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A couple of weeks ago, a few Northeast Region racers were gathered along with other racers from all over the United States to enjoy a weekend at Road America. As I mentioned in my last months article Andy and I decided to tow out to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. There were a couple other crazies who also towed but the smart ones booked space in Jerry Pellegrino's EPE transporter. Next year we will find a way to get our cars there without the 18 plus hour drive out. This year was a particularly bad year to tow. For those of you that were not aware, this year was the 100th Anniversary of Harley Davidson. Also they just so happen to have their party on Labor Day weekend. How many of you know where Harley Davidson is based? Milwaukee! And do you know how you get to Road America? Through Milwaukee! Wonderful, 300,000+ Harley riders were expected in Milwaukee over the Labor Day weekend. So not only did we have to go through Chicago, but also we had to sit in traffic with hundreds of Harleys. To say it was entertaining would be an understatement. There were so many different species on the road that Darwin would have been busy for years trying to classify them all. Now I like Harley riders, I have a few friends in Texas and Mississippi that would loved to have been there, but when you get that many riders together they tend to be a tad on the obnoxious side. There are several tollbooths on the route we took to Road America and we had to wait an extra amount because they all let their buddies in line and there were a lot of buddies. I have to say that short of a couple of sucky metropolitan areas the trip out was a lot of fun. Andy (Team Northeast Director of Directions) is great when it comes to planning a towing trip. We put in a good 12 hours on the first day to get us just past Toledo, Ohio. Andy had already booked us at a Howard Johnson’s motel at our 10:00 PM end of the day destination. The following day left us with about a 6 1/2-hour ride to the track (through Chicago and Milwaukee). We had been seeing a few bikes but not until we started to head towards Chicago did they start coming out of the woodwork. Fortunately it was a nice day. We sat in a fair amount of traffic but nowhere near what we were expecting and like I said earlier it was dinner and a show in the comfort of your own truck. We passed a Harley dealership beside the highway and there was no visible ground as far as you could see. I have never seen so many bikes in one area in my life. Apparently Harley had events planned all over the state so riders would be heading from one event to another all weekend long. I imagine the police of Milwaukee spent the whole weekend out back behind the dumpsters. Just outside of Milwaukee we left the main highway (and civilization) for the last stretch to the track. It was a beautiful new concrete road right through the middle of nowhere. It was pretty but it sure didn't seem like a lot was going on in this area. We did find a Wal*Mart City close to the track. Well, finally we arrived at the track around 2-3:00 in the afternoon. Let me say this place is impressive. We set up camp right next to the EPE group at the top of one of the upper paddocks. It was beautiful at night when every thing settled down. We hung out with Jerry Pellegrino, Bob Cohen, Caryl & Barry Brensinger, Peter Dikeman, Bruce Hauben & Joyce Britton, and Mike, the guy who drove the truck there and back. Arnie and Margo Zann were also there but decided to set-up their day camp down in the exclusive paddock. We also had Chris Reinsborough another racing buddy there whose is also an F-Class C4 driver (very fast). We should have been there earlier to do the test and tune day like all these folks but we were already taking a week off and couldn’t justify another $225 and another day off. So Andy got a ride with Chris to get a first-hand look at the track while I rode with Arnie Zann. Although Arnie has been driving Road America for many-many years the line he was doing in the 911 would prove to be different than the ideal 944 line. But I didn't figure this out till it was too late. One of the downsides of racing on a new track is having to learn it as fast as possible (no pun intended). When the track is 4 miles long it is even harder. The run sessions are always the same at every race. The first day is three 25-minute practice sessions and practice starts/fun race. On a short track you can get a few laps in 25 minutes, not Road America. In each session we would get our warm-up lap (about 4 minutes) and then 4-5 hot laps followed by 1/2 a lap for cool down. That means by the time the sprint race had started Andy and I had a total of about 30 laps? That is plenty of time to learn a track but not enough to be aggressive. I have had a particularly hard time the last 2 races since I’m a reactionary suspension tuner. That means if something feels wrong I react by changing something. Typically it works pretty well but starting at The Glen it went down hill. That was where I switched to the Michelins (I like them) and for some reason I got a slight push out of the front end. In hindsight this doesn't make a lot of sense. I have been running 275s in the rear and 245s up front for a long time and the set-up was working great. I also was running 600 lb springs in the rear and 550 up front. The sway bars are still factory M030 but I will change them this winter along with all of the solid mounts. The problem came when I changed to the Michelins. They don't make a 275 or a 245 but their 255s were very close to the Hoosier 275. I didn't feel like going to a skinny 225 up front so I mounted 255s all the way around. That should be sound reasoning due to the balance of the 944s handling characteristics, but for some reason I was sliding a bit too much in the understeering department. Figure this, I went to wider tires in the front (more front grip) and skinnier tires in the rear (less rear grip). This is a classic combination for oversteer. So why was I having understeer in the Boot? I can only surmise that it was the new Michelins working out the