It’s been months since last I blogged, but there hasn’t been much to blog about. As spring rolls in, however, the racing season will once again get under way and I’ll try to report on a more regular basis.
In the off-season I’ve worked with AJ, Bobby, and Chris to make some modifications to the car in hopes of finding a little more acceleration and straight line speed. It may not seem to be related, but the first thing we did was change from the original Volkswagen Jetta brakes to some Wilwood racing brakes. The primary reason to do this was some braking problems I had last year. I lost the brakes completely on one race weekend, and as I got more comfortable with racing I was braking harder as I approached corners and found that even when I stomped the brake pedal all the way to the floor the braking performance was still not up to what I expected or needed. Also, since I ended up pushing the brake pedal all the way to the floor it was very difficult to do heel-and-toe downshifting. I was trying to “blip the throttle” with my ankle instead of my heel. AJ explained that in the Jetta the brakes had a vacuum assist that is not present in the race car. The new racing brakes have a much shorter pedal travel. The interesting thing we discovered upon installing the new brakes was that the old brakes apparently had a small amount of drag on each wheel. With the car off the ground if you tried to spin one of the wheels it would go about ¼ to ½ revolution. With the new brakes installed a spin yields several full revolutions before coming to a stop. So – it was as if I was just slightly dragging the brakes the whole time I was driving. I’m thinking that getting rid of that drag should feel like getting another 5 or 10 horsepower. And – I get improved braking performance to boot. Bobby also had to modify the wheels just slightly and that ended up taking about a pound off of each wheel.
The other principle change that we’ve made has been aerodynamic. If you look at the picture of the car you’ll notice that there is a fairing where the upper wishbone of the front suspension passes through the body. But you’ll also notice that there are no fairings where other suspension parts go through – so AJ added those – not to every place but to several more. You’ll also notice that there is a fairly distinctive joint where the nose body-work joins the main tub. So – James, one of AJ’s guys, worked pretty hard on making that gap as small and smooth as possible. On the engine cover there is a small scoop – one on each side – that used to provide vital cooling air to the engine. Those scoops are no longer needed, so they were removed. The last aerodynamic change is one that is still in progress. AJ noted from the videos that especially on high speed straights the air flowing over the cockpit was buffeting my head around quite a bit. He recommended two things – first he wants me to sit lower in the car which basically means scooting down a bit in the seat. To do that we needed to move the whole set of pedals forward a little. We’ve done that, I just haven’t had a chance to drive yet to see how much good it does to reduce how much of my head/helmet is in the airstream. The other thing we’ll do is to put in a small “windshield” to deflect air over my head. Since we have no wind tunnel we have to wait for on-track sessions in order to evaluate the results.
The first opportunity to be on track this year was April 16-17 which also happened to be Palm Sunday weekend. I had been in Brussels the week prior – landed at Dulles at about 3:00PM on Friday and drove straight out to Summit Point. The prediction was for rain and the weather man was right. I went out to the track Saturday morning and got to see the new paintjob on the car for the first time – it looks really good and I will get a new picture on the site as soon as I have a good one. All day Saturday we pretty much sat around and talked and watched it rain. The whole Saturday schedule was scrubbed. Because I had some responsibilities at my church on Palm Sunday I had to skip the Sunday session. Of course it was absolutely beautiful on Sunday.
The next opportunity to drive is May 20-21 at Beaver Run outside of Pittsburgh. Let’s hope for good weather – I’m really eager to get on track and try out the new changes to the car.
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