FS BMW M3

[landstuhltaylor]

Missed the autocross today due to tire problems. Apparently it is impossible to mount the 255/35/18 RE-71Rs on an 8" wheel and looking at them on the wheel they must be more like a 275. I took it to two places and watched the second shop try and I can honestly say there is nothing more they could have done. Lots of lube, a cheetah, and a few people with pry bars could not get the bead to seat enough to hold air and inflate. Quick google search shows that somebody tried doing the same thing and had 4 shops fail to mount it. I'll have to send the fronts back to tire rack and exchange them for the 245/40/18s.

[landstuhltaylor]

I just came back from my first national event and while I didn't do as well as I wanted, I know exactly why.

First off this event was a ProSolo which is different from any autocross I've ever been to. The cars run side by side on mirrored courses off a drag strip style tree. Your reaction time counts for your total run time (something I thought only counted on the final challenge runs and realized too late) and you run with your class and paired up by position. Morning of day one you get 4 runs alternating between left and right. You then run again in the afternoon on day 1 and morning of day 2 for a total of 6 on each course. Your fastest run from each course is your total. After then end of the normal runs all the class winners go into a supper challenge where their fastest run on each side is their dial in. Then then do single elimination running each side once to knock each other out. If you break out you can still win, but your new dial in is adjusted by 1.5 times the amount that you broke out by. Breaking out 3 times means a DQ.

The car had massive changes this time out. The turn in is really on another level and gave me fits in the slaloms. I would throw the car in and it would turn too much, making me have to cover more distance to come back and make the next cone. I was also having a hard time hitting my gaps on the cones because of this. I did manage a massive slide across the finish line on my second run on the left of which there is video, I just have to get a hold of it. After day 1 I was sitting in second, 1.7 seconds behind John Laughlin in an E92 M3 (car to have along with the 2015 GT). He is also considered to be in the alien tier of drivers and capable of winning a national title. Day 2 was better and I was able to close the gap to 1.4 seconds. I never did get a good run on the left course and coned away my fast run. Most drivers were .2 seconds slower on the left than the right, I was .8 back.

The bright spot is that in a slower car, not counting the reaction time that I didn't realize counted until after, I was 0.25 seconds slower than his best time on the right. This was also with completely blowing one of the apexes early in the run. I can walk away from the event knowing that I do have the ability to keep up with the top national drivers.

General notes
This was my first event this year and it was a brand new setup
Car had .2 degrees toe in up front, needs to be fixed for the next event
Front camber is only 1.1, need to modify the strut bar to get closer to 1.5
Had issues with the datalogger and got nothing useful, need to troubleshoot that
When these tires are done I have some new tricks to get the 255/35 to fit on the front
Next time I'll actually remember to charge the GoPro, no video from Day 1
Consistent 2.0 60fts and .530-.540 RTs when I did try

Day 2 runs:

[landstuhltaylor]

Second autocross this season and second ProSolo, this time with 2 national champions running in the class along with 3rd place last year in an inferior car... Started off horrible as we got nearly 4" of rain on Saturday. I was in the second run group and conditions were flat out pleasant compared to my work shift in group 4. Ended up canceling the afternoon runs when we didn't finish the morning session until 2:30 with conditions continually getting worse. Craziest part was watching a Subaru cut 1.6 and 1.7 60fts in the rain on street tires. Also reports of a small plane nearly crashing on landing due to the weather

Second day went well. Ended up only 0.6 seconds back of the class winner...all the way back in 6th place. Absolutely insane level of talent out there. I still need to take a look at what the shocks are set at and align the car. Plenty of time to pick up still.

[landstuhltaylor]

Went to a local event this weekend and I think I've got the car dialed in better now. Caught lightening in a bottle on the first elimination run and smashed the rest of the field by half a second, including guys who where in the top 5 at the last two national events. I started driving not to lose instead of driving to win after that and screwed myself. I've also found that in challenge runs the tires can overheat and get really hot to the touch, so I may have to pick up a sprayer. They fall off a lot when pushed over the limit. The car seems to work best when the back end is sliding but the instant the front starts to give up it is slow slow slow. This was the perfect shakedown for the car before the Match Tour event next weekend, basically the same format.

