| Joel Gat, 1.8L | 10-30-2002 02:44 AM |
Round Six of USTCC aka WorldChallenge BMWs are faster than stock block & turbo WRXs
[i][message too long, in two parts][/i]
Hello TeamSMR fans,
Round Six (of seven) of the USTCC is over. As some of you know, there were some strange things in store for us for this last weekend. I'm sure some of you want to know how it went, right? This is my perspective. Not quite the same as Gary's since I'm looking at the weekend from a wrench's perspective. Maybe Gary can fill in places where the driver's perspective is more interesting?
So let me start by saying that it looks like we're in second place. Well, we're 99% sure that we got 2nd place. How is it possible that we don't know for sure? How wacky was this weekend?
If you look at the [url=http://www.ustcc.com/RESULTS.html]USTCC Results page[/url], you can see some of the current confusion. Although we are listed third, we got points for second and James Sofronas, who finished second, got 0 points…
Now the teaser. Our primary competition is the BMW of Gary Hutto. He started the weekend at 540 pts. Since we had 542 points (not including promotional points – we're in the lead by a slightly larger margin including those, but we assume that Gary Hutto will max out his promotional points, as well), Gary Hutto was in second place. To help Gary Hutto's case, a couple World Challenge Touring Car BMWs showed up. The cars were driven by James Sofronas (who we raced last year) and Fabryce Kutyba, James' Crew Chief. James came out in a shiny new WC car (I hear he set one of the fastest lap times at the Laguna Seca WC TC race in that car) and Fabryce brought out another SSF BMW.
As Gary Sheehan posted last week, we found out that they (the BMWs) were going to gang up on us. Okay, no problem. We figured they would be forced to play on a level playing ground with us, and I told Gary (Sheehan)that I didn't care how much white paint (all three BMWs are white) I had to clean off the car. He could bang up the Subaru if it became necessary to win. I also wasn't too terribly concerned because super powerful cars on street tires (World Challenge requires Toyo T1S street tires) are still cars on street tires. I wasn't worried yet... Even though really powerful cars can kick butt no matter what tires they're on, we had a chance, I thought.
As per usual, we get to the track (Friday) and start our practices. Lo and behold, the car still understeers. What a surprise – this is a battle we've had since the beginning. We've done drastic things (1200 pound rear springs) and common things (the stiffest street car rear swaybars), and nothing has completely solved that problem. So this time around, we add in our crazy super thick and stiff rear swaybar (26mm), and leave the front bar disconnected. I know, sounds hack to have the front bar disconnected on a racecar, but we can't seem to get any non-custom rear swaybars thick enough to work appropriately with any front bar. Even the stock front bar forced the car to understeer.
So on goes the new bar and dagnabit, the car still understeers. The new hollow 26mm bar appears to be no stiffer than the 24mm Whiteline solid bar. So we switch back to our previous bar and resign ourselves to understeer. Throughout the weekend, we do various tricks to fix the handling, including rebuilding our diffs for different lockups, etc. The usual TeamSMR antics. Everyone comes round to enjoy various views of the innards of our car. Life is never easy trying to convert an understeering rally car into an oversteering road racing car.
But back to Saturday, the first qualifying session. Gary goes out to pump out some fast qualifying times. Our practice had been in the wet, so qualifying was the first dry driving of the day. Gary starts dropping 1 second a lap from his times until he stabilizes around 1:31.xx. That's enough to put us in first place. Good job Gary.
"Gary, I need you to bust some butt. Hutto's people gave him our times and he just turned up the wick. He's turning 1:30.1x." So Gary gets serious and pulls out all the stops and is able to get a 1:30.9x at the best. Uh oh, that means trouble; we're not on the pole yet. Meanwhile, I time the WC BMWs. Both are running 1:35.xx. Maybe that's the street tires? WAIT!!! They're pulling into the pits and they're on race tires. World Challenge cars aren't allowed on Hoosiers. What the heck is going on (and why are they playing around so slowly?)? That's a crock and I know it. What the heck is their strategy?
Sunday pops up on us and it's qualifying (session 2) time. We've made more changes but Gary is not sure the car has another second left in it. The problem we've had since Day 1 has been understeer. The car just can't go any faster. Our recent suspension work has led us to believe that we can beat understeer, but the one thing lacking is a thick enough rear swaybar. We need a solid one in the 1.5" area, not any of these puny 22-26 mm bars. No one makes one and I think now we're going to simply have to make our own.
Qualifying Session Two starts. Something funny is going on. Let me digress and talk about the two BMWs. Sofronas' BMW is just plain sweet looking. It's a work of art. The fenders are flared just right to tuck the tires nicely under. The car looks a good couple inches wider than your typical BMW. When you look from behind, you can see a custom rear crossmember, looking like it's made from cast aluminum (which would be $$$), and looking strong enough to fit nicely on a tank. The rear diff is probably a 10 inch diff and makes a Ford/Chevy/Dodge full size pickup truck's rear end look normal in size. Remember, the Subaru's rear diff is 6 inches… The rest of the BMW bottom looks custom fabricated to be as close to flat as possible. The cage is probably close to World Rally in looks - I would guess the BMW has over 100 yards of cage inside. This is a race car. The best bet we could come up with is that this car probably costs in the $70-100k range to build up, not including chassis.
The other BMW looks tame in comparison. This is Fabryce's BMW. I don't know where it comes from or anything else about it. It looks merely like a BMW that eats M3s for lunch while short-shifting. Nothing more special than that! :) Both of these pretty looking BMWs are running race tires. A later discussion with the Race Director lets me know that the Race Director and the Organizer decided that these cars could run race tires if they ran a special restrictor. We've all spent enough time on the dyno to know that unless these cars are restricted severely, fully built motors are going to be monsters on the track compared to a stock-engine, stock turbo, 6-point rollcage almost-street-car, not to mention stock-engine Hondas. As you'll see, we doubt the cars were restricted enough!
So back to Qualifying Round 2. As soon as the cars are out on track, Gary starts turning low 1:31s. Good. He comes in; we get temps and adjust tire pressures. We're ready to go. Gary goes out and busts a 1:30.5 and the checkered flag comes out. I radio to Gary that qualifying seems to have been cut in half, keep driving (cool down lap) while I go find out what the heck is going on. I run up to Race Control to find out what the heck is going on. Ryan Flaherty (runs Open Track, the Southern California subsidiary of NASA) is there, along with Dave Bollingut, our race director, and several others. There appears to be some tension in the air. Having my headphones on to hear Gary, I say in what feels like a normal voice, but turns out to be loud enough to wake the dead, "WHY IS THE QUALIFYING SESSION ONLY 10 MINUTES?" I've grown very tired of all of our events taking more or less time than we are told they will. Cutting qualifying short when there's already some strange garbage going on with the BMWs was more than merely frustrating.
Dave quietly says we're cutting qualifying time to clean up a mess one of the drivers made when he spun off. I said something to the effect of "As usual, NASA is about as professional as kids in a sandbox." and ran off to check times. Gary is meanwhile radioing to me that James Sofronas was in Fabryce's car so we need to get a rulebook ASAP. We don't know what that means in terms of scoring. James turned a 1:30.4 in Fabryce's car, putting us 3rd on the grid. Fabryce's car now was positioned in 2nd. But very surprisingly, no one drove Sofronas' car, so he was listed as starting in 10th out of about 15 cars.
Something fishy is in the air, still. After consulting the rules, we find our relief. Teams with multiple drivers, driving in the same race, get the points of the lesser placing teammate. So if Sofronas were to win and Fabryce were to come in 10th, they BOTH get 10th place. There is no rule on point about whether 2nd place gets 1st and third gets second under those conditions. We assault the race director for clarification. It seems, however, that the race director and the race organizer never really figured those finer details out.
So now, the starting field is the two BMWs in first and second, and the Freaking Monster Race Car in 10th. What are they thinking? Who is driving which car? What's allowed? What are the rules? No one knows. The race director talks to the BMWs. Even though Fabryce is not capable of turning 1:30.x (he's just not a good enough driver), he is going to be allowed to start in his own car in 2nd place. What strategy are they using? Why should an incapable driver be allowed to have another driver start him at the front of the pack? What the heck? More importantly for us, what is Sofronas planning back there in 10th place?
A few other drivers come over to let us know that they think these games that are being played in the 2nd to last race of the championship are just bullcrap. We agree. A couple drivers let us know that as soon as they see BMW or Subaru near them, they will either take a tight or loose line, whatever's easier, and will make room for the race. No one wants to get in the way, and they know we're on edge to take the win. The guy starting in 4th (Jeff Owen), which means in the same row as us but right outside of us, lets us know he has no beef with the front. His competition is for 4th place, against the guy starting in 5th, right behind our car. He will gladly let the Subaru jump ahead before he dives in and tries to stick to the tail of the Subaru. He also tells us that if Fabryce can't hang with the front of the pack because of his lack of skills, Jeff's not going to be pushed aside. Jeff will gladly get right in Fabryce's way and out race him. The BMW antics are bothering him, too. And he's hurt a little, I think, by the fact that his 1:31 still resulted in a 1:35 caliber driver starting ahead of him.
Cool. Everyone is either on our side or is neutral to the issue; no one supports this pulling in of World Challenge cars (aside from the Race Director and the Race Organizer). So far, though, the BMWs have timed things right to look like they're playing on a level field.
[i][continued][/i]
Joel Gat
Crew Chief
Sheehan Motor Racing
[url]http://www.teamsmr.com[/url]
Hello TeamSMR fans,
Round Six (of seven) of the USTCC is over. As some of you know, there were some strange things in store for us for this last weekend. I'm sure some of you want to know how it went, right? This is my perspective. Not quite the same as Gary's since I'm looking at the weekend from a wrench's perspective. Maybe Gary can fill in places where the driver's perspective is more interesting?
So let me start by saying that it looks like we're in second place. Well, we're 99% sure that we got 2nd place. How is it possible that we don't know for sure? How wacky was this weekend?
If you look at the [url=http://www.ustcc.com/RESULTS.html]USTCC Results page[/url], you can see some of the current confusion. Although we are listed third, we got points for second and James Sofronas, who finished second, got 0 points…
Now the teaser. Our primary competition is the BMW of Gary Hutto. He started the weekend at 540 pts. Since we had 542 points (not including promotional points – we're in the lead by a slightly larger margin including those, but we assume that Gary Hutto will max out his promotional points, as well), Gary Hutto was in second place. To help Gary Hutto's case, a couple World Challenge Touring Car BMWs showed up. The cars were driven by James Sofronas (who we raced last year) and Fabryce Kutyba, James' Crew Chief. James came out in a shiny new WC car (I hear he set one of the fastest lap times at the Laguna Seca WC TC race in that car) and Fabryce brought out another SSF BMW.
As Gary Sheehan posted last week, we found out that they (the BMWs) were going to gang up on us. Okay, no problem. We figured they would be forced to play on a level playing ground with us, and I told Gary (Sheehan)that I didn't care how much white paint (all three BMWs are white) I had to clean off the car. He could bang up the Subaru if it became necessary to win. I also wasn't too terribly concerned because super powerful cars on street tires (World Challenge requires Toyo T1S street tires) are still cars on street tires. I wasn't worried yet... Even though really powerful cars can kick butt no matter what tires they're on, we had a chance, I thought.
As per usual, we get to the track (Friday) and start our practices. Lo and behold, the car still understeers. What a surprise – this is a battle we've had since the beginning. We've done drastic things (1200 pound rear springs) and common things (the stiffest street car rear swaybars), and nothing has completely solved that problem. So this time around, we add in our crazy super thick and stiff rear swaybar (26mm), and leave the front bar disconnected. I know, sounds hack to have the front bar disconnected on a racecar, but we can't seem to get any non-custom rear swaybars thick enough to work appropriately with any front bar. Even the stock front bar forced the car to understeer.
So on goes the new bar and dagnabit, the car still understeers. The new hollow 26mm bar appears to be no stiffer than the 24mm Whiteline solid bar. So we switch back to our previous bar and resign ourselves to understeer. Throughout the weekend, we do various tricks to fix the handling, including rebuilding our diffs for different lockups, etc. The usual TeamSMR antics. Everyone comes round to enjoy various views of the innards of our car. Life is never easy trying to convert an understeering rally car into an oversteering road racing car.
But back to Saturday, the first qualifying session. Gary goes out to pump out some fast qualifying times. Our practice had been in the wet, so qualifying was the first dry driving of the day. Gary starts dropping 1 second a lap from his times until he stabilizes around 1:31.xx. That's enough to put us in first place. Good job Gary.
"Gary, I need you to bust some butt. Hutto's people gave him our times and he just turned up the wick. He's turning 1:30.1x." So Gary gets serious and pulls out all the stops and is able to get a 1:30.9x at the best. Uh oh, that means trouble; we're not on the pole yet. Meanwhile, I time the WC BMWs. Both are running 1:35.xx. Maybe that's the street tires? WAIT!!! They're pulling into the pits and they're on race tires. World Challenge cars aren't allowed on Hoosiers. What the heck is going on (and why are they playing around so slowly?)? That's a crock and I know it. What the heck is their strategy?
