1985 Monte Carlo SS known as Barney

[SSLance]

Okay so, a lot of you won't be too interested in this video, but some might. This was my first session Sunday morning in the wet. The first 4 minutes or so show what I have to do each time to get belted into the car with a HANS device, you can skip forward if you aren't interested in that. I just thought I'd leave it in just to show what we go through, I can't reach the camera once belted in so I start the camera before.

The first lap on track is a warm up lap, I am shadowing my friend Rodney in the yellow Miata to see if I can learn anything about racing in the wet from a veteran. You'll see right away how easily the car steps out and as I'm learning when and where i can push things and when I just have to be patient.



I had a blast these two sessions, apparently I love racing in the rain. It takes so much away from the car and setup and puts it right in the driver's hands. It's fun for me to try to figure out ways to find grip where there isn't any. I wasn't pushing for speed on any of the straights in these sessions, mainly just trying to learn how to corner.

Anyway, hope you enjoy...I sure did.

[SSLance]

This was the last session I ran on Sunday. We started about 10:30 am and it was still about half damp on track. I used the things I learned in the wet to really start clicking off nice laps as I gained confidence that it would stick.

Really enjoyed the whole weekend, can't wait to do it again.

[analyte]

Definitely looked like fun. I'm still getting used to track days so not sure I'm ready to go out on a wet track.

[SSLance]

What I decided right away was to check my ego at the door, it was muddy everywhere and I didn't want to get stuck or cause an issue. I went out thinking first...just stay on the track. After a lap or two I started feeling my oats a bit, trying to see if I could find the edge...still plenty slow enough that if I did loose grip I could easily catch it. Once I had a good feel of what grip was there, I just started having fun with it. I was waiting...big time...on the straights for Rodney, even let another friend go by so Rodney and I could run together. I really got a kick out of being able to out corner the "race cars" in the wet with my big pig. Pretty sure we opened some eyes...

[SSLance]

Harry's lap timer shows 1.08 Gs on both left and right turns at around 58 mph, top speed 116 MPH on my fastest lap. 0.47 Gs on braking typically...

That app is pretty cool if anyone wants to log their laps on tack days.

[Beach Cruiser]

Learning to drive in the rain or wet is an excellent learning tool! nice job! I have Harry's laptimer setup on a tablet in my dash with an external GPS and OBD feed. It even controls my gopro for me! If only I knew how to use it...

[SSLance]

This was my first road course attempt at using Harry's lap timer. Took a few sessions to get the hang of it but it is pretty cool once you get it running.

I was able to export the CSV files of all of my runs, I don't have any OBDII data in them but everything else is there and it is very interesting. What I need to be able to learn to do is access that data quickly between sessions and apply what I've learned in my next session.

Where I need to improve as a driver is to realize just how much more speed I can carry in any certain corner. I was taking turn 1 7-9 mph faster Sunday morning in the semi dry than I was all day Saturday in the dry. I learned it would stick in the wet if I let off the brake sooner before turn in, tried that in the semi dry and was amazed at the speed I could carry.

[SSLance]

So, I participated in the Midwest MuscleCar Challenge last weekend for the first time...man what a great event! I'll do a proper write up sometime later, but here's a couple of videos of some of the fun we had!

Snuck into the back side of the Advanced group for a few laps with my instructor Kenny...



And my best and worse autocross runs on Saturday...



The car did great and the driver did okay...main thing is I brought it home in one piece.

Learned a ton, met a bunch of internet friends in person for the first time and just flat out had a blast...

[SSLance]

Was really cool to hang out with the UMI guys all weekend, and to let Barney and the Green Machine get to know each other a little better as well.

[SSLance]

Ever since adding the 0.375" wall tube centerpiece to my front MuscleBar last summer, Barney has had a slightly loose on corner exit symptom because the front to rear lateral load distribution was out of kilter. This trait was amplified when I added 125 ft lbs and 100 hp under the hood over the winter. I have to be super gentle on the throttle on corner exit to keep the rear of the car under me. I now have 2 autocross events and over 100 road course laps at 2 separate tracks under my belt with the new setup and while we tried some band-aids with shock adjustments to help with this condition to get me by (and were somewhat successful), it is very apparent that I need to finally heed Doctor Ron's advice and make another suspension change to cure these ills. He's been after me for a while to make this change and I was hesitant because I didn't want to hurt the on street ride of the car. I have put almost 2,000 miles on the car so far this year...it gets driven... I finally gave in though and ordered the parts a couple of weeks ago. I have spun the car around on course more times in the past 6 months than ever before and in order to continue to get faster, this has to stop.

Enter the cure... Old rear spring on the left, new rear spring on the right. We'll call this Stage 4...




Initial street test drive shows positive improvement, before on a long fast on\off ramp turn...a slight touch of the throttle made the car loose, now I can increase throttle more and it will eventually make the car a bit tight but still very manageable. My parking lot autocross turn test facility had a similar positive result.

The best part is, ride quality really wasn't affected that much. Under normal circumstances it's hard to tell the difference. The only place I really noticed a change was the 1" bump up into the garage that was pretty stiff. Nothing at all that can't be dealt with on a street car, especially if it cures the handling issues.

I am registered for a local SCCA autocross this coming Sunday and I can't wait to try the new setup out at speed on course.

I also acquired these while in Indiana last week.



The stack on the left are leftover 275 Falkens from last year and the stack on the right are some gently used 255 Rival Ss. I begged them off of the Pichettes and the DragonLady GTA so I could see what dropping down in size but up to a Rival did to the car before laying down the cash for a brand new set of smaller Rivals. I'm not sure if I'll mount them up before this Sunday or wait a bit before mounting them up. I'm milking my way through tires for this year and have several more events left in the set of Falkens currently on the car. Not enough to warrant a dismount, then mount up again later though.

Stay tuned, I'll be sure to update with results after the event. I love trying new stuff, especially if I think it'll be much better and I'm pretty sure this will be a huge positive change for the car.