oils from the new rubber. So what do I do? OK, understeer, soften the front sway bars (mine are not adjustable), and stiffen the rear bar (I thought it was already full stiff but I found out much later that it was on full soft). So the only thing left to do was to increase the rear spring rate to 700 lbs. I could not figure out why my car was so hard to keep quick in the corners and why I was 2-3 seconds slower than last year. When I was at Road America it all became clear. Everything I had done including putting the Michelins on was contributing to oversteer. I could barely keep the car straight in the trailer. The solution? Well, I am going back to the 600 lb springs in the rear and putting on my relatively new Hoosiers for the Summit Point race this month. Long-term changes are either hope Michelin adds more sizes to their line or drop down to the 225s up front, and then add the Kokeln sway bars and Racer Edge's solid suspension mounts. At that point I can't imagine there would be anything left to do. Suspension ignorance has cost me two not so good races but fortunately I have started to understand and plan for suspension perfection. I have high hopes for next year's season. Back to Road America, due to my monster oversteer I spent a lot of time sliding the tail through the corners. Not the best situation on a long, fast track. It would be much better suited for Lime Rock or some other short track with lots of corners. Andy did much better on the long track because he could drive the car and not worry why the car was handling like crap. Neither of us did great in the Sprint race simply because we had very little track time. We also found out that this race was very important to a lot of drivers and therefore there was a lot of aggression on the track. We had been warned about three 944 Turbo drivers, that were parked close to us, that apparently had a reputation for aggressive driving. Two of them went home on flat beds. I don't mind aggressive drivers on a track that I am real comfortable with, but I wasn't going to fight for any corner real estate especially since the car was acting a bit squirrelly. There were a couple of big incidences during the Sprint race. Beside a number of off-track excursions there was a big spin in Turn 14 (leads onto the front straight) when a 944 turbo tapped the rear of another Turbo and started to spin. The guy that got tapped was OK and kept going but the other 944 Turbo behind him dove to the left, just missing him and ending up in the gravel. The Carrera behind him all-of-a-sudden had a roadblock in front of him. T-Bone city! Andy was behind the Carrera and just barely escaped to the right. This brought out the Safety Car for a couple of laps (Road America is really fast in cleaning things up). On the single file restart an aggressive 944 Turbo bumped another Turbo in the entry to Turn 1 only to cause him to veer off into the left wall very heavily while the guy he tapped spun into the gravel and had a real rough rollover. Totally unnecessary! But fortunately all of the Northeast Region folks escaped incident free. Monday brought the 90-Minute Enduro. Now this was more like it. Very few incidents and for the first time all weekend I was starting to push my weight around. About 60-minutes into the race Andy told me over the radio that he just passed an incident in the entry to the Kink and he thought a full-course yellow would be coming out. I had passed the Kink before the incident and was close to the pit entry when the double yellow materialized, so I dove in. This was the first enduro that neither of us took on fuel during our pit stop so I just sat in the car waiting for my 5-minutes to click away. Andy came in a couple minutes after me so now we were both sitting there. When my time was up I headed out of the pit (the track was still under double yellow) and proceeded to fly around the track trying to catch the pack. Due to my oversteering condition I had a slight tail-out slide through Turn 5 but nothing serious. Eventually they brought out the Safety Car and I caught the pack. Upon restart I was in pretty good shape and as I rounded Turn 14 I caught a black flag out of the corner of my eye. I'm thinking it couldn't be for me because I hadn't done anything questionable and my pit stop was perfect. As I passed under the Start/Finish they hit me with the black flag. So I continue flying around the track and pull in next time around. It seems the corner workers at Turn 5 thought I was pushing it a bit too hard under yellow. Questionable call? I think so, but during the test and tune day I guess some of the drivers were getting close to the workers and were not slowing down very much under yellow so I guess it was a tender subject that weekend. As I headed out of the pit for the second time I am thinking last place at least. Besides that my pit strategy of not taking fuel was catching up to me. Every once in a while the car would cut out for a split second after a hard corner as I exposed the pickup in the tank. I finished the race but I didn't think I had fuel enough to get it in the trailer. As we pack up and get ready to head home I kept beating myself up for being such a goof. As we headed out we got the final race results. I didn't get last place in fact I had picked up the pace so much that I only lost 6 slots and finishes in the same place in class with or without the black flag. So I learned. To finish the story of a great weekend I have to say the ride home was not as fun as the way out. It was raining and we hit Labor Day traffic really bad in Chicago. It took us a little more than 2 hours more because of that. Also the bikes were more of a pain in the butt at night in the rain. Can anyone tell me why Harley riders ride on the line that divides the lanes? We came close a couple times to taking them out towing in rain. So are we going back next year? Absolutely but we are not towing out. I also won a free entry to next year's race in a raffle before I even got in the car. So until next month be good and the Driver's Window is open. Oh, by the way Lighten Up Francis. |
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