Sunday pops up on us and it's qualifying (session 2) time. We've made more changes but Gary is not sure the car has another second left in it. The problem we've had since Day 1 has been understeer. The car just can't go any faster. Our recent suspension work has led us to believe that we can beat understeer, but the one thing lacking is a thick enough rear swaybar. We need a solid one in the 1.5" area, not any of these puny 22-26 mm bars. No one makes one and I think now we're going to simply have to make our own.
Qualifying Session Two starts. Something funny is going on. Let me digress and talk about the two BMWs. Sofronas' BMW is just plain sweet looking. It's a work of art. The fenders are flared just right to tuck the tires nicely under. The car looks a good couple inches wider than your typical BMW. When you look from behind, you can see a custom rear crossmember, looking like it's made from cast aluminum (which would be $$$), and looking strong enough to fit nicely on a tank. The rear diff is probably a 10 inch diff and makes a Ford/Chevy/Dodge full size pickup truck's rear end look normal in size. Remember, the Subaru's rear diff is 6 inches… The rest of the BMW bottom looks custom fabricated to be as close to flat as possible. The cage is probably close to World Rally in looks - I would guess the BMW has over 100 yards of cage inside. This is a race car. The best bet we could come up with is that this car probably costs in the $70-100k range to build up, not including chassis.
The other BMW looks tame in comparison. This is Fabryce's BMW. I don't know where it comes from or anything else about it. It looks merely like a BMW that eats M3s for lunch while short-shifting. Nothing more special than that! :) Both of these pretty looking BMWs are running race tires. A later discussion with the Race Director lets me know that the Race Director and the Organizer decided that these cars could run race tires if they ran a special restrictor. We've all spent enough time on the dyno to know that unless these cars are restricted severely, fully built motors are going to be monsters on the track compared to a stock-engine, stock turbo, 6-point rollcage almost-street-car, not to mention stock-engine Hondas. As you'll see, we doubt the cars were restricted enough!
So back to Qualifying Round 2. As soon as the cars are out on track, Gary starts turning low 1:31s. Good. He comes in; we get temps and adjust tire pressures. We're ready to go. Gary goes out and busts a 1:30.5 and the checkered flag comes out. I radio to Gary that qualifying seems to have been cut in half, keep driving (cool down lap) while I go find out what the heck is going on. I run up to Race Control to find out what the heck is going on. Ryan Flaherty (runs Open Track, the Southern California subsidiary of NASA) is there, along with Dave Bollingut, our race director, and several others. There appears to be some tension in the air. Having my headphones on to hear Gary, I say in what feels like a normal voice, but turns out to be loud enough to wake the dead, "WHY IS THE QUALIFYING SESSION ONLY 10 MINUTES?" I've grown very tired of all of our events taking more or less time than we are told they will. Cutting qualifying short when there's already some strange garbage going on with the BMWs was more than merely frustrating.
Dave quietly says we're cutting qualifying time to clean up a mess one of the drivers made when he spun off. I said something to the effect of "As usual, NASA is about as professional as kids in a sandbox." and ran off to check times. Gary is meanwhile radioing to me that James Sofronas was in Fabryce's car so we need to get a rulebook ASAP. We don't know what that means in terms of scoring. James turned a 1:30.4 in Fabryce's car, putting us 3rd on the grid. Fabryce's car now was positioned in 2nd. But very surprisingly, no one drove Sofronas' car, so he was listed as starting in 10th out of about 15 cars.
Something fishy is in the air, still. After consulting the rules, we find our relief. Teams with multiple drivers, driving in the same race, get the points of the lesser placing teammate. So if Sofronas were to win and Fabryce were to come in 10th, they BOTH get 10th place. There is no rule on point about whether 2nd place gets 1st and third gets second under those conditions. We assault the race director for clarification. It seems, however, that the race director and the race organizer never really figured those finer details out.
So now, the starting field is the two BMWs in first and second, and the Freaking Monster Race Car in 10th. What are they thinking? Who is driving which car? What's allowed? What are the rules? No one knows. The race director talks to the BMWs. Even though Fabryce is not capable of turning 1:30.x (he's just not a good enough driver), he is going to be allowed to start in his own car in 2nd place. What strategy are they using? Why should an incapable driver be allowed to have another driver start him at the front of the pack? What the heck? More importantly for us, what is Sofronas planning back there in 10th place?
A few other drivers come over to let us know that they think these games that are being played in the 2nd to last race of the championship are just bullcrap. We agree. A couple drivers let us know that as soon as they see BMW or Subaru near them, they will either take a tight or loose line, whatever's easier, and will make room for the race. No one wants to get in the way, and they know we're on edge to take the win. The guy starting in 4th (Jeff Owen), which means in the same row as us but right outside of us, lets us know he has no beef with the front. His competition is for 4th place, against the guy starting in 5th, right behind our car. He will gladly let the Subaru jump ahead before he dives in and tries to stick to the tail of the Subaru. He also tells us that if Fabryce can't hang with the front of the pack because of his lack of skills, Jeff's not going to be pushed aside. Jeff will gladly get right in Fabryce's way and out race him. The BMW antics are bothering him, too. And he's hurt a little, I think, by the fact that his 1:31 still resulted in a 1:35 caliber driver starting ahead of him.
Cool. Everyone is either on our side or is neutral to the issue; no one supports this pulling in of World Challenge cars (aside from the Race Director and the Race Organizer). So far, though, the BMWs have timed things right to look like they're playing on a level field.
[i][continued][/i]
Joel Gat
Crew Chief
Sheehan Motor Racing
[url]http://www.teamsmr.com[/url]
| Joel Gat, 1.8L | 10-30-2002 02:50 AM |
[i][continuation][/i]
The race start. The flag drops, Gary's on the gas. His acceleration is a near perfect match for Hutto's BMW. On the in-car camera, you can see something funny. Gary and Gary are charging down the straight matched in power. Fabryce, in the lesser of the two World Challenge BMWs, walks. He starts pulling like we're standing still. 2nd gear, gains a couple car lengths, 3rd, a couple more. Oh look, World Challenge cars, running on Hoosiers, are fast. What a surprise.
The first pleasant surprise of the day, however, comes in at the exit of turn 2. Jeff has done exactly what he said. He pulled in right behind the Subaru. Gary is using every last ounce of handling the car can dish out and has shut Fabryce out. He got ahead but then made room for Hutto to keep the inside line. Gary has stuck to Hutto so tight that Fabryce is getting passed by Gary even though Fabryce was a good 4 or 5 car lengths ahead at the entrance to 1 (it's a combination turn - 1 and 2 make up a U-turn in the track, so 1 is the first 90 degrees, 2 is the second 90 degree turn and the straight between them is probably 10 feet long only). Jeff is trying to hold the same tight line.
Now, what happens next is hard to know. From the pits, it sort of looked like Jeff just decided to take out Fabryce. It really did. Reports later from the racers said Fabryce just muscled his way in, across Jeff's line, causing a crash. Meanwhile, looking at Jeff's in-car camera shows a possible different story. It looks more like Jeff's line was too tight for his car and he possibly locked up his brakes. It looks like he might have slid outwards right into Fabryce. At any rate, we can't tell for sure what happened. But the cars collide and pirouette off the track. The entire pack passes. Jeff and Fabryce get back on, and Jeff begins a heroic effort that brings him all the way back to 4th place before his clutch blows up and he's out of the race.
Fabryce finishes the first lap and pits. His guys have body pulling equipment and they pull out bent fenders and crap so that the tires don't rub. Fabryce charges out about 150 feet in front of Gary and company, one or two laps down (I was so busy watching the race that I don't remember when it happened).
But before we get to my panic'd radio "Fabryce is coming on track right in front of you!" let's look at the track. Fabryce and Jeff crash. I quickly scan the field. Sofronas has moved from 10th to about 6th from the start to the section between turns 2 and 3. Gary and Gary race through 3, 4, and 5 and hit the back straight. That's where Sofronas jumps into 3rd place, right behind us. Yeppers. From 10th to 2nd in half a lap. Is that car [email protected] or what? :) The race continues.
Gary's pushing the car hard to keep in front of Sofronas and right with Hutto. Soon after, Hutto misses a shift and Gary takes the lead. I believe that's when Sofronas moves in behind the Subaru and Hutto drops off to 3rd place. At some point, lap 4 I believe, on the straight, a lap after Fabryce jumped back out (which turned out to be inconsequential - Gary flew past Fabryce like Fabryce was standing still - and now I'm even more confused about the tactics because Fabryce just took a wide line and allowed Hutto and Sheehan to race right past), Gary makes a slight tactical move: he moves to the inside line on the straight. Sofronas is no longer in the draft. Sofronas stays outside the draft. I believe that's when Hutto caught Sofronas' draft to get closer to the action. Sofronas shows his muscle as he crosses over to the other side of the track, staying out of the draft. This is really odd. Doesn't he want to slingshot ahead of Gary? We've pulled ahead of Hutto by a few car lengths, so this doesn't look completely like tactics to help Hutto. Oh wait. Now I see.
A little further down the track, Sofronas gets the line he wants, out of the draft. Then he hits the gas pedal. Sans draft, he slingshots himself right to the front. Sofronas rolls in the throttle and passes Gary. I'd guess he completes the pass at 10-20+ mph faster than Gary, even though Gary's foot is buried in the floor pan. It was like a stroll in the park. He didn't need a draft; he had a spare 100 horsepower.
It's too late for me now, but to make a long story a little less long than it would otherwise be, I'll skip forward a few laps. Gary Sheehan makes a mistake and Gary Hutto makes a pass. The Subaru's tires were getting tired and Gary was fighting hard to keep the car with the BMWs. We were turning consistent 1:29s throughout the race. Nuts! Faster laps during the race than in qualifying, by more than a second. Gary thinks the track was faster, but I think part of it also was desperation to keep with the World Challenge BMW as it ran on race tires. Sofronas was pulling Gary and Gary to really fast times to keep together. Hutto's car looked like a mini version of Sofronas' car. Both cars had nice 5 degree slips through all the turns, looking like race cars. The Subaru was understeering worse and worse.
I told Gary to keep calm and steady and stick to 3rd place for now. We were a good 25 seconds ahead of 4th (while the battle between 4th and 5th was on, 5th was right there, 25 seconds behind, too. When Jeff's clutch blew up, 5th became 30-35 seconds behind. Obviously, this race, there were no holds barred. At least the front cars were giving it their everything. David Lang, in 4th, was doing an incredible job, being so far ahead of the rest of the pack and suffering some sort of ECU malfunction. If he didn't have that malfunction, I have no doubt he'd have been giving us one more major thing to be worried about.
So now move forward to the end of the race. One lap to go. Sofronas decides to show off his car's capabilities. He and Hutto have been running about 2 car lengths from each other, and they've been widening the gap between the Subaru and themselves - it's now about 200 feet (Gary Sheehan spun off track at one point, fighting the dying tires). Sofronas rolls onto the throttle. In the big sweeper on the back side of the track, he suddenly adds about 200 feet between him and Hutto. He opens the gap as if Hutto was parked. I start scratching my head. Is Sofronas going to kick Hutto's butt? What the heck? No wait, this is strategy. He's going to work so hard to win, that he's going to spin off the track and Hutto will pass. Yeah. That's it. That will look like Sofronas was really trying to win the race. Sofronas comes out of the LAST turn a good 200 feet in front of Hutto.
Now, as the race director said on the podium, Hutto worked some magic. He pulled out all the stops and in the last 100 yards, made up all that distance for a near photo finish as he snagged the race from Sofronas.
A heckler, surprisingly turning out to be Fabryce, shouts out something about Team Orders, Schumacher, Barrichello, etc. I think he was trying to get the point across that his driver (remember, he's James' Crew Chief) was actually the better driver. In the end, though, he helped our case by alluding to the collusion between James Sofronas and Gary Hutto.
We are currently awaiting the race director's final say on what the heck happened this weekend. We have joined several teams to complain about allowing cars that are so obviously capable compared to stock engine cars. I mean, we're good, but we still have a stock engine and turbo, which is no comparison to a car with spec'd aftermarket racing cams, rods, cranks, pistons, etc., that turn lap times slightly faster than ours, when they're ON STREET TIRES, especially when we let them run race tires!
:)
We should have gotten second. Hutto kicked our butt. We think he got pole (we don't know why he's not listed with the 10 pole points on the USTCC webpage) and we know he finished first (or if he wasn't playing games, second, but still, one position ahead of us). Sears Point, November 24th (that sat-sun weekend), is the last race of the season. We need pole and first place to assure a victory in the championship. We plan on testing and getting those swaybars made and encouraging everyone and their mothers to do some rain dances for us. In the rain, I think we can win on three cylinders and three wheels! Gotta love the beauty of all wheel drive.
The race results appear to be fair – all games and garbage aside, the BMW was faster and beat us. It turned a better qualifying time and a better race performance. We were second best this weekend. Our enjoyment was marred, however, by all the game playing that was going on.
