The Cart Before the Horse: Spec 3 Build

[Senor_Taylor]

Wow! So much racing. So little time. 2 more events have passed since my last post. 

 

Lime Rock was absolutely amazing. The surrounding area is beautiful, the track is so fun an historic. It is truly an experience just to be there, let alone drive the track. We had a great field of 4 Northeast Spec3s, 1 Mid Atlantic Spec3, and a Spec E30 that was all alone so I let them race as a Spec3 for the weekend after everyone agreed that if they get beat by a Spec E30, they'd live with it. 

We all picked up the track really quickly considering most of us had never been there, and NONE of us had ever been there in a Spec3. Nor was there any Spec3 lap record for reference or footage of a Spec3 driving the track. Long story short, Alex Rubenstein and I battled back and forth with me wining the Friday race, him winning the Saturday Qualifying race, and me winning the Saturday Feature race. My goal was to run a 1:02 something and beat the Spec E30, but it's such a short track that it becomes really hard to shave time off once you are that low. I ran a 1:03.229 and set the first Spec3 lap record with that. If the weather is cooler next year, there's no doubt one of us will break that and run a 1:02 or maybe even a 1:01 some day. 

The races were a lot of fun and the Saturday race was especially exciting because Alex and I were moved to the back of the field by accident during a double yellow with an erroneous black flag so we had to fight through the entire field just to get back to 1st and 2nd in our class. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kf6ocKYSEI
 

Pitt Race was 2 weeks later and serves as a preamble to the National Championship race that will be there in September. We had 10 or 11 cars signed up, but unfortunately one racer found a tire wall during the friday test sessions so we were down a racer for the weekend. My last outing at Pitt Race in 2022 was disappointing as I was very sloppy and my inputs were very erratic. It was a tiring weekend and I didn't go as fast as I wanted. My personal best was a 2:06 something. I've done a lot of driving since last year, a lot of reading and studying, and a lot of practicing in iRacing, so my goal was at least to run a 2:05 if not faster. Saturday morning came and I ran a 2:08 in warm up which was not good. I didn't know it, but the warm up time set the qualifying grid, so I was stuck with some Spec E30s which was going to make qualifying with a good time for Spec3 hard unless I could get by them quickly. Traffic thinned out and I slipped by and ran a 2:06 or 2:05 which was good enough for P4 out of 9 for the race grid. We started the race under the same green flag as Honda Challenge and that was my downfall. The traffic jam in T1 found me dropping back to 8th place right on the start. I managed to battle back and pass several people to regain 4th and that's where I finished with a new PB of 2:05.3 in the race. 

 

Sunday qual came around and I ran another 2:05 which put me right in the mix with the podium guys. The race started and the same thing in T1 happened again but I didn't fall as far back this time. Joey Thomas got the slip on me and ended up in second place for a bit until I was able to chase him down and pass him after he dropped back to 4th. Then I started to reel in P3 and P2 Jon McAvoy and Sean O'hara as they battled and was able to pass Jon when he went off in T1 during an attempted pass. I was able to hold onto third and chase Sean until the end of the race. That ended my weekend with a podium in a field that represented most of the fasted people that will be at the National Championship. Very exciting. 

 

The car is in the trailer now and I plan to tow it to NJMP for the joint NE and MA event in a couple of weeks. The car needs nothing but I'll do a quick nut and bolt check and some new brake pads before then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQjEL0mn...lorJohnson

[Senor_Taylor]

New Jersey Motorsports Park! I think this article will say it all https://nasaspeed.news/race-coverage/aro...orts-park/



Great time at NJMP. I found the air filter was completely clogged with grass and dirt, like completely. If that wasn't taking away 5hp, I'd be surprised. I threw away a solid P2 opportunity and chance to win on Saturday by going off in lap 1 (likely due to my shock coming apart, which was also likely due to a hasty trackside repair at did in June and never took back out to make sure it was done right). Finished 4th both days.



Car is all back together and ready for an alignment for nationals next week.

