This year we've got one goal: win big
So far things have been hectic. Work on the ST car has gone slow, and development of the Panda has suffered. Besides basic maintenance and a new transmission, all of the new aero and weight reduction has hit the back burner. With everything getting hectic, we only had 1 event to get ready for our first ProSolo of 2011.
Thankfully, we rocked that 1 event. Placing 5th in the overall PAX at an event where Pro class went 52 cars deep, all while on shot tires from last season. Going into the NJ Pro as a huge overdog, things were looking up....
Things looked so good that we never bothered to check the grid sheets. Had I looked, I might've not run on the old tires. Pulling into grid, I found that a new challenger had arrived. Corey Ridgick of BSP fame (placed 2nd in BSP last year at Nats) had decided to move up to SM in Cy Lee's BSP Evo. Despite the class limitations, the Evo guys have combined E85 and the unlimited boost rule to make near SM power. The suspension development is also pretty deep due to the number of cars built for the class. To top it all off, the advantage of AWD adds another 0.3 to 0.4 sec per side before reaching 60ft. Initially, I felt we were a bit under prepared to go up against that kind of heavyweight.
Into the first round, things actually looked decent. Corey nailed some good runs as expected, besting Dave's best raw times by roughly a tenth on either side with a 30.3 on the left, and a 29.3 on the right. Dave started off with his usual hi-jinx, having cones on both of his left side runs, despite posting raw times right up there with Corey. Having been beaten by Dave all of last year, that wasn't very comforting.
Going into my runs, I took it easy at first. With the car at only 14psi, it was easy to drive, and I felt like the car had never handled better. It was confidence inspiring, and because of that I was able to kick things up a notch. The next left side run would be one of only two sub-30 second runs for the class on that side. Carrying that speed over to the next side might've had me a bit over zealous at the light, tripping it just 0.008 seconds early to negate a 29.6 that would've put me into the lead. That one was a heart breaker, and many profanities were yelled into the camera beside my head.
Sitting in second for the following heats was painful. The clouds in the sky were about as dark as they get, and every now and then some raindrops would tickle my face. It was enough that Jenna had the wipers going for one of her runs, but thankfully that's all it amounted to, and things were dry by the time SM came back up.
The afternoon heat went well. I started off with a 29.8 to knock my right side below 30, and eat into Ridgick's lead. He was able to dig deeper into the 29's, posting a 29.2 while I botched the left with a 30 flat. The next set of runs would eventually determine the overall winner, as I hit the right side running. Posting a 29.2 would give me the slightest lead, which was followed up by a 29.7 on the left that one of my favorite XP guys (Dave Newman) wouldn't even match (which was actually one of my highlights for the weekend, even though he obliterated me on the right with a 28.4).
Right side run:
| YouTube Video |
Left side run:
| YouTube Video |
Sundays at Pro Solos are usually the make-it or break-it day, and unfortunately the latter occured to Cy's Evo. On its first run on some fresh Hoosier A6's, it cracked the transmission case and wasn't able to run the rest of the day. Despite swapping the fresh tires to Micheal Fineberg's BSP Evo (which also runs on corn), Corey wasn't able to better any of his times. In the end, it feels more like a lucky win, as my final run resulted me in pushing the Panda so hard I had my second ever ProSolo DNF as I locked up the fronts cresting a hill, pulling the car to the left while I needed to go right (my first ProSolo DNF was due to a broken transmission, oddly enough).
Sunday afternoon came with the Gumout Super Challenge, which I qualified 14th of 32 for. This is probably the part of ProSolos I enjoy the most (even just watching from the sidelines). Unfortunately, I paired up with a good friend, Scott Thursby of ES in the first round. Fortunately, that gave me the chance to screw around, so I mounted a couple GoProHD's to watch him get his 2 second per side head start
Coming off the first run, I had a 0.8sec advantage (running the faster right side). Knowing it was going to be close, I pushed a bit harder going into the slalom, and paid for it basing a cone with the back tire. Despite having the faster overall scratch time by a few thousandths, I had to concede the win to Scott (only to watch him red-light against a fellow New Englander later on).
That's about it for NJ. Next up is the Dover Tour in 2 weeks!
No comments:
Post a Comment