Of course, on that weekend, all of you are welcome to come hang out – and in fact, we strongly encourage it. We'd love to have lots of company. And a strong show of support will go a long way in the psychological game – even if none of you can help out on the track during the race :). We will have quite a party going on that weekend (it's also a NASA HPDE). We'll be ready for a good weekend and we hope to show that with the right dang swaybar, the WRX can still walk on similarly prepared BMWs, with Gary Sheehan at the wheel. :)
Joel Gat
Crew Chief
Sheehan Motor Racing
[url]http://www.teamsmr.com[/url]
The race start. The flag drops, Gary's on the gas. His acceleration is a near perfect match for Hutto's BMW. On the in-car camera, you can see something funny. Gary and Gary are charging down the straight matched in power. Fabryce, in the lesser of the two World Challenge BMWs, walks. He starts pulling like we're standing still. 2nd gear, gains a couple car lengths, 3rd, a couple more. Oh look, World Challenge cars, running on Hoosiers, are fast. What a surprise.
The first pleasant surprise of the day, however, comes in at the exit of turn 2. Jeff has done exactly what he said. He pulled in right behind the Subaru. Gary is using every last ounce of handling the car can dish out and has shut Fabryce out. He got ahead but then made room for Hutto to keep the inside line. Gary has stuck to Hutto so tight that Fabryce is getting passed by Gary even though Fabryce was a good 4 or 5 car lengths ahead at the entrance to 1 (it's a combination turn - 1 and 2 make up a U-turn in the track, so 1 is the first 90 degrees, 2 is the second 90 degree turn and the straight between them is probably 10 feet long only). Jeff is trying to hold the same tight line.
Now, what happens next is hard to know. From the pits, it sort of looked like Jeff just decided to take out Fabryce. It really did. Reports later from the racers said Fabryce just muscled his way in, across Jeff's line, causing a crash. Meanwhile, looking at Jeff's in-car camera shows a possible different story. It looks more like Jeff's line was too tight for his car and he possibly locked up his brakes. It looks like he might have slid outwards right into Fabryce. At any rate, we can't tell for sure what happened. But the cars collide and pirouette off the track. The entire pack passes. Jeff and Fabryce get back on, and Jeff begins a heroic effort that brings him all the way back to 4th place before his clutch blows up and he's out of the race.
Fabryce finishes the first lap and pits. His guys have body pulling equipment and they pull out bent fenders and crap so that the tires don't rub. Fabryce charges out about 150 feet in front of Gary and company, one or two laps down (I was so busy watching the race that I don't remember when it happened).
But before we get to my panic'd radio "Fabryce is coming on track right in front of you!" let's look at the track. Fabryce and Jeff crash. I quickly scan the field. Sofronas has moved from 10th to about 6th from the start to the section between turns 2 and 3. Gary and Gary race through 3, 4, and 5 and hit the back straight. That's where Sofronas jumps into 3rd place, right behind us. Yeppers. From 10th to 2nd in half a lap. Is that car [email protected] or what? :) The race continues.
Gary's pushing the car hard to keep in front of Sofronas and right with Hutto. Soon after, Hutto misses a shift and Gary takes the lead. I believe that's when Sofronas moves in behind the Subaru and Hutto drops off to 3rd place. At some point, lap 4 I believe, on the straight, a lap after Fabryce jumped back out (which turned out to be inconsequential - Gary flew past Fabryce like Fabryce was standing still - and now I'm even more confused about the tactics because Fabryce just took a wide line and allowed Hutto and Sheehan to race right past), Gary makes a slight tactical move: he moves to the inside line on the straight. Sofronas is no longer in the draft. Sofronas stays outside the draft. I believe that's when Hutto caught Sofronas' draft to get closer to the action. Sofronas shows his muscle as he crosses over to the other side of the track, staying out of the draft. This is really odd. Doesn't he want to slingshot ahead of Gary? We've pulled ahead of Hutto by a few car lengths, so this doesn't look completely like tactics to help Hutto. Oh wait. Now I see.
A little further down the track, Sofronas gets the line he wants, out of the draft. Then he hits the gas pedal. Sans draft, he slingshots himself right to the front. Sofronas rolls in the throttle and passes Gary. I'd guess he completes the pass at 10-20+ mph faster than Gary, even though Gary's foot is buried in the floor pan. It was like a stroll in the park. He didn't need a draft; he had a spare 100 horsepower.
It's too late for me now, but to make a long story a little less long than it would otherwise be, I'll skip forward a few laps. Gary Sheehan makes a mistake and Gary Hutto makes a pass. The Subaru's tires were getting tired and Gary was fighting hard to keep the car with the BMWs. We were turning consistent 1:29s throughout the race. Nuts! Faster laps during the race than in qualifying, by more than a second. Gary thinks the track was faster, but I think part of it also was desperation to keep with the World Challenge BMW as it ran on race tires. Sofronas was pulling Gary and Gary to really fast times to keep together. Hutto's car looked like a mini version of Sofronas' car. Both cars had nice 5 degree slips through all the turns, looking like race cars. The Subaru was understeering worse and worse.
I told Gary to keep calm and steady and stick to 3rd place for now. We were a good 25 seconds ahead of 4th (while the battle between 4th and 5th was on, 5th was right there, 25 seconds behind, too. When Jeff's clutch blew up, 5th became 30-35 seconds behind. Obviously, this race, there were no holds barred. At least the front cars were giving it their everything. David Lang, in 4th, was doing an incredible job, being so far ahead of the rest of the pack and suffering some sort of ECU malfunction. If he didn't have that malfunction, I have no doubt he'd have been giving us one more major thing to be worried about.
So now move forward to the end of the race. One lap to go. Sofronas decides to show off his car's capabilities. He and Hutto have been running about 2 car lengths from each other, and they've been widening the gap between the Subaru and themselves - it's now about 200 feet (Gary Sheehan spun off track at one point, fighting the dying tires). Sofronas rolls onto the throttle. In the big sweeper on the back side of the track, he suddenly adds about 200 feet between him and Hutto. He opens the gap as if Hutto was parked. I start scratching my head. Is Sofronas going to kick Hutto's butt? What the heck? No wait, this is strategy. He's going to work so hard to win, that he's going to spin off the track and Hutto will pass. Yeah. That's it. That will look like Sofronas was really trying to win the race. Sofronas comes out of the LAST turn a good 200 feet in front of Hutto.
Now, as the race director said on the podium, Hutto worked some magic. He pulled out all the stops and in the last 100 yards, made up all that distance for a near photo finish as he snagged the race from Sofronas.
A heckler, surprisingly turning out to be Fabryce, shouts out something about Team Orders, Schumacher, Barrichello, etc. I think he was trying to get the point across that his driver (remember, he's James' Crew Chief) was actually the better driver. In the end, though, he helped our case by alluding to the collusion between James Sofronas and Gary Hutto.
We are currently awaiting the race director's final say on what the heck happened this weekend. We have joined several teams to complain about allowing cars that are so obviously capable compared to stock engine cars. I mean, we're good, but we still have a stock engine and turbo, which is no comparison to a car with spec'd aftermarket racing cams, rods, cranks, pistons, etc., that turn lap times slightly faster than ours, when they're ON STREET TIRES, especially when we let them run race tires!
:)
We should have gotten second. Hutto kicked our butt. We think he got pole (we don't know why he's not listed with the 10 pole points on the USTCC webpage) and we know he finished first (or if he wasn't playing games, second, but still, one position ahead of us). Sears Point, November 24th (that sat-sun weekend), is the last race of the season. We need pole and first place to assure a victory in the championship. We plan on testing and getting those swaybars made and encouraging everyone and their mothers to do some rain dances for us. In the rain, I think we can win on three cylinders and three wheels! Gotta love the beauty of all wheel drive.
The race results appear to be fair – all games and garbage aside, the BMW was faster and beat us. It turned a better qualifying time and a better race performance. We were second best this weekend. Our enjoyment was marred, however, by all the game playing that was going on.
Of course, on that weekend, all of you are welcome to come hang out – and in fact, we strongly encourage it. We'd love to have lots of company. And a strong show of support will go a long way in the psychological game – even if none of you can help out on the track during the race :). We will have quite a party going on that weekend (it's also a NASA HPDE). We'll be ready for a good weekend and we hope to show that with the right dang swaybar, the WRX can still walk on similarly prepared BMWs, with Gary Sheehan at the wheel. :)
Joel Gat
Crew Chief
Sheehan Motor Racing
[url]http://www.teamsmr.com[/url]
| Patrick Olsen | 10-30-2002 03:16 AM |
Great story, Joel. It really is too bad the BMW guys are resorting to such tactics in what is still a pretty small, unimportant (no offense, of course) series.
How are you guys going to go about mounting this gargantuan rear swaybar you want to run? Have you tried adjusting tire pressures to reduce the understeer? Or how about running RE92s in the rear? ;) Just kidding...
More seriously, and you guys have probably already done this, how about fiddling with ride heights - jack the rear of the car up a bit, get that rear roll center a bit higher, blah blah blah.
Pat Olsen
'97 Legacy 2.5GT sedan
How are you guys going to go about mounting this gargantuan rear swaybar you want to run? Have you tried adjusting tire pressures to reduce the understeer? Or how about running RE92s in the rear? ;) Just kidding...
More seriously, and you guys have probably already done this, how about fiddling with ride heights - jack the rear of the car up a bit, get that rear roll center a bit higher, blah blah blah.
Pat Olsen
'97 Legacy 2.5GT sedan
| Dussander | 10-30-2002 10:38 AM |
Thanks for the write up Joel. I really appreciate you taking the time to share with us. I really wish I could have been there. Best of luck in the last race!
| pio!pio! | 10-30-2002 02:02 PM |
I don't understand how World Challenge cars are allowed to be classified in the USTCC...aren't the rules different? I mean if they were allowed custom built engines and bodywork, shouldn't the rest of the teams be allowed that?
| Joel Gat, 1.8L | 10-30-2002 02:21 PM |
Hello,
Pat, for most of the basic things, you can assume we've tried and tested all sorts of possibilities, with input from some of the best professionals in the business. :)
Pio pio, although we do not agree with the "formula" that USTCC is using (obviously, it needs a huge amount of work), they have an equivilency formula that they are trying to design. They are trying to equal the playing field through the use of restrictors and things like that. The BMWs ran restrictor plates sized to drop their power levels to something reasonable. We also run a restrictor plate to drop our power levels closer to the Hondas.
However, as was painfully obvious this last weekend, the restrictors were no where near small enough on those BMWs. I'm sure some of the Hondas feel the same way about our restrictor!
Not only that, but their chassis are so much more developed than ours, that I feel they would need to have significantly LESS power than us or more weight than us to remain competative with us.
Joel
Pat, for most of the basic things, you can assume we've tried and tested all sorts of possibilities, with input from some of the best professionals in the business. :)
Pio pio, although we do not agree with the "formula" that USTCC is using (obviously, it needs a huge amount of work), they have an equivilency formula that they are trying to design. They are trying to equal the playing field through the use of restrictors and things like that. The BMWs ran restrictor plates sized to drop their power levels to something reasonable. We also run a restrictor plate to drop our power levels closer to the Hondas.
However, as was painfully obvious this last weekend, the restrictors were no where near small enough on those BMWs. I'm sure some of the Hondas feel the same way about our restrictor!
Not only that, but their chassis are so much more developed than ours, that I feel they would need to have significantly LESS power than us or more weight than us to remain competative with us.
Joel
| jmott | 10-30-2002 03:45 PM |
your understeer problem is interesting.
most of us autocrossers here in Houston could cure it with little more than an alignment and a bigger rear swaybar.
of course thats a totally different environment. I take it you are getting the understeer in big sweeping turns with the power on?
what sort of front/rear power split are you using?
could the understeer be caused by aerodynamics, with too much downforcec in the rear and not enough up front?
just curious =)
most of us autocrossers here in Houston could cure it with little more than an alignment and a bigger rear swaybar.
of course thats a totally different environment. I take it you are getting the understeer in big sweeping turns with the power on?
what sort of front/rear power split are you using?
could the understeer be caused by aerodynamics, with too much downforcec in the rear and not enough up front?
just curious =)
| Imprezer | 10-30-2002 06:46 PM |
Wow!
NASA is really messed up.
Joel, I really think you guys need to protest that zoo action that they allowed in LV.
What they did is not cool and it ruins their reputation as an organization, which isnt that good to begin with.
Whats the point to bring a "super car" for one race just so that they can screw up other people's point? Thats not strategy, thats just cheap. I mean, if Sofranos wants to show off his ride, USTCC isn't a place. I mean, I could arrange the old CUSCO JGTCC GC8 Impreza to be brough here with Kobayashi as a driver. He could drive that thing in reverse, and still win the race. But, whats the point?
If they pull something like this at Sears point, they will see what angered Subaru fans will do. ;)
-Alex
NASA is really messed up.
Joel, I really think you guys need to protest that zoo action that they allowed in LV.
What they did is not cool and it ruins their reputation as an organization, which isnt that good to begin with.
