So yeah, when doing an event I always figure out my expenses/what it took to get me there. Spent two days getting the car ready, took a nap, left my house for ClubLoose’s East Coast Bash 3 at 2am (got there at 8am), many hardships hahaha, etc. So yeah, got down to Englishtown and got promoted to “A” group which means you run the full course, you do tandems, 5 car trains, the whole 9 yards. I was pretty pumped for it.
So we went out for our first run and did one set of solo runs to get fresh and then head out for tandems. I unfortunately was running a bit to much tire pressure (48psi cold) in the rears in an attempt to allow me to use 3rd gear a bit more. It did… but I also completely destroyed a set of pilot sports (245/40/18) in one lap and a few corners and had to run back in for more tires.
After that we started doing tandems. Other than screwing around in the snow in my old e30’s I have never done any tandem sliding so I started in a “follow, just don’t hit shit” role. I started out by following two guys in S13’s who were pretty damn good. My lack of ebrake allowed them to really kill me into the first corner but by the end of the lap I was starting to close up on them nicely.
Following two guys who are good is pretty interesting, you drive based on the timing that you think you remember and spend a ton of time letting the car neutral slide or left foot brake while staying on the power. You also tend to look through their smoke to try and see where they are apexing so you can drive basically blind to that point and then search for more reference points. Honestly it was one hell of a challenge and I REALLY enjoyed it.
So we did some more tandem laps and I was starting to close up on people I felt comfortable driving with fairly nicely.
On my last lap of my first session though, I came through the sweeper after the banking (3rd/4th gear corner depending on your car, I take it near the limiter in 3rd) and dirt dropped pretty hard. Didn’t feel anything wrong, initiated the next corner and felt something wrong. I THOUGHT I had just lost a tire but didn’t hear anything grinding so thought it might’ve been just sitting on the bead with no air. I limped the car back towards the wall since Group A was done and watched the driver’s faces in B group looking at the car. Still, even watching reactions I thought it was just a tire… Not so much.
Slight damage to one of my wheels, broken camber link, broken lateral link, slightly bent sway bar drop link. :banghead: That was 6 laps in, on my first session, after spending two days not sleeping getting the car together. :picard:
Oh well, shit happens. Bing is setting me up with some camber arms to test for him and I purchased spares of the lat links so this WILL NOT happen again. Next event is August 8th at Etown and then I’ll be doing the DMCC ProAM @ Downsview Park in Toronto.
Some more pics from PT and J.Owen
