The Cart Before the Horse: Spec 3 Build

[Senor_Taylor]

Another great event!

July was a crossover NASA Great Lakes and NASA Mid Atlantic event at my now "home town" track of Pittsburgh International Raceplex. It's a 50 minute tow from my house so I strolled up Thursday night to hang out and relax with my now establish camping setup of enclosed trailer, nice little cot, TV mounted on the wall, coffee maker at the ready, and some nice camping chairs and a big canopy. I'm trying to save money so I didn't sign up for test and tune and instead was hoping to rely on a few hours in Assetto Corsa on a Pitt Race mod track. The weather was decent and all was well until a fellow racer finally fell victim to the rattly transmission he had been ignoring for a year (I blame his fancy chassis mount shifter). We rounded up a transmission to get transported from Richmond, VA to Pitt Race and it arrived after 9PM. We got it installed by 12:30 at which point I left him to his own devices to wrap up and he was in bed by 1:30 AM after tidying it up.

Warm and Qualifying saw me running a 2:09 while the pole sitter ran a 2:03. This put me in 6th out of 8 on grid for the race, qualifying a few tenths out of 4th. I was really disappointed in myself since I ran a 2:07 last year with a tired motor and knew I should have been faster. I adjusted tire pressures and got my head right for the race where I jumped to 3rd on the standing start and was fighting for 2nd until halfway through the race when the series leader (who spun on the start) came rocketing through and passed us both to grab 2nd. I finished 4th while running low 2:06s on a hot day, which I was pleased with.

Sunday saw more of the same with me qualifying 4th and battling for third the entire race, even passing Joey Thomas for third a few times and then giving it right back. We both ran very low 2:06s and almost broke 2:05. We ran within ONE THOUSANDTH of a second of each other for our best lap. Truly a great battle.

Now on to VIR and NJMP in back to back weekends in August where I hope to work on smoothness on input to upset the car less and hopefully get some new personal bests. I only need a few tenths to start snagging third place consistently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9ppl0C_...lorJohnson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m0UsuxF...lorJohnson