Awesome course, I was on the limiter from the crossover all the way to the top of the hill. Some cars where getting all four wheels in the air over the crest.

[landstuhltaylor]

Two more national events down. First one was the Toledo Match Tour two weeks ago. It was a long fast course with several sweepers, all things my car hates. The site also makes all cars understeer which was a recipe for disaster for me. Wound up about 3 seconds off the pace over the ~130s runs. Ended up making some shock adjustments and I was able to cut another second, but overall it was a bad event.

Fast forward to today, the Wilmington ProSolo. I spent about a week straight of playing iRacing after getting my ass handed to me. I started just chucking the car into elements and catching it mid-corner with the throttle to get it to turn. Understeer was much better than it has been. After the first day I was only 0.2 back of the class leader (same guy who will likely win nationals) and had a shot at the win. This morning I knew how to lay it all out there and ended up hitting 5 cones on the four runs trying to pull something out of my ass. My last run of the day was within .192 of the winners time on that side (right), which is a pretty damn good result considering the car differences. I had to sit on my 3rd run from day 1 as everything else was dirty, but it was still good enough for second. Guy in third has two national championships to his name. Best result so far and showing a lot more promise for Lincoln.

[landstuhltaylor]

For comparison here is the car that won. Data shows I am giving up 0.08 to 0.10 lateral G in almost all corners

Left side: 35.474 to my 36.249

Right side: 35.536 to my 35.732

[landstuhltaylor]

Installed the new exhaust today. Drones like a mofo below 3k but I've also never been able to spin the tires in a straight line before.



Sent from my LG-D851 using Tapatalk

[landstuhltaylor]

Since Solo Nationals was two weeks ago I should finally update this.

As I posted in the elsewhere, Tuesday was very wet. The rain had been overnight and stopped by the time we ran at 9am, but there was still standing water everywhere. Even though my tires were very close to the wear bars it still helped me out as it neutralized the power advantage of the E92 and Camaros/Mustangs. First run out I almost spun on every corner and hit 3 cones. Second run resulted in a massive slide out of the slowest corner on the course and ruined the run. Even with the rain I was still hitting the 65mph rev limiter in two different parts of the course. Luckily I had a second driver in the car who I made run first, which meant I ran about 20 minutes after him each time. Right after his last run the sun came out which made the already drying track that much faster. Ended up sitting in 6th out of 46 after the first day.

Day 1 Run 1

Second day was dry but cool which helped keep the front tires from getting too hot, although we still had to start spraying them after the my codrivers 2nd run. I went out and set a dirty 65.7 on my first run, which would have been good enough for 5th fastest by itself if I hadn't hit the cone. On my codrivers second run he managed to get sideways across the finish and miss the 2-3 shift, hitting 1st instead. I checked over the car a bit but it seemed to still be running like it rolled off the production line. I tried to be more conservative on my 2nd run and went slightly slower, but unfortunately I hit a cone in the same area. Codriver went out for his last run and missed 2nd off the start (real easy to get into the reverse lockout if you aren't used to the car) which meant he didn't have any clean runs and would finish way down the pack. At that point without a clean run I was sitting back in 13th and I knew if I just ran a slow clean one I could easily get 4th. It would have taken a real flier to catch 3rd and 9/10 times I wouldn't be able to do it clean, so I decided to just go out for a Sunday drive. Ended up really screwing up the first real turn on the course and got very sideways in a later element, but finally came across carrying zero cones. It by far my slowest at a 66.1 but it was good enough to get 4th by 0.055s. Not bad at all for my first National Championship event.

The guy who won was screwed by the drying course on Day 1 and was behind by 0.8 going in to Day 2. Of course being a factory Nissan driver in two different pro road racing series he managed to come from behind and set fastest time on the insanely technical West Course by 1.7s and taking a dominant win. He wouldn't have even been in our class except his normal class would have put him in the THU/FRI run group and he had to fly out to a race Wednesday night. His runs are below.

Overall good week of racing along with some racing, lots of beer, and lots of refills at the garbage disposal turned margarita mixer.