Whats the point to bring a "super car" for one race just so that they can screw up other people's point? Thats not strategy, thats just cheap. I mean, if Sofranos wants to show off his ride, USTCC isn't a place. I mean, I could arrange the old CUSCO JGTCC GC8 Impreza to be brough here with Kobayashi as a driver. He could drive that thing in reverse, and still win the race. But, whats the point?
If they pull something like this at Sears point, they will see what angered Subaru fans will do. ;)
-Alex
| driggity | 10-30-2002 07:25 PM |
Great write-up of a very interesting sounding weekend. The understeer problem is pretty interesting. What all can you guys change on the suspension? I assume you've swapped out the trailing arms and lateral links and the rear suspension bushings if that is allowable. Also, has something been preventing you from going with a custom rear sway bar so far? Seems like this is definitely something that can help a lot.
| rkkwan | 10-30-2002 11:06 PM |
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Joel Gat, 1.8L [/i]
[B]Pat, for most of the basic things, you can assume we've tried and tested all sorts of possibilities, with input from some of the best professionals in the business. :) [/B][/QUOTE]
Joel - Forget about setup. Just tell Gary to drive faster! [Like those stupid CART commercials on Speed... "Faster", "Faster"...] :D
-Ray
[B]Pat, for most of the basic things, you can assume we've tried and tested all sorts of possibilities, with input from some of the best professionals in the business. :) [/B][/QUOTE]
Joel - Forget about setup. Just tell Gary to drive faster! [Like those stupid CART commercials on Speed... "Faster", "Faster"...] :D
-Ray
| Joel Gat, 1.8L | 10-31-2002 12:14 AM |
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Imprezer [/i]
[B]What they did is not cool and it ruins their reputation as an organization, which isnt that good to begin with.[/B][/QUOTE]
Hello,
They are attempting to increase the size of our fields since USTCC fields are rather small. This was an exciting race partially because there were 15 cars on track. The series is fighting to expand. However, I agree that there are far better ways to expand the series and they simply need to ask the competitors for ideas if they want about a million ideas.
[B][QUOTE]I mean, I could arrange the old CUSCO JGTCC GC8 Impreza to be brough here with Kobayashi as a driver. He could drive that thing in reverse, and still win the race. But, whats the point?[/B][/QUOTE]
If you can do that for the Sears Race, then by ALL MEANS, PLEASE DO! We'd love to have someone else doing a fun run and beating down the WC BMW while we beat down the USTCC BMW! :)
Jack: We are already using the stiffest commerically available Subaru rear swaybar AND no front swaybar. We have tried alignments from one extreme to the other (lots of toe-out in the rear sure makes the car go 'round quickly, but doesn't really help with [i]handling[/i] - and alignment tricks like that, front or rear, really kill the tires too quickly for 30-50 minute races. I mean, think of that in Autocross Terms - that's twenty to thirty 90-second runs, all at full tire temp where the tires are at their grippiest/softest. That might very well be a whole season of autocross in one shot! :))
Ray: He whines too much if I tell him to shut up and drive :) Well, that and he tells me to shut up and work when I ask him to help work on the car :)
Joel
[B]What they did is not cool and it ruins their reputation as an organization, which isnt that good to begin with.[/B][/QUOTE]
Hello,
They are attempting to increase the size of our fields since USTCC fields are rather small. This was an exciting race partially because there were 15 cars on track. The series is fighting to expand. However, I agree that there are far better ways to expand the series and they simply need to ask the competitors for ideas if they want about a million ideas.
[B][QUOTE]I mean, I could arrange the old CUSCO JGTCC GC8 Impreza to be brough here with Kobayashi as a driver. He could drive that thing in reverse, and still win the race. But, whats the point?[/B][/QUOTE]
If you can do that for the Sears Race, then by ALL MEANS, PLEASE DO! We'd love to have someone else doing a fun run and beating down the WC BMW while we beat down the USTCC BMW! :)
Jack: We are already using the stiffest commerically available Subaru rear swaybar AND no front swaybar. We have tried alignments from one extreme to the other (lots of toe-out in the rear sure makes the car go 'round quickly, but doesn't really help with [i]handling[/i] - and alignment tricks like that, front or rear, really kill the tires too quickly for 30-50 minute races. I mean, think of that in Autocross Terms - that's twenty to thirty 90-second runs, all at full tire temp where the tires are at their grippiest/softest. That might very well be a whole season of autocross in one shot! :))
Ray: He whines too much if I tell him to shut up and drive :) Well, that and he tells me to shut up and work when I ask him to help work on the car :)
Joel
| TBreu007 | 10-31-2002 01:56 AM |
Interesting writeup.
Come on, Joel...you're talking about 225hp, 206lb/ft torque 3000lb+ BMW 325's here (power figures taken from Speed's WC tech. PDF files). 225hp shouldn't be too much to tackle for a 300+hp WRX. I'm only a couple seconds off them on a 3.7 mile course in my daily driven WRX. [okay, I'm done busting your chops] :D
I'm glad to see it's not just me having problems with the handling of this car. I also have become pretty much fed up with raising, lowering, and playing with sway bars and alignment settings to get the WRX not to understeer so bad on corner entry. For a while it would oversteer on high-speed corners and understeer badly on low speed corners (exactly the opposite of what you want in a race car). I've found the stiffest setting of the rear bar with the front ride height being slightly higher than the rear helps alleviate this a bit, but I'm sure you've already tried it.
Is the USTCC WRX running a similar, somewhat nose-up stance, or have you found something else to work better? (just curious for dialing in my own car's handling)
Good luck
Come on, Joel...you're talking about 225hp, 206lb/ft torque 3000lb+ BMW 325's here (power figures taken from Speed's WC tech. PDF files). 225hp shouldn't be too much to tackle for a 300+hp WRX. I'm only a couple seconds off them on a 3.7 mile course in my daily driven WRX. [okay, I'm done busting your chops] :D
I'm glad to see it's not just me having problems with the handling of this car. I also have become pretty much fed up with raising, lowering, and playing with sway bars and alignment settings to get the WRX not to understeer so bad on corner entry. For a while it would oversteer on high-speed corners and understeer badly on low speed corners (exactly the opposite of what you want in a race car). I've found the stiffest setting of the rear bar with the front ride height being slightly higher than the rear helps alleviate this a bit, but I'm sure you've already tried it.
Is the USTCC WRX running a similar, somewhat nose-up stance, or have you found something else to work better? (just curious for dialing in my own car's handling)
Good luck
| pio!pio! | 10-31-2002 03:15 AM |
Have you tried asking around what type of suspension systems other race prepped WRX's are running? IIRC there is an entire series dedicated to Impreza vs Lancer in Australia. Maybe a friendly team Down Under can give you some advice.
| Kostamojen | 10-31-2002 03:32 AM |
Did you guys try that 17mm front swaybar from the factory suspension kit yet that I was talking to Gary about?
Oh, and was one of those BMW's a widebody silver M3?
P.S. Ill be there on the 24th :)
Oh, and was one of those BMW's a widebody silver M3?
P.S. Ill be there on the 24th :)
| trhoppe | 10-31-2002 09:51 AM |
Joel - you say youre using the stiffest commercially available rear sway bar? You guys have tried a hollow 26mm rear and a solid 24mm rear.......
Have you tried the Whiteline 24-29mm adjustable race bar? The model number is X3004. Check out Whiteline's part list
[url]http://www.whiteline.com.au/docs/fact_sheets/ck_wrx01.pdf[/url]
I have always wondered why you guys have not tried this bar?
-Tom
Have you tried the Whiteline 24-29mm adjustable race bar? The model number is X3004. Check out Whiteline's part list
[url]http://www.whiteline.com.au/docs/fact_sheets/ck_wrx01.pdf[/url]
I have always wondered why you guys have not tried this bar?
-Tom
| AnimalMother | 10-31-2002 12:42 PM |
Joel,
I have a contact at a company here in Fresno (Suspension Techniques) that is developing parts for the WRX. They have a machine to bend sway-bars in house, a wide range of solid bar stock, and could probably make something custom for you. I am using an adjustable solid 15/16ths inch rear bar from them and so far so good. Let me know if you would like me to contact them.
AnimalMother
I have a contact at a company here in Fresno (Suspension Techniques) that is developing parts for the WRX. They have a machine to bend sway-bars in house, a wide range of solid bar stock, and could probably make something custom for you. I am using an adjustable solid 15/16ths inch rear bar from them and so far so good. Let me know if you would like me to contact them.
AnimalMother
| gpd323 | 10-31-2002 01:10 PM |
Also Quickor Engineering in Portland Oregon does custom anti-roll bars for all sorts of imports. Thats who makes our BIG bars for the Mazda 323GTX group.
[url]http://www.quickor.com/[/url]
Greg Downing
[url]http://www.quickor.com/[/url]
Greg Downing
| Kostamojen | 10-31-2002 10:46 PM |
I dont think swaybars are the problem. It looks like a weight problem after watching that vid gary posted.
My car has more oversteer than garys does, and I just have a rear WRX sedan bar with kartboy endlinks :p
My car has more oversteer than garys does, and I just have a rear WRX sedan bar with kartboy endlinks :p
| Cosworth | 11-01-2002 01:21 AM |
Joel, i have a question regarding the car's alignment if you wouldn't mind divulging. If i recall, you guys are using the Ground Control castor/camber plates up front with the advance-design struts. The question is, how much static camber do you run front and rear and how much total resultant castor was created with the plates? Secondly, how much extra dynamic camber is created on full lock (or however its measured) with the extra castor?
P.s. I know what you mean about the chronic understeer. I've been trying all kinds of stuff even on just the level of auto-x that i do in order to help alleviate it. I'm about this close --> <-- to installing a center viscous clutch eliminator kit and making this pig RWD! :D
P.s. I know what you mean about the chronic understeer. I've been trying all kinds of stuff even on just the level of auto-x that i do in order to help alleviate it. I'm about this close --> <-- to installing a center viscous clutch eliminator kit and making this pig RWD! :D
| Cosworth | 11-04-2002 01:16 PM |
bump
| Joel Gat, 1.8L | 11-04-2002 01:23 PM |
Hello,
Kosta - remember that oversteer is not the same thing as power-on oversteer. A properly setup car will tend towards oversteer without mashing your foot down or pulling your foot up or trailing deep into every turn. So if Gary gets a chance to digitize the entire race, you'll see that in some turns he's on and off the gas to get the car to drive through the turn correctly. We'd like him to be able to trail just a hair and then go into a slight oversteer on the tight turns so that he doesn't have to resort to mickey-mouse antics to orient the car.
Re all the various bar posts, we're working on it... no problem :)
Cosworth, as for the camber and castor, we typically run about 2-2.5 deg neg camber in front and 2.5 in rear, as dictated by the tires. As for castor, unfortunately, since the GC plates are not designed for the WRX, the way we have them installed makes them only marginally adjustible. We're working on that, too. We'd like to minimize our castor before the next race. The self-centering aspect of castor is not important and leaving more of the tire on the ground would be beneficial.
Joel
Kosta - remember that oversteer is not the same thing as power-on oversteer. A properly setup car will tend towards oversteer without mashing your foot down or pulling your foot up or trailing deep into every turn. So if Gary gets a chance to digitize the entire race, you'll see that in some turns he's on and off the gas to get the car to drive through the turn correctly. We'd like him to be able to trail just a hair and then go into a slight oversteer on the tight turns so that he doesn't have to resort to mickey-mouse antics to orient the car.
Re all the various bar posts, we're working on it... no problem :)
Cosworth, as for the camber and castor, we typically run about 2-2.5 deg neg camber in front and 2.5 in rear, as dictated by the tires. As for castor, unfortunately, since the GC plates are not designed for the WRX, the way we have them installed makes them only marginally adjustible. We're working on that, too. We'd like to minimize our castor before the next race. The self-centering aspect of castor is not important and leaving more of the tire on the ground would be beneficial.
Joel
| Fmdeadrick | 11-05-2002 12:00 AM |
Naturally, you were using the MaxQData data acquisition system to diagnose the problems vs. just assuming the BMWs were cheating (which they probably were.) You have problems that can be resolved with a proper testing session, not just a "trying the car out" session.
It is seriously a good time for us to consider whether we should continue building our car for next season, or just bail. I have very little confidence in the NASA organization, even less than my previously unbeatable dislike for the SCCA.
Mark
It is seriously a good time for us to consider whether we should continue building our car for next season, or just bail. I have very little confidence in the NASA organization, even less than my previously unbeatable dislike for the SCCA.
Mark
| Joel Gat, 1.8L | 11-05-2002 12:08 AM |
Hello,
Amen to that, Mark. From the first time we used the MaxQ and were able to add some 20-30% better braking from our data, to every session. We love how simple it is to datalog. Now if only the MaxQ would offer suggestions :)
As for the series, contact Gary (he should be back in town some time tonight) and talk to him. I'm sure he'd love to hear about your current doubts. Anything we can do to help the series improve and expand is always something we're interested in.
