Hallett Recap - 2019

[RichardP]

Interesting that you picked up a second with a new set of tires over a set with only one race at COTA.

I'm clearly keen on changing the tire situation but that is a very deceptive characterization of the data. In addition to the weather and track condition variables, Josh and I made many changes to the suspension during the weekend that made him much more competitive. A better comparison for tire degradation would be Michael and Kevin. In the championship race, both of them had best laps two tenths of a second off of their Saturday qualifying times. Again, we have multiple variables like temperature and the difference between a short qual session and a long race. After the Sunday morning rain storm, Tulsa weather history shows that it was about 5 degrees cooler for the race. What's the real time difference for the tires after corrections? Don't know. Would the outcome of the race been different without fresh tires? Hard to say. I know Josh doesn't regret putting on a fresh set for the championship race. Clearly, tires had no effect on the outcome of the AI race. For the brutally tight CMC race, there is some possibility that fresh tires were good for about 6"...


Richard P.

[BryanL]

I'm clearly keen on changing the tire situation but that is a very deceptive characterization of the data. In addition to the weather and track condition variables, Josh and I made many changes to the suspension during the weekend that made him much more competitive. A better comparison for tire degradation would be Michael and Kevin. In the championship race, both of them had best laps two tenths of a second off of their Saturday qualifying times. Again, we have multiple variables like temperature and the difference between a short qual session and a long race. After the Sunday morning rain storm, Tulsa weather history shows that it was about 5 degrees cooler for the race. What's the real time difference for the tires after corrections? Don't know. Would the outcome of the race been different without fresh tires? Hard to say. I know Josh doesn't regret putting on a fresh set for the championship race. Clearly, tires had no effect on the outcome of the AI race. For the brutally tight CMC race, there is some possibility that fresh tires were good for about 6"...


Richard P.

Cody thinks that's clearly a good 12"!!!

Of course I'm making a gross characterization of the data I'm just glad someone picked up on it. When I read the writeup it didn't sound like there were any changes made between R2 and the final other than new tires is the reason for the comment.

So we can speculate on what we don't know or I can state facts that Josh was .848 quicker in the champ race with new tires than any other lap he ran on Saturday with no changes mentioned. (and Sook started Saturday with a set that had one heat cycle on them from Cota if I understood correctly?

Conversely, Michael and Kevin who you brought up were both slower on Sunday. Also slower on Sunday was: Jander, Mozader, Martin, Records, Patel, Leinart, Sanchez, Fernandez.

[Pranav]

Hey!

I was only slower on Sunday because I was stuck behind you for most of the race.

My fastest lap was my last lap of the championship race

[centerville]

Josh and Michael, outstanding driving to the end. Josh the recap and sharing of info is to be commended. You have answered dozens of my newbie questions and never even looked at me funny. Thanks! And thanks for the brake pads. You kept me out there this weekend and I owe you.

[RichardP]

So we can speculate on what we don't know or I can state facts that Josh was .848 quicker in the champ race with new tires than any other lap he ran on Saturday with no changes mentioned. (and Sook started Saturday with a set that had one heat cycle on them from Cota if I understood correctly?

Josh made changes after qualifying and after the first race. Since he had a poor finish in the first race, he started pretty far up in the invert and was leading the race going into Turn 2. After that, there was no need to push hard and saving the tires for the third race that he would have started from last was the best plan. Also, you don't want to risk throwing the car off track pushing harder than needed. Well, other than the lap he messed up the entrance to the Bitch because he was distracted by an empty water bottle underneath his pedals. As a person who assembles safety critical flight hardware for astronauts in a FOD free lab, I'm wholly embarrassed to have missed that since I gave him the water in impound after the first race...

Anyway, if we didn't think there would be a delta in performance by going with a fresh set of tires we wouldn't have put them on. I don't think that number is a fair representation of the delta, though. If race three had been run in the dry, I think the delta between old and new would have been a little bit bigger. If the rain on Sunday morning had come without lightning, Josh would have been fine as we had rain tires ready to go. For those not keeping track, that's a set of practice tires, a set of lightly used tires, a set of stickers, and a set of rain tires brought to the track for one event. Having won my AI championship without ever owning more than one set of wheels, this seems completely nuts to me...


Richard P.

[Sook]

Well, other than the lap he messed up the entrance to the Bitch because he was distracted by an empty water bottle underneath his pedals.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that already. It was under a different pedal in every turn. Also the passenger seat belts weren't bucked so the left shoulder belt kept hitting me. Amazing how little things like that can be so distracting.