The NASA Championships were at Pitt Race this year, which is convenient seeing as I just moved to Pittsburgh last year. I've been picking up speed in Spec3 since comp school in 2021 and it seemed like this was a year that I could really hold my own and fight for a podium. Over the course of the event, I improved on my personal best by well over a second and had figured out where to pick up more time. In the qualifying race, I snagged P4 and ran within a couple tenths of P3 and P2. The championship race came up and we had to do an aborted start due to a huge SE46 pile up in T1 on lap one so we sat on grid for about 30 minutes and then did out pace lap again. This time, as I rolled to a stop, something didn't feel right. As the starting lights ticked down, I tried to move the shifter and it came completely loose. I signaled to my competitors that could see that something was up and the green flag dropped and everyone swarmed around me. I pulled my hands in and hoped no one would smash into me. Luckily, the car was stuck in first gear so I limped it off track and watched as the ~40 minute race unfolded without me in it. I was devestated. I got back to my paddock spot and found that the locking pin that holds the shift carrier onto the transmission came off. Ironic, because this pin is infamously difficult to remove, but mine was worn and loose from all of the times It's been removed over 30 years. I tossed a new pin in and was ready for Watkins Glen with NASA NE in a couple weeks after the event. My personal best from the event was 2:04.164

 

At Watkins Glen, I spent the weekend chasing my own personal bests and came away with 2 wins through some rainy weather that saw 3 Spec E30s totalled. I felt lucky that all of the Spec3s escaped without incident. My personal best was 2:15.310 which only beat out my previous best from last october drafting an ST5 car by a few hundredths.

 

The Mid Atlantic season wrapped up with an event at VIR in October where I had something to prove. Mathematically, I was unable to win third place in the region. Even with two wins, I'd be about 10 points back, so my goal was to finally crack a 2:13. A 2:13 in a Spec3 is elite category. There's only about 4, maybe 5 people in Spec3 currently that can run a 2:13 or faster and I've been running a 2:14.1 every event. I ran a stiffer rear bar setting and had some wider wheels than the last time I was there in May, as well as shocks that were not coming apart, or at least I thought that was the case. In race 1, the leaders got tangled up on a restart and I was in second place on the final lap when some goober in a rental GR86 ST5 car went off track, re-entered between me and P1 and then blocked me the entire way up the esses and drag raced me into "oak tree" instead of letting me go by and resume my race in my own class for the win. My transmission that has been giving me issues with the 4->3 downshift reared its head when I jumped a curb to go side by side with the GR86 and I missed the shift into third, causing me to lose all ground I had left on P3 behind me. Charles past me on the back straight and I settled for third place. In race 2, Joey beat me on the start again and that SAME GR86 missed grid and tried to pass me before the green flag flew to get to his field. The whole start was a mess and I ended up in 4th behind Joey. Him and I had an amazing battle and I eventually got by him and had clear track for the first time all weekend. My AIM showed me a mid 2:13 and I pushed hard. Going into Oak Tree, I found I had pushed TOO hard and I dipped two tires off and ended up in the wall. I limped off track and finished last. 

 

For the last event of the year at NJMP, I banged out my fender and bumper and swapped in a new transmission just in time to make the event. Holy cow, I had not realized just how bad my old transmission was. I'm kicking myself for torturing myself and hurting my lap times for an entire year (10 race weekends+) with a transmission that was so difficult to shift. Being able to aggressively heel toe into third gear made me instantly fall in love with the car again and I'm still mad at myself thinking back to all of the times I gave up positions or ruined flyer laps because the transmission would co-operate. I managed to run a new personal best by over a full second and I reset the Spec3 track record at NJMP Lightning ( 1:17.066). I secured the lone race win for the weekend and finished the season as the Northeast Spec3 champion and Northeast Driver of the year. 

 

Time to lick my wounds, replace some body panels, change the oil, and prepare for another year of Spec3 racing starting in March. In the meantime, I'll be cheering on my friends in Southeast as they have events every month until the MA season starts, all through the winter! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGSlkkioIMA

[Senor_Taylor]

I'm going to stop updating this thread here and consolidate it all here: https://community.drivenasa.com/forum/57-spec3/