USTCC is a very good series and is a great entry level professional racing program with an even greater potential. They just need to keep the growing "pains" in check and make sure that the "growth" isn't counter productive.
Joel
Amen to that, Mark. From the first time we used the MaxQ and were able to add some 20-30% better braking from our data, to every session. We love how simple it is to datalog. Now if only the MaxQ would offer suggestions :)
As for the series, contact Gary (he should be back in town some time tonight) and talk to him. I'm sure he'd love to hear about your current doubts. Anything we can do to help the series improve and expand is always something we're interested in.
USTCC is a very good series and is a great entry level professional racing program with an even greater potential. They just need to keep the growing "pains" in check and make sure that the "growth" isn't counter productive.
Joel
| Fmdeadrick | 11-05-2002 12:15 AM |
:mad: I was waiting for you to be mad at me. :p
Mark
Mark
| Kostamojen | 11-05-2002 12:59 AM |
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Joel Gat, 1.8L [/i]
[B]Hello,
Kosta - remember that oversteer is not the same thing as power-on oversteer. A properly setup car will tend towards oversteer without mashing your foot down or pulling your foot up or trailing deep into every turn. So if Gary gets a chance to digitize the entire race, you'll see that in some turns he's on and off the gas to get the car to drive through the turn correctly. We'd like him to be able to trail just a hair and then go into a slight oversteer on the tight turns so that he doesn't have to resort to mickey-mouse antics to orient the car.
[/B][/QUOTE]
I think its just my ****ty tires, but I do get oversteer when in sweeping corners and pushing the car 9/10ths+, without having to left foot brake or get on/off the gas to do so. Perhaps the LSD's have something to do with it too? I have no clue really :p ...
[B]Hello,
Kosta - remember that oversteer is not the same thing as power-on oversteer. A properly setup car will tend towards oversteer without mashing your foot down or pulling your foot up or trailing deep into every turn. So if Gary gets a chance to digitize the entire race, you'll see that in some turns he's on and off the gas to get the car to drive through the turn correctly. We'd like him to be able to trail just a hair and then go into a slight oversteer on the tight turns so that he doesn't have to resort to mickey-mouse antics to orient the car.
[/B][/QUOTE]
I think its just my ****ty tires, but I do get oversteer when in sweeping corners and pushing the car 9/10ths+, without having to left foot brake or get on/off the gas to do so. Perhaps the LSD's have something to do with it too? I have no clue really :p ...
| XT6Wagon | 11-05-2002 05:21 AM |
have you tried putting some wieght BEHIND the rear axle? From my limited experience removing alot of rear wieght as compared to the front will cause a car to understeer more and start having problems with snap oversteer
| Joel Gat, 1.8L | 11-05-2002 12:07 PM |
Hello,
Hahahaha.... y'all are forgetting our infamous experiment last year. Just to see what it would do, we hung 300 pounds off the rear bumper. At any speed above 5 mph (okay, I don't remember the speed off hand, but maybe it was 20 or 30 mph), the rear end came around faster than you could snap the steering wheel to full opposite lock. Gary looked like he was "dancing" on the track. Here a spin, there a spin, etc. :)
We can deal with the understeer - we just needed a swaybar with more roll resistence than anything we've tried so far. Not surprisingly, there are many professional suspension and chassis companies that can deliver "real" swaybars. We'll be testing over the next couple weekends.
Joel
Hahahaha.... y'all are forgetting our infamous experiment last year. Just to see what it would do, we hung 300 pounds off the rear bumper. At any speed above 5 mph (okay, I don't remember the speed off hand, but maybe it was 20 or 30 mph), the rear end came around faster than you could snap the steering wheel to full opposite lock. Gary looked like he was "dancing" on the track. Here a spin, there a spin, etc. :)
We can deal with the understeer - we just needed a swaybar with more roll resistence than anything we've tried so far. Not surprisingly, there are many professional suspension and chassis companies that can deliver "real" swaybars. We'll be testing over the next couple weekends.
Joel
| XT6Wagon | 11-05-2002 12:26 PM |
well it seems like putting some of the balast in the spare tire well would be cheaper and easier than doing the swaybar.
Also doesn't too much swaybar actualy kill the overall grip of the car?
Also doesn't too much swaybar actualy kill the overall grip of the car?
| Joel Gat, 1.8L | 11-05-2002 12:59 PM |
Hello,
A swaybar basically works like a spring that only "activates" during turns. Although street vendors never seem to do it, most race swaybar vendors provide swaybar "spring rates" with their various swaybars.
When you have known spring rates, plus known swaybar rates, plus lever arm ratios (which affect effective spring rates - notice the swaybar attaches inboard of the spring, so the wheel has a greater lever arm against that "spring" than it does against the coil spring), you can precisely determine the suspension's effect on roll rates. You can then decide on a roll stiffness that you need.
We know what springs we want (calculated based on the weights of all the unsuspended parts, plus the partially suspended parts (control arms, lateral links, etc), plus the suspended weights). So we determine those baseline spring rates considering those above factors as well as the track surface data, wheel frequencies, etc. Then it's simple math. You needed "X" amount of roll stiffness, you now have the roll stiffness given by the springs, what's left is the sway bar.
You know the lever arms the swaybar is working through (where it's attached to the control arm or transverse link), the swaybar arm length (the part of the bar that goes through deflection), and then you determine the swaybar tortional spring rate that you need.
The problem has been that "street bars" don't come with swaybar rates. You can only guess. "This bar is supposed to be 40% stiffer than that bar" but meanwhile bar one has extra bends that bar two doesn't have and the lever arms attach differently, etc etc etc.
So we know what we're looking for. We have not been able to determine which bars will satisfy, and now we're pretty sure we know what we want, so we'll just get that. :)
Remember last year (and earlier this year) we were talking about 1200 pound springs? Those provided the roll stiffness we needed with the bar we were using. They were not the right springs to use, but since there were no stiffer swaybars, we had to compensate with spring rate. The car did indeed oversteer with those spring rates. BUT, it was a twitchy little car. We'd prefer to address the problem correctly - use the proper spring rates and a bar that allows us to use those spring rates. Then we can fine tune with the bar.
I guess I should have made all this clear earlier - at least to show you that we're not fighting a random problem. We can get rid of understeer in about 30 minutes by tossing in the 1200 pound springs again. We would just prefer to make the car easier for Gary to drive at the limits.
Joel Gat
Crew Chief
Sheehan Motor Racing
[url]http://www.teamsmr.com[/url]
A swaybar basically works like a spring that only "activates" during turns. Although street vendors never seem to do it, most race swaybar vendors provide swaybar "spring rates" with their various swaybars.
When you have known spring rates, plus known swaybar rates, plus lever arm ratios (which affect effective spring rates - notice the swaybar attaches inboard of the spring, so the wheel has a greater lever arm against that "spring" than it does against the coil spring), you can precisely determine the suspension's effect on roll rates. You can then decide on a roll stiffness that you need.
We know what springs we want (calculated based on the weights of all the unsuspended parts, plus the partially suspended parts (control arms, lateral links, etc), plus the suspended weights). So we determine those baseline spring rates considering those above factors as well as the track surface data, wheel frequencies, etc. Then it's simple math. You needed "X" amount of roll stiffness, you now have the roll stiffness given by the springs, what's left is the sway bar.
You know the lever arms the swaybar is working through (where it's attached to the control arm or transverse link), the swaybar arm length (the part of the bar that goes through deflection), and then you determine the swaybar tortional spring rate that you need.
The problem has been that "street bars" don't come with swaybar rates. You can only guess. "This bar is supposed to be 40% stiffer than that bar" but meanwhile bar one has extra bends that bar two doesn't have and the lever arms attach differently, etc etc etc.
So we know what we're looking for. We have not been able to determine which bars will satisfy, and now we're pretty sure we know what we want, so we'll just get that. :)
Remember last year (and earlier this year) we were talking about 1200 pound springs? Those provided the roll stiffness we needed with the bar we were using. They were not the right springs to use, but since there were no stiffer swaybars, we had to compensate with spring rate. The car did indeed oversteer with those spring rates. BUT, it was a twitchy little car. We'd prefer to address the problem correctly - use the proper spring rates and a bar that allows us to use those spring rates. Then we can fine tune with the bar.
I guess I should have made all this clear earlier - at least to show you that we're not fighting a random problem. We can get rid of understeer in about 30 minutes by tossing in the 1200 pound springs again. We would just prefer to make the car easier for Gary to drive at the limits.
Joel Gat
Crew Chief
Sheehan Motor Racing
[url]http://www.teamsmr.com[/url]
| AndyRoo | 11-05-2002 01:07 PM |
I have to admit, I was on the edge of my seat for the full 3 hours it took me to read that story. As for suggestions on setting up the car, I'll leave that to the professionals.
Joel, I'm wondering how you got into this game. Next fall im heading to college majoring in mechanical engineering, and I'm just curious on how you got started.
Joel, I'm wondering how you got into this game. Next fall im heading to college majoring in mechanical engineering, and I'm just curious on how you got started.
| PaulC | 11-05-2002 01:54 PM |
Joel,
That was a very interesting explanation. I was wondering if you could expand a little more on it though.. I've heard of a lot of people in various forms of racing talk about swaybars being a "compromise" part. That is, they should only be used when you cannot run a high enough spring rate to limit roll.
Can you explain a little more on why an optimal spring rate (in the context of the car's mass) couple with swaybars is better than tuning roll stiffness with springs alone?
You did mention that it makes the car easier to drive, but I'm not understanding WHY.
Thanks for the great insights into prepping a real race car. Most pros are tight lipped when talking to amateurs and bench racers. :D
That was a very interesting explanation. I was wondering if you could expand a little more on it though.. I've heard of a lot of people in various forms of racing talk about swaybars being a "compromise" part. That is, they should only be used when you cannot run a high enough spring rate to limit roll.
Can you explain a little more on why an optimal spring rate (in the context of the car's mass) couple with swaybars is better than tuning roll stiffness with springs alone?
You did mention that it makes the car easier to drive, but I'm not understanding WHY.
Thanks for the great insights into prepping a real race car. Most pros are tight lipped when talking to amateurs and bench racers. :D
| 8Complex | 11-05-2002 02:16 PM |
Perhaps you have too much negative camber in the front to eliminate understeer. With extremely heavy springs, you shouldn't have very much body roll, and (IMO) 2.5° is excessive with the types of spring rates that you're running, especially since your castor will add even more camber while turning the wheels.
I'm also sure you've tried toe-ing out the rear a bit more, but it's worth another mention.
I suppose as a last resort, you could try getting 0.5-1" longer springs for the rear in order to raise the center of gravity in relation to the roll center in the rear.
I'm also sure you've tried toe-ing out the rear a bit more, but it's worth another mention.
I suppose as a last resort, you could try getting 0.5-1" longer springs for the rear in order to raise the center of gravity in relation to the roll center in the rear.
| Zahnster | 11-05-2002 03:39 PM |
The Morgan LeMans car has no Sway bars.
| Joel Gat, 1.8L | 11-05-2002 04:16 PM |
Hello,
There are indeed two schools of thought on chassis setup. One is that you do everything with the springs and the other is that you spread things out over springs and bars. Just to give you a ballpark, we were running the 24mm Whiteline bar with 1200 pound rear springs. To eliminate that bar, we'd probably need a couple hundred pounds more spring. At that point (or even at the 1200 pound spring rate), the springs are no longer doing much work at all. Almost all of your "suspension" is in the form of a pneumatic spring... your tires. The chassis will pretty much not move at all relative to the wheels and the tires will do all the work.
That's great in a small, lightweight, wide, low CG, ultra-precise, fully built racecar, with a well designed racing chassis. That's not so great in a 3300 pound production sedan running close to stock setup (compared to say, a formula car or even a prototype). What happens on your ultra stiff car when, for example, you are taking a turn and you hit a big bump (like a curb)? With super stiff springs, the whole car gets lifted and tossed sideways and you completely unsettle the car. Instead, if you have softer springs, the wheel can move up and down and the car can continue right along its line.
For production based cars, it is my opinion that you are far better off using softer springs with swaybars than rock solid springs.
I could be wrong, of course, but at Vegas two races ago, we dropped spring rates significantly and turned faster times, while the car was easier to drive (ie, to the person who asked, less twitchy because the slightest imperfection didn't unsettle the car), and the tires faired much better. The setup that worked for the high speed Vegas course did not work for the "mickey-mouse" track we ran just recently - the turns there were too sharp, so the loss of oversteer turned out to be a huge detriment, whereas on the faster track, the slight understeer was not as fatal.
Joel
There are indeed two schools of thought on chassis setup. One is that you do everything with the springs and the other is that you spread things out over springs and bars. Just to give you a ballpark, we were running the 24mm Whiteline bar with 1200 pound rear springs. To eliminate that bar, we'd probably need a couple hundred pounds more spring. At that point (or even at the 1200 pound spring rate), the springs are no longer doing much work at all. Almost all of your "suspension" is in the form of a pneumatic spring... your tires. The chassis will pretty much not move at all relative to the wheels and the tires will do all the work.
