Spin or Win:: The Story of Finger Lakes

I'm really good at spinning cars. Especially cars I haven't driven in a year, that are a different drivetrain than what I've been driving, that are on street tires, that are way tighter than I'm used to, on pavement that sucks. And I'm really good at letting one stupid spin get to me for an entire weekend. I was like...10 seconds off pace on Sunday, just because I was being super slow and cautious. All that Need for Speed training did nothing.

Ok, the spin was epic. Agricultural, even. There was still grass on the trailer hitch, and mud everywhere, on Sunday afternoon.

Photo courtesy of minibeetle

Yeah. Hilaaaaaaarious. I am not smooth. I am not confident after a run like that. My inputs are stabby, and I can't drive for shit on street tires. And I am SUNBURNED. Yeah.

Otherwise, it was fun. Setting up tents in the torrential rain is always a good time. Also, the Finger Lakes should probably be renamed to Disgustingly Dirty and Full Of Seaweed Lakes. They were literally raking and shoveling it out. No swim for you.

Nate Whipple ghetto rigged some springs, so now owns G-Fab magnets. It was second places all around for NER, with a few 1's and 3's too...results are here.

No pictures. Sorry. I was way too busy getting my ass kicked.

Thank GFab it's Friday!

All the cops has lazerbeams!! Pew pew pew! Lots of cops on I-90. Watch out if you're heading to Finger Lakes from New England!!

We're an hour out from the Seneca Army Depot, site of the 2010 SCCA National Tour at Finger Lakes. Just ahead of Mike Steer (who we passed), and a ways behind Scott Thursbadges (save us a spot!). More to come when we're all unloaded and stuff. I forgot to take pictures of the awesomeness of upstate NY....

Fourth of July weekend. Usually a time for cookouts, fireworks, and drinking. Heavily.

We got the cookout part down. And the drinking part. Us G-Fabbers is good at that game. The fireworks part, not so much. Note to self: no more setting them off inside the car:

Due to a change in the 2010 rules, we can now remove the airbags and everything related to them. It was a process. I am never taking a dash apart again. We also decided to take out speakers, amp, and AC evaporator. (The power door locks were too hard to get to in 90 bazillion degree weather.) Total weight savings: 25 lbs. Was it worth it? Maybe.

While I was playing in plastic, PJ was busy with the second half of the Project Panda Diet: hoodpins so the new hood doesn't fly up while racing and a) ruin the run, and b) waste $500.

We bought a cheap Harbor Freight dremmel, which proved useless due to its cordlessness. It came with some spiffy attachments though, so it wasn't all bad.

Aerocatch is full of win. Yay. Looks pretty good, huh?

PJ was so happy, he did flips.

New LCA's come in today, and the race to install before Finger Lakes will be on.

2000. 10. Till Now.

As an interjection to DC Pro stories, let's catch you up, shall we?

2010 started off with (another) bang:

I think NER might rename the first event of every season to "PJ's Speedy Dry Shuffle."

We somehow learned from our mistakes, and instead of going with just a spare, and bolting everything on, there was some engine building going on:

Eagle rods and a fully built bottom end to try to combat the monster known as torque:

Finally painted the engine bay:

Needed MOAR downforce, so splitter to split the air, and because it was looking a little wide around the ass area, we put the car on a high carbonfiber diet:

In the meantime, my old clutch had finally reached the end:

Replaced it with a Stage 1 and a lightweight flywheel:

No Sweetiepies were harmed in the installation of this clutch, but there was one casualty:

Due to stupid OBDII, and stupid sensors, and stupid RI inspection laws, I threw a code and failed inspection. Apparently the sensor likes my old 109-tooth flywheel, and the new 108-tooth one just isn't going to allow me to pass.

And for the record, replacing FWD clutches sucks.

G-Failboat Continues: We return to our normal bad luck

So, Saturday at DC went marginally well. The car ran fine, but the new splitter added more downforce than I expected. Apparently I forgot that a small amount of force over a large area creates one big force. That force has been unofficially named "Oversteer". We attempted to fix it for the afternoon runs by setting our rear wing more upright, but I still haven't trimmed it to work at its steepest position. Anyways, after banging out some left side runs, Dave and I were sitting first and second going into Sunday.Unfortunately, Dave and I forgot how to drive, and the result was not gaining much time. I managed to shave around 0.024 sec to maintain a 0.014 lead over Sam Krauss after his Sunday runs initially pushed me back by 0.008, but it wasn't qutie enough. Although Sam tried his hardest to break Martin's car on him, the Celica All-Trac eventually ran again to put up a couple amazing runs between a couple odd DNF's. It literally came down to the last run, but in the end, Dave and I sat 2nd and 3rd respectively, pretty much solely due to right side failure.Watching some video on the way home, we realized where we were going wrong: pushing the car too hard around the inside loop, where the left side slowed you down with a rally-style jump. It's a lame excuse, but things might've been different if we had remembered to charge up the cameras for Saturday to do some course analysis overnight. Lesson learned: make a checklist for Toledo.

Also: Don't forget how to drive.

Further, beware the paddywagon icecream truck. Why do you need bars on an ice cream truck?

Scott and Dave don't seem to mind the ice cream trucks as long as they aren't armored....

For some reason, the cops in the DC area aren't as fond of Dunkin Donuts as the ones up north. For example, here they are at iHop, who Apple is currently most likely preparing a lawsuit for over their concept jump rope and/or sneakers.

I'm out of content. I need to start living a more interesting life.