- Josh

[mach1]

Congrats to Josh and the #50 team for a fantastic win! What a great job to get it done, test, tune, adapt, find a way to find a way!!

[michaelmosty]

Cody thinks that's clearly a good 12"!!!

Of course I'm making a gross characterization of the data I'm just glad someone picked up on it. When I read the writeup it didn't sound like there were any changes made between R2 and the final other than new tires is the reason for the comment.

So we can speculate on what we don't know or I can state facts that Josh was .848 quicker in the champ race with new tires than any other lap he ran on Saturday with no changes mentioned. (and Sook started Saturday with a set that had one heat cycle on them from Cota if I understood correctly?

Conversely, Michael and Kevin who you brought up were both slower on Sunday. Also slower on Sunday was: Jander, Mozader, Martin, Records, Patel, Leinart, Sanchez, Fernandez.

Comparing lap times from a Saturday morning qualifying session vs a Sunday afternoon race is terrible. Come on man.....

[mach1]

Quick SM Recap for me

After Hallett in March I noticed the bushings were walking in my rear upper control arms, ended up pulling all rear suspension and fixing the bushings and inspecting everything.

Due to the work on the car TnT was critical, on junk tires the car was pushing bad, the rear bar has 3 adjustments, ended up going full stiff which fixed it up on those tires.
Lap times were not bad on 30HC tires but the car was very difficult to drive.
Saturday comes, strapped on shiny 6HC tires, balance was now crazy oversteer, went full soft on the rear bar and made some small air pressure adjustments, around 34 hot seemed ideal based on pyro temps for the tires.

Car was now solid, made a friend for qual, did a little bump drafting and got pole by .2.

Checked the datalog, found the car was a little rich, dropped fuel pressure by 2psi for a bit more power.

Finished P1 for all races so I started up front, had a little fun on the start then left the field usually finishing with a 5 sec gap or so.
Final race was very interesting with the legends cars, they were all over the place, I would give one a pass then it would sputter out and I would pass them back OR I give them the pass then they go off track.
Had a red one spin right in front of me, almost tboned him, went 2 off, I almost spun but kept it together and finished P1 for the final race.

Next is COTA in 2 weeks with SCCA with the big boys!

[drecords]

#34's story was the best weekend it's had racing since sometime mid last season. Between MSRC and Hallett I have been through the whole harness looking for the issue that causes it to turn off in left turns. Everything else stayed on, fuel pump, gauges, cool suit, etc...but the car would lose ignition. I found the +12V wire to the TFI had a loose terminal inside the connector which was probably the issue. Spent Thursday finishing prep on the car after finding a bad front brake line Sunday (was out of town M-Wed night for work) and got it aligned and loaded up about 5pm after a day of thrashing. Drove up Friday, 4-legged crew chief and OIF BBQ enthusiast and wife in tow and got to Hallett in time to get nice and wet in the storm.

Saturday morning went out for warmup on MSRC RR's, car turned off completely coming into the bitch. I managed to roll to the end of pit lane and reset the ignition circuit breaker and got it refired and went back out. Lap 2 saw the same thing, this time got it refired sooner but decided to come in. That was basically the low point of the weekend after all the work I'd done going through the harness in the shop. If I offered the car for sale to you at a very low price during that time I retract that offer now.:-P A bunch of folks came over during the driver's meeting and took a look and Larry Jander actually found one of the alternator wires arcing out on the alternator body. Fixed that and the car was mechanically trouble free for the rest of the weekend. Larry is also invited for beers/fireball in my pit anytime.

Bolted on stickers and Qualified 8th for R1 which I was happy with given that I'd turned 2 laps on track prior to qual. Race 1 I was able to go from 8th to 3rd with an assist from Kevin in the left lane starting in second gear and ended up finishing there. R2 I was midpack when I went off bigly in 5 and finished in the back. R3 I was sitting pretty comfortable in 4th with about a second over 5 and 6 when the car picked up a massive push at about the 20minute mark and I lost touch with Jander and got caught by Dustin and Martin. I had to drive it alot harder to achieve the same laptimes and finished 6th.

Overall I was really satisfied with the weekend. I have some setup work to do to get the laptimes down, but on initial data review I drove more consistently than I normally do (less spread in laptimes over each session) and I was extremely pleased with how starts went.

Also...team 'Merica won the slip and flip and I'm definitely only drinking out of that trophy cup for the foreseeable future. Craig yelling 'FULL POUR' from the bottom of the hill still haunts me today though...that was rough.