That's great in a small, lightweight, wide, low CG, ultra-precise, fully built racecar, with a well designed racing chassis. That's not so great in a 3300 pound production sedan running close to stock setup (compared to say, a formula car or even a prototype). What happens on your ultra stiff car when, for example, you are taking a turn and you hit a big bump (like a curb)? With super stiff springs, the whole car gets lifted and tossed sideways and you completely unsettle the car. Instead, if you have softer springs, the wheel can move up and down and the car can continue right along its line.
For production based cars, it is my opinion that you are far better off using softer springs with swaybars than rock solid springs.
I could be wrong, of course, but at Vegas two races ago, we dropped spring rates significantly and turned faster times, while the car was easier to drive (ie, to the person who asked, less twitchy because the slightest imperfection didn't unsettle the car), and the tires faired much better. The setup that worked for the high speed Vegas course did not work for the "mickey-mouse" track we ran just recently - the turns there were too sharp, so the loss of oversteer turned out to be a huge detriment, whereas on the faster track, the slight understeer was not as fatal.
Joel
| 8Complex | 11-05-2002 04:35 PM |
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Joel Gat, 1.8L [/i]
[B]For production based cars, it is my opinion that you are far better off using softer springs with swaybars than rock solid springs.[/B][/QUOTE]
Nope, you're quite correct there.
[B]For production based cars, it is my opinion that you are far better off using softer springs with swaybars than rock solid springs.[/B][/QUOTE]
Nope, you're quite correct there.
| OT Challenge | 11-05-2002 05:40 PM |
Great read, Joel! Just put that bad boy back in OTC-trim and give the field "the business". :)
BP
Director, OTC
[url]www.opentrackchallenge.com[/url]
[img]http://www.opentrackchallenge.com/images/03/OTC03frontpage.jpg[/img]
BP
Director, OTC
[url]www.opentrackchallenge.com[/url]
[img]http://www.opentrackchallenge.com/images/03/OTC03frontpage.jpg[/img]
| enduroshark | 11-06-2002 04:09 PM |
Great stuff, Joel and Gary!!
--
Ony Anglade
--
Ony Anglade
| Joel Gat, 1.8L | 11-07-2002 04:22 AM |
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Kostamojen [/i]
[B]My car has more oversteer than garys does, and I just have a rear WRX sedan bar with kartboy endlinks :p [/B][/QUOTE]
Hello,
I just realized why this is. I've been thinking too hard about it. It's quite simple, I just forgot that you're running very soft springs, relatively speaking. [i]I'll [b]make up[/b] some numbers to demonstrate, and they're specifically chosen to make the math easier in the end of the post[/i]:
Front Springs: 200 lbs/in, 1:1 ratio
Front Bar: 400 lbs/in, 2:1 ratio
Effective front spring rate: 500 lbs/in
Rear Springs: 200 lbs/in, 1:1 ratio
Rear Bar: 200 lbs/in, 2:1 ratio
Effective rear spring rate: 300 lbs/in
[b]Front to Rear ratio: 400:300[/b]
On this made up chassis, this distribution results in understeer. Now swap in COOLREARBAR, which has a spring rate of 600 lbs/in. Still a 2:1 ratio.
[i]New Effective rear spring rate: 500[/i]
[b]Front to Rear ratio, with COOLREARBAR: 400:500[/b]
On this particular chassis, this distribution results in slight oversteer. All that tells us is that, ignoring all the other factors that go into this, 400:300 (1.3:1): at front to rear ratios greater than 1.3:1, the car for sure understeers. 400:500 (.8:1), at front to rear ratios less than 0.8:1, the car oversteers. We don't know what happens between 1.3 and 0.8.
Now, let's give the car racecar spring rates and give it COOLREARBAR to start off with and disconnect the front swaybar.
Front Springs: 700 lbs/in, 1:1 ratio
Front Bar: 0 lbs/in, 2:1 ratio
Effective front spring rate: 700 lbs/in
Rear Springs: 500 lbs/in, 1:1 ratio
Rear Bar: 600 lbs/in, 2:1 ratio
Effective rear spring rate: 800 lbs/in
[b]Front to Rear ratio: 700:800 (.875:1)[/b]
Therein lies the problem. With COOLREARBAR, which makes the stock car exhibit some oversteer (I hear that the car handles pretty neutrally, with a slight oversteer tendancy, if you have stock suspension plus the whiteline bar we used on the racecar), the race car doesn't have a good enough front to rear ratio, even with no front bar, to get oversteer. [i]These numbers aren't exact, but they illustrate the problem well.[/i]
Now, in an ideal world (well, an ideal world within these hypothetical numbers), we'll get that 0.8:1 ratio (please don't forget that it's not just this ratio that determines how the car handles... we're GREATLY simplifying for the purposes of this example) with bars at both ends... for example, we could aim for using the stock front bar and lighter springs:
Front Springs: 600 lbs/in, 1:1 ratio
Front Bar: 400 lbs/in, 2:1 ratio
Effective front spring rate: 800 lbs/in
Rear Springs: 500 lbs/in, 1:1 ratio
Rear Bar: 1000 lbs/in, 2:1 ratio
Effective rear spring rate: 1000 lbs/in
[b]Front to Rear ratio: 800:1000 (.8:1)[/b]
Voila, the numbers worked out as I planned in the begining of the post. But you see, to get that same ratio with the much heavier springs, we needed a 1000 lbs/in bar instead of COOLREARBAR, which was only 600 (and stock was 200, so COOLREARBAR was already a drastic bar upgrade for a stock car).
That's how we can have terrible understeer while you have oversteer, while using the same bar. Meanwhile, we can't have the poor handling (again, relatively speaking) associated with such low spring rates, so we need the high "effective spring rates" at all the corners.
Now I think that makes some sense. Here I was wondering if all my suspension math over the last nearly two seasons had gone terribly wrong if Kosta's car is oversteering and I can't get the racecar to do it! :eek:
PHEW!
Joel :lol:
[B]My car has more oversteer than garys does, and I just have a rear WRX sedan bar with kartboy endlinks :p [/B][/QUOTE]
Hello,
I just realized why this is. I've been thinking too hard about it. It's quite simple, I just forgot that you're running very soft springs, relatively speaking. [i]I'll [b]make up[/b] some numbers to demonstrate, and they're specifically chosen to make the math easier in the end of the post[/i]:
Front Springs: 200 lbs/in, 1:1 ratio
Front Bar: 400 lbs/in, 2:1 ratio
Effective front spring rate: 500 lbs/in
Rear Springs: 200 lbs/in, 1:1 ratio
Rear Bar: 200 lbs/in, 2:1 ratio
Effective rear spring rate: 300 lbs/in
[b]Front to Rear ratio: 400:300[/b]
On this made up chassis, this distribution results in understeer. Now swap in COOLREARBAR, which has a spring rate of 600 lbs/in. Still a 2:1 ratio.
[i]New Effective rear spring rate: 500[/i]
[b]Front to Rear ratio, with COOLREARBAR: 400:500[/b]
On this particular chassis, this distribution results in slight oversteer. All that tells us is that, ignoring all the other factors that go into this, 400:300 (1.3:1): at front to rear ratios greater than 1.3:1, the car for sure understeers. 400:500 (.8:1), at front to rear ratios less than 0.8:1, the car oversteers. We don't know what happens between 1.3 and 0.8.
Now, let's give the car racecar spring rates and give it COOLREARBAR to start off with and disconnect the front swaybar.
Front Springs: 700 lbs/in, 1:1 ratio
Front Bar: 0 lbs/in, 2:1 ratio
Effective front spring rate: 700 lbs/in
Rear Springs: 500 lbs/in, 1:1 ratio
Rear Bar: 600 lbs/in, 2:1 ratio
Effective rear spring rate: 800 lbs/in
[b]Front to Rear ratio: 700:800 (.875:1)[/b]
Therein lies the problem. With COOLREARBAR, which makes the stock car exhibit some oversteer (I hear that the car handles pretty neutrally, with a slight oversteer tendancy, if you have stock suspension plus the whiteline bar we used on the racecar), the race car doesn't have a good enough front to rear ratio, even with no front bar, to get oversteer. [i]These numbers aren't exact, but they illustrate the problem well.[/i]
Now, in an ideal world (well, an ideal world within these hypothetical numbers), we'll get that 0.8:1 ratio (please don't forget that it's not just this ratio that determines how the car handles... we're GREATLY simplifying for the purposes of this example) with bars at both ends... for example, we could aim for using the stock front bar and lighter springs:
Front Springs: 600 lbs/in, 1:1 ratio
Front Bar: 400 lbs/in, 2:1 ratio
Effective front spring rate: 800 lbs/in
Rear Springs: 500 lbs/in, 1:1 ratio
Rear Bar: 1000 lbs/in, 2:1 ratio
Effective rear spring rate: 1000 lbs/in
[b]Front to Rear ratio: 800:1000 (.8:1)[/b]
Voila, the numbers worked out as I planned in the begining of the post. But you see, to get that same ratio with the much heavier springs, we needed a 1000 lbs/in bar instead of COOLREARBAR, which was only 600 (and stock was 200, so COOLREARBAR was already a drastic bar upgrade for a stock car).
That's how we can have terrible understeer while you have oversteer, while using the same bar. Meanwhile, we can't have the poor handling (again, relatively speaking) associated with such low spring rates, so we need the high "effective spring rates" at all the corners.
Now I think that makes some sense. Here I was wondering if all my suspension math over the last nearly two seasons had gone terribly wrong if Kosta's car is oversteering and I can't get the racecar to do it! :eek:
PHEW!
Joel :lol:
| 8Complex | 11-07-2002 09:52 AM |
I still think you may have too much camber in the front... or too little in the rear for that matter.:p
Controlled oversteer via. contact patch. :)
Controlled oversteer via. contact patch. :)
| Joel Gat, 1.8L | 11-07-2002 12:57 PM |
Hello,
Colin, the camber is only "slightly" adjustable. At the "correct" camber, you get even temps across the tires. If you change the camber while you have even temps, then you are reducing the grip at that end. So, for example, if we stand up the front wheels, like you're suggesting, we'll have less grip in front in cornering and we'll have more understeer. Not only that, but we'd start wearing the outside shoulder and we'd be turning on the sidewall. We use the entire tire and get even tire temps at most tracks with only super minor adjustments.
The right answer (if you wanted to play with camber) would be to straighten the rear wheels, which would reduce their grip on the corners (since they're currently showing even temperature spreads). That would give us oversteer, but it would give us oversteer by reducing rear grip.
We'd much rather increase front grip than reduce rear grip. You can do that by going to softer springs in front, raising the rear ride height (adding rake to the car), etc. But any of those tricks are somewhat fine tuning while you don't have the overall balance you're looking for... using calipers to measure something that's off by several feet is just plain silly :)
Joel
Colin, the camber is only "slightly" adjustable. At the "correct" camber, you get even temps across the tires. If you change the camber while you have even temps, then you are reducing the grip at that end. So, for example, if we stand up the front wheels, like you're suggesting, we'll have less grip in front in cornering and we'll have more understeer. Not only that, but we'd start wearing the outside shoulder and we'd be turning on the sidewall. We use the entire tire and get even tire temps at most tracks with only super minor adjustments.
The right answer (if you wanted to play with camber) would be to straighten the rear wheels, which would reduce their grip on the corners (since they're currently showing even temperature spreads). That would give us oversteer, but it would give us oversteer by reducing rear grip.
We'd much rather increase front grip than reduce rear grip. You can do that by going to softer springs in front, raising the rear ride height (adding rake to the car), etc. But any of those tricks are somewhat fine tuning while you don't have the overall balance you're looking for... using calipers to measure something that's off by several feet is just plain silly :)
Joel
| 8Complex | 11-07-2002 01:45 PM |
FYI, I'm Nick. ;)
Ahhh, didn't realize the fronts were so square. Just a thought, but if it warms up the tires on the inside on straights, and on the outside during cornering (creating even heat across the face in the end), wouldn't taking more wear on the inside (increasing front negative camber) cause for a more flat contact patch while cornering?
True on the rear camber. Was thinking backwards (as usual).
Perhaps you can fabricate a 3/8-1/2" thick spacer to fit between the rear strut tops and the tower undersides to raise the rear CoG a bit... would be cheaper then springs if you have some aluminum stock on hand to play around with.
Ahhh, didn't realize the fronts were so square. Just a thought, but if it warms up the tires on the inside on straights, and on the outside during cornering (creating even heat across the face in the end), wouldn't taking more wear on the inside (increasing front negative camber) cause for a more flat contact patch while cornering?
True on the rear camber. Was thinking backwards (as usual).
Perhaps you can fabricate a 3/8-1/2" thick spacer to fit between the rear strut tops and the tower undersides to raise the rear CoG a bit... would be cheaper then springs if you have some aluminum stock on hand to play around with.
| dnauts | 11-07-2002 03:20 PM |
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Joel Gat, 1.8L [/i]
[B]
Jack: We are already using the stiffest commerically available Subaru rear swaybar AND no front swaybar. We have tried alignments from one extreme to the other (lots of toe-out in the rear sure makes the car go 'round quickly, but doesn't really help with [i]handling[/i] - and alignment tricks like that, front or rear, really kill the tires too quickly for 30-50 minute races.
