The Cart Before the Horse: Spec 3 Build

[Senor_Taylor]

Hyperfest was great as always, but my race weekend was a bit disappointing personally. Before the event I installed new rear calipers, new brake pads all around, new wheel bearings up front and replaced my 15 year old shock absorbers (I bought them used). I finished 4th in the Saturday race and was chasing my PB but noticed a weird vibration up front in right hand turns. This later turned out to be both of my front shock absorbers either unthreading at the top or coming loose at the bottom. I would not figure this out until well after the event. One of my competitor's had their car taken out in practice by a honda challenge in T1 so that put me in solid podium contention for Sunday. We had two races Sunday and I finished third in both but was still super frustrated at how I seemingly had forgotten how to drive the car well. Now looking back, I don't feel bad because both of my front shocks weren't even connected. I also managed to bend FIVE of my wheels. It seems a divot at the exit of Oak Tree which had never given me trouble before decided to sink a little before this weekend and start destroying my wheels. I wasn't going off track so I could never figure out which spot on track was doing it until it was too late.





NJMP

I didn't discover my front shock issue until I was loading my car for NJMP mere hours before I needed to be there. I scrambled remedy the driver side shock which had literally come apart and unthreaded itself into two pieces. I ended up rolling into NJMP right before the gates closed with one of my 15 year old shocks reinstalled on the driver side, unaware that the same thing was slowly happening to the passenger side too. After the Saturday race I noticed my car was very bouncy and found that the passenger side shock absorber had also started to come apart. I hastily threaded it back in and secured it with loctite before the sun went down, but having lost move of its oil, I wonder how functional it is now. 

I was able to get a win at NJMP both days and set a new Spec3 record by over a second a half (previous record by me the only other time Spec3 has ever been at NJMP) with a 1:34.4.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KN2B4kL...lorJohnson

On to Lime Rock next weekend. First ever Lime Rock field for Spec3!