I climbed in to drive home).
Maintenance and other miscellany
After 2/3rds of a season, I'm extremely happy with the Falkens. We've run a lot, including USCA, and a decent amount of street driving, and they still look good and fat all around.
That being said, the, uh, rears are showing a bit more wear than the fronts (go figure?).
Got them rotated front to rear, and did a general once-over to make sure nothing looks like it's going to fall off. Only found one issue, which has plagued us since we started all this last year.
It looks like our plans for the winter are going to include building a floater 9-inch for it. It has eaten regular Timken bearings (literally spit the inside out of one), and is now leaking around a Moser o-ring'd bearing. Frustrating, but nothing we can't fix.
If anyone has an idea of what we're missing that is simpler than building a new rear end, I'm all ears.
Finally, two of our local clubs have a contingency program with Discount Tire. I got signed up last weekend, and hastily threw on the stickers before running, so they needed to be redone. Looking more racey now, but.. I like a chance at free tires, and we love Discount either way, so I'm happy to run them.
Up next
Boy, this got long again. Next up for us is another trip to Lone Star Park, at an event originally billed as the North Texas Camaro Club autocross, but is now a come one, come all and have fun type deal. Excited to fly the Camaro flag and try and get after some very fast drivers in a range of cars.
Big time thanks to Greg (Gscherer78ta) for putting everything together! Should be a lot of runs, a lot of friends, and a great opportunity for testing and tuning.
And drinking water. Lots, and lots of water.
Brian Hobaugh SCCA National Tour June 2014
First Hemi 'Cuda Convertible Ever Built
Short clips: Goodguys Pleasanton autocross and pit videos
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