Joel [/B][/QUOTE]
Have you tried setting up the rear bushings for dynamic alignment changes? In other words,... play around with staggered front and rear durometer lateral link bushings in order to get some rear toe-out under cornering loads. It seems like something similar might work? At least to limit initial suspension loading at corner entry, or to settle the car in a steady (neutral throttle) state corner over bumps and pavement changes (if that is even the problem). Different bushes would kill transistions and turn-in up front, but would they be so detrimental out back?
[B]
Jack: We are already using the stiffest commerically available Subaru rear swaybar AND no front swaybar. We have tried alignments from one extreme to the other (lots of toe-out in the rear sure makes the car go 'round quickly, but doesn't really help with [i]handling[/i] - and alignment tricks like that, front or rear, really kill the tires too quickly for 30-50 minute races.
Joel [/B][/QUOTE]
Have you tried setting up the rear bushings for dynamic alignment changes? In other words,... play around with staggered front and rear durometer lateral link bushings in order to get some rear toe-out under cornering loads. It seems like something similar might work? At least to limit initial suspension loading at corner entry, or to settle the car in a steady (neutral throttle) state corner over bumps and pavement changes (if that is even the problem). Different bushes would kill transistions and turn-in up front, but would they be so detrimental out back?
| Kostamojen | 11-08-2002 01:15 AM |
BTW Joel, Im running on KYB AGX's with 325f/250r Ground Control coilover springs... I usually run the AGX's at setting 2 in the front, and 7 or 8 in the rear for racing.
And ya, the front/rear weight and spring differences might acount for it... Since my car only weighs in the 2600lbs range and without the turbo + stuff I have what a 55/45 weight ratio or so? Makes sense that the WRX has too much understeer... I knew there was some reason I wanted to stay N/A if I ever went all out on my car :lol:
Have you thought about moving the ballast to the rear seat area instead of in the passanger seat? That might help too.
And ya, the front/rear weight and spring differences might acount for it... Since my car only weighs in the 2600lbs range and without the turbo + stuff I have what a 55/45 weight ratio or so? Makes sense that the WRX has too much understeer... I knew there was some reason I wanted to stay N/A if I ever went all out on my car :lol:
Have you thought about moving the ballast to the rear seat area instead of in the passanger seat? That might help too.
| Joel Gat, 1.8L | 11-08-2002 02:27 AM |
Hello,
Wow, I never thought this thread would go so far down this tangent. :)
Nick, for some reason I read 8Complex as ColinL. I think I should sleep more. And stop surfing the dang i-club so much.
dnauts, in an ideal world, we'd get rid of all of the crappy unpredictability that comes with soft bushings. For a race car to handle at its best, it should flex only where it's supposed to flex and only in the directions it's supposed to move. So, if our new suspension setup works well for us, then we'll start with the fine tuning. If we can do it right (maybe we'll drag Tom @ Kartboy up here to help, since I [i]know[/i] he can do it waaaay better than we can), we'll repalce all of the bushings with solid metal bushings. Then everything will be predictable.
Of course, for street cars, that would send NVH through the roof AND metal bushings wear out, and you would hate to be replacing them once or more per year in a street car...
Kosta, we have thought about other placements of the weights and have played with it. Moving the weight rearward also means moving it upwards. The rear seat area is over the fuel tank - and thus more than a foot higher than the front seats and the foot area for the back seat. Raising the CG that much increases roll and other such things... then we'd be back to stiffer springs and/or even stiffer bars :p
Of course, if someone wants to [i]give[/i] us a nice fuel cell (16+ gallons), we'll do the labor of fabricating a mount system for it and move the weights into the stock fuel tank location... That would be ideal. Further back and low under the car.
Joel
Wow, I never thought this thread would go so far down this tangent. :)
Nick, for some reason I read 8Complex as ColinL. I think I should sleep more. And stop surfing the dang i-club so much.
dnauts, in an ideal world, we'd get rid of all of the crappy unpredictability that comes with soft bushings. For a race car to handle at its best, it should flex only where it's supposed to flex and only in the directions it's supposed to move. So, if our new suspension setup works well for us, then we'll start with the fine tuning. If we can do it right (maybe we'll drag Tom @ Kartboy up here to help, since I [i]know[/i] he can do it waaaay better than we can), we'll repalce all of the bushings with solid metal bushings. Then everything will be predictable.
Of course, for street cars, that would send NVH through the roof AND metal bushings wear out, and you would hate to be replacing them once or more per year in a street car...
Kosta, we have thought about other placements of the weights and have played with it. Moving the weight rearward also means moving it upwards. The rear seat area is over the fuel tank - and thus more than a foot higher than the front seats and the foot area for the back seat. Raising the CG that much increases roll and other such things... then we'd be back to stiffer springs and/or even stiffer bars :p
Of course, if someone wants to [i]give[/i] us a nice fuel cell (16+ gallons), we'll do the labor of fabricating a mount system for it and move the weights into the stock fuel tank location... That would be ideal. Further back and low under the car.
Joel
| Kostamojen | 11-08-2002 03:48 AM |
Weight is still weight though, even with stiffer springs and such you do have a bad F/R ratio going... Are you allowed to put ballast UNDER the car? LOL
| WRSport | 11-08-2002 04:23 AM |
Wow. this thread went all over the place...very cool
| Joel Gat, 1.8L | 11-08-2002 04:33 AM |
Hello,
Kosta, if not, we can always put it [i]in[/i] the stock gas tank... I mean, if someone drops a fuel cell onto our laps. :)
The balance of the car is being fixed by the bars. We should have a good rear bar early next week. That alone (being able to run proper spring rates) should give us a nice jump on the BMW.
Of course, we won't complain if the storms we're seeing these days stay right here, through the next race. I mean, we can win the race in the dry, but it would be nice to lap the entire field, eh? :)
WRSport - yeah, lots of good discussion. It's cool to see how people are thinking. 8Complex obviously autocrosses :) You can see it in how he suggests affecting the handling changes. Seeing people's perspective is very interesting. And I hope my posts are at least somewhat informative/useful. :lol:
Joel
Kosta, if not, we can always put it [i]in[/i] the stock gas tank... I mean, if someone drops a fuel cell onto our laps. :)
The balance of the car is being fixed by the bars. We should have a good rear bar early next week. That alone (being able to run proper spring rates) should give us a nice jump on the BMW.
Of course, we won't complain if the storms we're seeing these days stay right here, through the next race. I mean, we can win the race in the dry, but it would be nice to lap the entire field, eh? :)
WRSport - yeah, lots of good discussion. It's cool to see how people are thinking. 8Complex obviously autocrosses :) You can see it in how he suggests affecting the handling changes. Seeing people's perspective is very interesting. And I hope my posts are at least somewhat informative/useful. :lol:
Joel
| 8Complex | 11-08-2002 11:05 AM |
Joel - Figured as much. :)
BTW, wouldn't you want to move weight low and forward rather then rear and upward? Weght=grip... the only thing that moving it rear would do is create more snap oversteer.
Heh, far off tangent, but it's good to get external ideas sometimes. :)
BTW, wouldn't you want to move weight low and forward rather then rear and upward? Weght=grip... the only thing that moving it rear would do is create more snap oversteer.
Heh, far off tangent, but it's good to get external ideas sometimes. :)
| dnauts | 11-08-2002 01:32 PM |
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Joel Gat, 1.8L [/i]
[B]
The balance of the car is being fixed by the bars. We should have a good rear bar early next week. That alone (being able to run proper spring rates) should give us a nice jump on the BMW.
Joel [/B][/QUOTE]
Are you guys designing a 3-piece torsion bar style sway bar? Or a spring steel 1-piece "street" style bar? If you're trying to limit suspension deflection, the torsion bar has the added benefit of limiting lateral deflection more effectively than the 1-piece bar.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Joel Gat, 1.8L [/i]
[B]
We'd much rather increase front grip than reduce rear grip. You can do that by going to softer springs in front, raising the rear ride height (adding rake to the car), etc. But any of those tricks are somewhat fine tuning while you don't have the overall balance you're looking for... using calipers to measure something that's off by several feet is just plain silly
Joel [/B][/QUOTE]
In my own suspension setup nightmare I've found it MUCH more rewarding to deal with the "other" end of the car when trying to sort out oversteer/understeer problems. Then, once I've found the neutral balance, try to work back more grip with the small adjustments. I always end up with a car that eats less tire, needs less negative camber, is more predictable, less prone to snap around on me, with a slower feel and faster times. Why are your guys choosing to deal with the problem end first?
[B]
The balance of the car is being fixed by the bars. We should have a good rear bar early next week. That alone (being able to run proper spring rates) should give us a nice jump on the BMW.
Joel [/B][/QUOTE]
Are you guys designing a 3-piece torsion bar style sway bar? Or a spring steel 1-piece "street" style bar? If you're trying to limit suspension deflection, the torsion bar has the added benefit of limiting lateral deflection more effectively than the 1-piece bar.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Joel Gat, 1.8L [/i]
[B]
We'd much rather increase front grip than reduce rear grip. You can do that by going to softer springs in front, raising the rear ride height (adding rake to the car), etc. But any of those tricks are somewhat fine tuning while you don't have the overall balance you're looking for... using calipers to measure something that's off by several feet is just plain silly
Joel [/B][/QUOTE]
In my own suspension setup nightmare I've found it MUCH more rewarding to deal with the "other" end of the car when trying to sort out oversteer/understeer problems. Then, once I've found the neutral balance, try to work back more grip with the small adjustments. I always end up with a car that eats less tire, needs less negative camber, is more predictable, less prone to snap around on me, with a slower feel and faster times. Why are your guys choosing to deal with the problem end first?
| dnauts | 11-08-2002 03:11 PM |
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by dnauts [/i]
[B]
Are you guys designing a 3-piece torsion bar style sway bar? Or a spring steel 1-piece "street" style bar? If you're trying to limit suspension deflection, the torsion bar has the added benefit of limiting lateral deflection more effectively than the 1-piece bar.
[/B][/QUOTE]
Oops,... I was thinking something else. To limit the lateral deflection you would need to have the endlinks on the bar "locate" the rear hub,... which would violate the "serves no other purpose" part of the suspension rules. Ever seen the front bar design on an early Ford Capri? The bar is part of the front a-arm, effectively working like a front lateral link.
A definite merit of the 3-piece bar is the reduced buckling that a 1-piece bar exhibits when twisted. You had said that there were problems associated with different manufacturers swaybar design of similar diameter,... different number of bends, lever arm lengths, and length of working bar. The 3-piece bar would certainly become a known part of the equation, as opposed to "I wonder how stiff this bar is?"
[B]
Are you guys designing a 3-piece torsion bar style sway bar? Or a spring steel 1-piece "street" style bar? If you're trying to limit suspension deflection, the torsion bar has the added benefit of limiting lateral deflection more effectively than the 1-piece bar.
[/B][/QUOTE]
Oops,... I was thinking something else. To limit the lateral deflection you would need to have the endlinks on the bar "locate" the rear hub,... which would violate the "serves no other purpose" part of the suspension rules. Ever seen the front bar design on an early Ford Capri? The bar is part of the front a-arm, effectively working like a front lateral link.
A definite merit of the 3-piece bar is the reduced buckling that a 1-piece bar exhibits when twisted. You had said that there were problems associated with different manufacturers swaybar design of similar diameter,... different number of bends, lever arm lengths, and length of working bar. The 3-piece bar would certainly become a known part of the equation, as opposed to "I wonder how stiff this bar is?"
| Joel Gat, 1.8L | 11-08-2002 03:57 PM |
Hello,
When you get a bar from a racing vendor, they will give you the exact rate of the bar. It's only street vendors that don't know the rates of their own bars. :) Plus, there are machines that many race fabrication shops have that determine the overall rate of the bar (deflection and torsion). 3-piece (or more commonly, 2-piece) bars need to be tested the same way as one-piece bars, because at the varying angles of the deflection arm, it's deflection changes, so the total movement is a function of that deflection and the torsion. It can be calculated, but in the end, there's just an "effective" rate for the bar.
Nick, re weight=grip, weight=momentum. Weight over the fronts will want to continue moving straight after you start to turn it. It will make the end that it's on continue moving in the direction it was before. Weight in front will make the front go straight, ie understeer, and in the rear, will make the rear go straight (while the front is turning), ie oversteer.
Joel
When you get a bar from a racing vendor, they will give you the exact rate of the bar. It's only street vendors that don't know the rates of their own bars. :) Plus, there are machines that many race fabrication shops have that determine the overall rate of the bar (deflection and torsion). 3-piece (or more commonly, 2-piece) bars need to be tested the same way as one-piece bars, because at the varying angles of the deflection arm, it's deflection changes, so the total movement is a function of that deflection and the torsion. It can be calculated, but in the end, there's just an "effective" rate for the bar.
