wstar's Journal

wstar

Had a good weekend at MSR-H, learned a lot They put me in Yellow Solo this time (so no assigned/required instructor), and it was nice to just be out there by myself and not feel like I have to explain things (you know like - hey I'm not being inconsistent here - I'm experimenting with different approaches to this corner on each lap!). No real mechanical issues or spins. Had one very minor off coming into S+S (started my braking a little too late for conditions, so I just continued off into the grass by a car-length or so and then rolled over into the hot-pit lane).

Apparently the USB stick for my RK data got corrupted somehow, which is annoying, so I only got data for the first two sessions of the weekend. I know I improved a lot from there, and my best time from the data I have (1:56.98) is on a lap where I can see tons of mistakes I wasn't making later in the weekend. Oh well

Aside from known front camber issues, known failing-VLSD issues, etc, the biggest weakness now is I waited a little too long to upgrade tire compounds. These Conti DW were great to learn on, but at this point (a) mastering traction on them while slipping through corners is just completely autopilot for me because it's easy and (b) they're way too slippery on hot days to keep up and I know they're holding me back at this point. All weekend I was holding back on straight speeds or braking more than I felt I should have needed to, all in the name of "let's stay down to corner speeds these tires can actually handle." The upside was I got a ton of car-control work in this weekend. Even if it's mostly on auto-pilot, driving through that excessive slip on just about every corner is still building up my brain's abilities.

So before the next event I'll probably bump up a notch to something like an NT-05 or RS3. At least for one tire change (2-3 events?) to ease my transition over to something like an NT-01 or straight up used slicks.

This was my last event for a while. Taking a 3-month break from track events (hottest months anyways) to do some more major surgery on the car (finally gut *all* the forward interior and switch to cage + harnesses, etc).

Anyways, the fastest lap of my first session of the weekened, FWIW:

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