Tuesday, February 26, 2013

2/23 ESP Camaro Suspension Testing Recap

My 2013 Solo season officially got under way this past weekend with a test and tune day at Mineral Wells Airport hosted by Jeremy Foley. During the weeks prior to testing, I got the Camaro out of mothballs and prepped it for action. To start with, I replaced the Sparco driver seat with a lightweight Kirkey unit. Overall, it saved 7lbs - not much, but everything adds up. I also added a harness lap belt and submarine strap to help hold my hips in place when left-foot braking. I am going to be experimenting more with left-foot braking in the Camaro this year. I have experience with this technique from karting and the Bondurant Formula Mazdas, and I think it can be an advantage in autocross due to the quick, busy courses that require many more direction changes than a road course over a given distance. The instant pitch control should allow better and quicker control of the car's attitude during autocross runs...that's the theory anyway, we'll see if it works. 

New Driver seat for the Camaro (another seat cover is in the mail)
I also test fit different rate rear springs and rear coil spring perches. I made the move from pigtail-style springs in the rear to standard 5" coil springs which gives me tons of flexibility on rate and the new rear coil perch gives me better control of my rear ride height. With all this change, testing was needed though....

Hypercoil 5" springs for the rear

Packed up ready to roll late last Thursday Night
Overall, my goal of the test was to improve the Camaro's balance on the Goodyear Eagle RS tires. Last year, I suffered from too much understeer (especially at Solo Nats) and did not do enough to overcome it. This is not going to happen again. My feeling was that the rear was over-driving the front and given that I have more adjustment in the rear suspension, I started there. My secondary goal of the test was to leave with a neutral balance and have all of my rear suspension adjustments in the middle to give me max setup flexibility at races.

It was a nice day at Mineral Wells...except for the temperature which started in the 30s

Test parts laid out and ready to go
In the end, my number of iterations were limited by the severe tire wear normally seen at the Mineral Wells site. I ran through two spring iterations and on the stiffest rear spring I brought, the car came to life. It was very neutral steady state and a touch loose in the slaloms (my preference). After the rear spring got me the balance I wanted, I dropped the roll center height (adjustable on my FAYS2 Watts Link) from the top to the middle out of seven adjustments. That brought the balance back towards light understeer, but still much improved from when I started. So now I have a close to neutral car with most suspension adjustments in the middle. I took lap times and data from all of my runs, but this was primarily a subjective read (luckily the stopwatch and data agreed with my preferences). We used a 200' circle for steady state balance and a short 25s looped course with basic autocross elements. My next item to test will be a bar-sweep of the StranoParts adjustable rear ARB which should give me further fine-tuning of the ESP Camaro's balance and front spring rates (small changes here, but mainly for pitch control).

I am running two local events for practice/testing next week with my dad. The first National SCCA Solo event is around the corner, and hopefully there is more speed to be unlocked from the ESP Camaro.



Monday, February 25, 2013

2012 - Pictorial Year in Review

Before we move full-bore into 2013, I wanted to take a step back and look at 2012. It was a busy year with quite a few good memories!


In chronological order:

Jan 2012 - I was shipped a pile of tires to destroy 
Feb 2012 - Almost didn't make it back from my Bachelor Party at Mardi Gras
Feb 2012 - Picked up a new tow vehicle and trailer for the ESP Camaro
Mar 2012 - Finished P2 in ESP at my first National Tour event in the Camaro
Mar 2012 - I blew up the ring and pinion gear in the Camaro
Apr 2012 - I did some donuts
Apr 2012 - I got married to a special lady
Apr 2012 - Pura Vida in Costa Rica for my honeymoon
May 2012 - Our pit bike was featured in GRM
May 2012 - Feature Race winner with the West Texas Karting Association
May 2012 - Engine trouble led to a disappointing P5 finish out of 18 in ESP at the Spring Nats
June 2012 - P2 finish at the Summer Nationals in Blytheville including the fastest ESP time for Day 2

June 2012 - Podium finish in 125 Shifter class at the 6/23 WTKA Club Race
July 2012 - Ali and I bought land and started building our first house

July 2012 - The ESP Camaro gets a Spoiler
July 2012 - Out with the Miata, in the FRS
Aug 2012 - The ESP Camaro gets a new look

Sep 2012 - P3 finish out of 30+ drivers at the 2012 SCCA Solo Nationals
Sep 2012 - Lots o' laps and drifting Vettes at the Bondurant School
Oct 2012 - My first track day in the FRS at Harris Hill Road
Nov 2012 - Formula 1 at the newly built COTA
Dec 2012 - I got to be one of the first people to drive COTA with the Cadillac V-Series Performance Lab

Dec 2012 - We moved into our new house and race shop









Wednesday, February 13, 2013

2013 SCCA Solo Schedules

First off, here is the SCCA's 2013 Solo Series video preview:


My Dad and I are gearing up for another year of fierce SCCA competition in E Street Prepared with the trusty Camaro. I will also be racing the shifter kart when I have free weekends in 2013 and may be running a ChumpCar race with co-workers in the Fall. Look for a season preview for Yaw Moment Racing soon. 

Here is the SCCA Solo Series Schedule:

SCCA Championship Tour Schedule

SCCA Match Tour (see definition below)

SCCA ProSolo Championship


Here is the SCCA website definition of a Match Tour (sounds like fun!):

Match Tours are the latest addition to the Tire Rack SCCA National Solo Series. These events are three events in one package. The event starts off with a Saturday four run Autocross, then a two run Last Chance Qualifier on Sunday morning, followed by the final show down coming together in Evolution Super Shootout. The Shootout format allows the forty-eight fastest drivers to mix with the top four ladies, as well as twelve random drawn drivers in a four ladder tournament to see who can take home the big prize.

The top 32 qualifiers and Top 8 ladies are determined from the events overall PAX results, and are then locked into their positions for the Sunday Super Shootout. Once those drivers are locked in to the Shootout, the rest of the competitors get a second chance in the Last Chance Qualifier. Following the LCQ the top 16 are brought into the Super Shootout bringing the total number to 56. The remaining 8 Super Shootout positions will be from a random drawing of any that have not made the top 56 spots, bringing the total to 64. With the field complete, the 64 competitors are plugged into a bracket system and run against one another until only one remains.