Nick, re weight=grip, weight=momentum. Weight over the fronts will want to continue moving straight after you start to turn it. It will make the end that it's on continue moving in the direction it was before. Weight in front will make the front go straight, ie understeer, and in the rear, will make the rear go straight (while the front is turning), ie oversteer.
Joel
| MPREZYA | 11-08-2002 04:22 PM |
Umm Kosta unless you bought some springs you have your spring rates completely wrong. They are 275F and 225R not 325F 250R.
Hey Joel is the car still running the 5mph bumpers?
Maybe you should put the rear 5mph bumper beam back in if you still have it and it's not on :p .
Hey Joel is the car still running the 5mph bumpers?
Maybe you should put the rear 5mph bumper beam back in if you still have it and it's not on :p .
| Kostamojen | 11-09-2002 02:31 AM |
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by MPREZYA [/i]
[B]Umm Kosta unless you bought some springs you have your spring rates completely wrong. They are 275F and 225R not 325F 250R.
[/B][/QUOTE]
You told me 325!!! Oh well... 275/225 then
[B]Umm Kosta unless you bought some springs you have your spring rates completely wrong. They are 275F and 225R not 325F 250R.
[/B][/QUOTE]
You told me 325!!! Oh well... 275/225 then
| Kostamojen | 11-09-2002 02:34 AM |
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by 8Complex [/i]
[B]BTW, wouldn't you want to move weight low and forward rather then rear and upward? Weght=grip... the only thing that moving it rear would do is create more snap oversteer.
[/B][/QUOTE]
Not necessarily snap oversteer, but nice controled oversteer... Thats what you do want, and just some minor weight movement wont cause snap oversteer that easily. It took an alignment change, and a rear swaybar/endlink change to get my car to snap, and it still snaps totally within controlable limits :p I have yet to come close to spinning out this car!
P.S. Joel, ever think that maybe a wagon would work? :lol:
[B]BTW, wouldn't you want to move weight low and forward rather then rear and upward? Weght=grip... the only thing that moving it rear would do is create more snap oversteer.
[/B][/QUOTE]
Not necessarily snap oversteer, but nice controled oversteer... Thats what you do want, and just some minor weight movement wont cause snap oversteer that easily. It took an alignment change, and a rear swaybar/endlink change to get my car to snap, and it still snaps totally within controlable limits :p I have yet to come close to spinning out this car!
P.S. Joel, ever think that maybe a wagon would work? :lol:
| Joel Gat, 1.8L | 11-11-2002 04:17 AM |
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by 8Complex [/i]
[B]I suppose as a last resort, you could try getting 0.5-1" longer springs for the rear in order to raise the center of gravity in relation to the roll center in the rear. [/B][/QUOTE]
[B][QUOTE]Perhaps you can fabricate a 3/8-1/2" thick spacer to fit between the rear strut tops and the tower undersides to raise the rear CoG a bit... would be cheaper then springs if you have some aluminum stock on hand to play around with[/B][/QUOTE]
Hello,
I just saw these. Uhh, or I could turn the ride height adjustment to move the car 3 or 4 inches higher, if I want. Or maybe slam it another inch? :) Hee hee... Longer springs! Spacers! Oh my!
[quote][b]Controlled oversteer via. contact patch.[/b][/quote]
And not to pick on Nick, but... :) This is a common autocross technique. I learned the very same technique when I was autocrossing. The problem is that there is one proper contact patch size. That's it. As much of the tire as you can get down on the track. That's the right contact patch. Any less, and you're not using all of the tire you have available. Any more and uhh, you're violating some rule of physics or you're using the sidewalls for something you shouldn't be!
Techniques such as changing contact patch size, changing toe, etc., are really all desperate measures when it comes to road racing or track days. The reason is simple. In an autocross, you drive 8-16 minutes per day. Maybe, if your region isn't crouded and you get LOTS of fun runs, you might touch 20 minutes. On the track, you get 20-50 minutes per session and you get 3-5 sessions in a day. Any alignment issues, like toe out, too much or too little camber, etc., all result in excess wear, which, over the period of 60-250 minutes in a day, means time to go buy new tires. Add to that the rather not-too-cheap nature of Hoosiers, and you've got quite an expensive proposition on your hands.
If you downloaded the race video that Gary put up [url=http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=267184]here[/url] (the 60 meg version, not the 7 meg version), you will see that at some point, the car completely gives up its ability to stick to the track. If you watch the end of the race - ie, the cooldown lap - you'll also hear something telling. You hear it in other places in the race, but you the place that really surprised me was the cool down lap. Any guesses as to what I'm talking about?
Any guesses as to what that sound is coming from? Or why the car might be making that sound? I'll give you a hint. We were getting to the point of "what the heck can we do now to make this car handle?" And frankly, we did what we could, but it wasn't the right answer...
BTW, in that race, if you haven't seen it yet, there were some cool action shots. Like when Gary decided to borrow Hutto's brakes... you know, let Hutto do the slowing down for both cars! Or when Gary took a nice little trip off road. :) Worth watching if you're interested in racing and/or track stuff with your scooby.
Joel
[B]I suppose as a last resort, you could try getting 0.5-1" longer springs for the rear in order to raise the center of gravity in relation to the roll center in the rear. [/B][/QUOTE]
[B][QUOTE]Perhaps you can fabricate a 3/8-1/2" thick spacer to fit between the rear strut tops and the tower undersides to raise the rear CoG a bit... would be cheaper then springs if you have some aluminum stock on hand to play around with[/B][/QUOTE]
Hello,
I just saw these. Uhh, or I could turn the ride height adjustment to move the car 3 or 4 inches higher, if I want. Or maybe slam it another inch? :) Hee hee... Longer springs! Spacers! Oh my!
[quote][b]Controlled oversteer via. contact patch.[/b][/quote]
And not to pick on Nick, but... :) This is a common autocross technique. I learned the very same technique when I was autocrossing. The problem is that there is one proper contact patch size. That's it. As much of the tire as you can get down on the track. That's the right contact patch. Any less, and you're not using all of the tire you have available. Any more and uhh, you're violating some rule of physics or you're using the sidewalls for something you shouldn't be!
Techniques such as changing contact patch size, changing toe, etc., are really all desperate measures when it comes to road racing or track days. The reason is simple. In an autocross, you drive 8-16 minutes per day. Maybe, if your region isn't crouded and you get LOTS of fun runs, you might touch 20 minutes. On the track, you get 20-50 minutes per session and you get 3-5 sessions in a day. Any alignment issues, like toe out, too much or too little camber, etc., all result in excess wear, which, over the period of 60-250 minutes in a day, means time to go buy new tires. Add to that the rather not-too-cheap nature of Hoosiers, and you've got quite an expensive proposition on your hands.
If you downloaded the race video that Gary put up [url=http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=267184]here[/url] (the 60 meg version, not the 7 meg version), you will see that at some point, the car completely gives up its ability to stick to the track. If you watch the end of the race - ie, the cooldown lap - you'll also hear something telling. You hear it in other places in the race, but you the place that really surprised me was the cool down lap. Any guesses as to what I'm talking about?
Any guesses as to what that sound is coming from? Or why the car might be making that sound? I'll give you a hint. We were getting to the point of "what the heck can we do now to make this car handle?" And frankly, we did what we could, but it wasn't the right answer...
BTW, in that race, if you haven't seen it yet, there were some cool action shots. Like when Gary decided to borrow Hutto's brakes... you know, let Hutto do the slowing down for both cars! Or when Gary took a nice little trip off road. :) Worth watching if you're interested in racing and/or track stuff with your scooby.
Joel
| Storm | 11-11-2002 11:53 PM |
Very nice stuff, Joel! In your quest for handling and numourous spring changes, do you have springs you'd like to unload (sell)?
We're currently looking for some 600-650lb springs in a 2.5"id by 7-9" in length.
Who are you going to for your springs? Hypercoils? Eibach? I've been looking all over for something that will work without blowing our budget. Circle track equipment (Afco, Hypercoil, etc...)isn't too pricy, but the amount of usable stuff is pretty slim pickin's....
TIA,
Jay Storm
[url]www.sourcemotorsports.com[/url]
We're currently looking for some 600-650lb springs in a 2.5"id by 7-9" in length.
Who are you going to for your springs? Hypercoils? Eibach? I've been looking all over for something that will work without blowing our budget. Circle track equipment (Afco, Hypercoil, etc...)isn't too pricy, but the amount of usable stuff is pretty slim pickin's....
TIA,
Jay Storm
[url]www.sourcemotorsports.com[/url]
| Kostamojen | 11-12-2002 02:25 AM |
I cant answer your question joel cause I couldnt get it downloaded :( its just too big for my and my 56k modem! :( :(
| Zahnster | 11-12-2002 12:49 PM |
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Kostamojen [/i]
[B]I cant answer your question joel cause I couldnt get it downloaded :( its just too big for my and my 56k modem! :( :( [/B][/QUOTE]
Show up [URL=http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=255148&perpage=50&pagenumber=1]Thursday night[/URL] and I can bring you a CD-R of it.
Edit: How many laps was that? Felt like 3 or 4 maybe. Not sure what kind of noise to listen for so didn't notice anything mysef.
Dan
[B]I cant answer your question joel cause I couldnt get it downloaded :( its just too big for my and my 56k modem! :( :( [/B][/QUOTE]
Show up [URL=http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=255148&perpage=50&pagenumber=1]Thursday night[/URL] and I can bring you a CD-R of it.
Edit: How many laps was that? Felt like 3 or 4 maybe. Not sure what kind of noise to listen for so didn't notice anything mysef.
Dan
| Suba_Roo | 11-12-2002 02:06 PM |
Strategy vs. Handling
I just watched the whole race movie, it definitely was eyeopening.
What I thought was interesting was the strategy that Gary was using. It was pretty clear that the plan was to do whatever it took to get into 1st right away and then try to hold off the Bimmers for the whole race. It seemed like Gary kept trying to take an inside line on the Bimmer and hope to force the Bimmer to slow.
Since you guys knew that the car had understeer issues, it would make sense to me that the best strategy would be, try to get into second at the start. Then just take the ideal racing line, and stay right behind the Bimmer and hope he makes a mistake.
Trying to go 110% from the start would seem to me to overstress the tires from the start, and make it harder to stay in 1st if you got there.
Perhaps a slight strategy revision could go farther than some desperate handling changes.
Either way with every Bay Area i-club member doing the rain dance for Sears Point, the series win should be a no brainer right?
What I thought was interesting was the strategy that Gary was using. It was pretty clear that the plan was to do whatever it took to get into 1st right away and then try to hold off the Bimmers for the whole race. It seemed like Gary kept trying to take an inside line on the Bimmer and hope to force the Bimmer to slow.
Since you guys knew that the car had understeer issues, it would make sense to me that the best strategy would be, try to get into second at the start. Then just take the ideal racing line, and stay right behind the Bimmer and hope he makes a mistake.
Trying to go 110% from the start would seem to me to overstress the tires from the start, and make it harder to stay in 1st if you got there.
Perhaps a slight strategy revision could go farther than some desperate handling changes.
Either way with every Bay Area i-club member doing the rain dance for Sears Point, the series win should be a no brainer right?
| GarySheehan | 11-12-2002 02:15 PM |
Suba_Roo,
I disagree with your strategy. We had a slower car that day. Plain and simple. With the weight we were carrying and the understeer issues, the car would only get worse as the race went on. There would be no way to keep the BMW from getting away from me if given a clear track and no trouble from behind.
My strategy was to try and get in front at the beginning of the race, then play defense, making it very difficult to pass. I am fairly comfortable driving defensively. The beginning of the strategy worked, as I was able to force Hutto into a mistake on the first lap by staying in his mirrors. Later in the race, Hutto missed a shift and I was able to get by.
I made a big mistake at one point where the car understeered like crazy and let Hutto get past me again (I wasn't too worried about Sofronas in the WC BMW as my race wasn't with him). As you can see, the BMW's walked away from that point on.
If my car was handling well and I was confident I could save the car, running in 2nd is a good idea. For the Vegas race, it didn't fit the circumstances.
Gary
Sheehan Motor Racing
[url]www.teamSMR.com[/url]
I disagree with your strategy. We had a slower car that day. Plain and simple. With the weight we were carrying and the understeer issues, the car would only get worse as the race went on. There would be no way to keep the BMW from getting away from me if given a clear track and no trouble from behind.
My strategy was to try and get in front at the beginning of the race, then play defense, making it very difficult to pass. I am fairly comfortable driving defensively. The beginning of the strategy worked, as I was able to force Hutto into a mistake on the first lap by staying in his mirrors. Later in the race, Hutto missed a shift and I was able to get by.
I made a big mistake at one point where the car understeered like crazy and let Hutto get past me again (I wasn't too worried about Sofronas in the WC BMW as my race wasn't with him). As you can see, the BMW's walked away from that point on.
If my car was handling well and I was confident I could save the car, running in 2nd is a good idea. For the Vegas race, it didn't fit the circumstances.
Gary
Sheehan Motor Racing
[url]www.teamSMR.com[/url]
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