Good result this past weekend in my final National SCCA event before Solo Nationals in September. After a very late arrival Friday night, I ran first heat on Saturday and wrapped the weekend with a win on Sunday. Ali and I took a short vacation after the race and went hiking in the Garden of the Gods and then I drove up the famed Pikes Peak highway. With the hill climb coming in two weeks, it was very cool (/terrifying...) to drive to the 14K foot summit. More photos from the event to follow.
It's been a week since I got back home from the SCCA Spring Nationals. I had another local event this past weekend, but now I am in the office watching the Isle of Man TT and it's time to write a few race recaps.
We arrived in Lincoln on Thursday the 23rd. The Spring Nationals consists of a ProSolo on Friday and Saturday followed by a Championship Tour event on Sunday and Monday. I have changed the setup on the ESP Camaro since we were last in Lincoln, so we got the car unloaded quickly and I hit the test and tune course for a few dial in laps. The balance was better than last year so we didn't make any changes before Heat 1.
Dad telling me how to go fast!
Running the TNT Course
Dad launching on the left side course
The forecast basically called for a chance of showers and thunderstorms each day. This meant that every Heat was very important for the ProSolo because you never know when it will be your last dry session (your fastest time in any of the heats from the left and right courses make up your total time). We had 10 drivers in ESP and I finished 2nd behind John Hogan after the 1st Heat. I red-lit on my 2nd right side run by about 2 hundredths, but the raw time would be have been good enough for 1st....if it had rained after Heat 1 that would have been a massive disappointment. Luckily, we stayed dry for all of Friday. I was able to improve my time, but my position in class stayed the same. Mark Madarash moved into 1st and John Hogan dropped back to 3rd, just 0.028 behind me.
Making damper changes
Saturday morning, we woke up to rain which meant no hope of fighting for the win. It stopped raining before our heat, but the course was still properly wet. We didn't dry/fly half way across the country to sit in the truck, so we kept the slicks on and had some fun in the wet conditions. It was a bit dicey in the deeper-water sections, but at least I know how the car feels on slicks in the wet (not so great....). It dried out during the afternoon and I spent all afternoon at the test and tune course trying to dial in the balance for the Lincoln surface. Thanks to Sam Strano and Junior Johnson for helping get some laps on the TNT course and continue to sort the car.
After the ProSolo 2nd place, I was really pushing to improve just one more position at the Tour! We had 14 drivers in ESP for the Tour. With a mixed forecast for Sunday and Monday, it was anyone's game. As you could read in my previous post, the Tour went well and I was able to come away with the win. It was my first SCCA National win since I won the A Stock Championship in 2011 so it was very satisfying to get the first win in the Camaro. After Sunday, I was a little over 4 tenths back from Mark Madarash so I still need to find some raw pace in the dry before the Solo Nationals in September. The car felt the best it ever has on the Lincoln concrete so we are moving in the right direction.
Date: June 10th-11th, 2012 Car: 2001 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 Class: E Street Prepared Tire: Goodyear Eagle RS (AC) 315/35ZR17 Driver (s): Dave Ogburn III, David Ogburn Jr. (my Father) co-driver
Combined Day
1&2 Results Total Competitors: 203 Class Competitors: 6 Class Finish Overall: P2 (trophy position) Delta to 1st Overall: 0.775s PAX Index Finish Overall: 14
Day 1 Results Class Finish Day 1: P2 Delta to 1st Day 1: 0.792s PAX Index Finish Day 1: 35
Day 2 Results Class Finish Day 2: P1 Winning Margin: 0.017s PAX Index Finish Day 2: 8th (top production-based racecar) Results
Links Overall
Results: http://www.scca.com/solo/content.cfm?cid=51045
Satellite Photos of the concrete runway track at the Arkansas Aeroplex
Ali and I arrived in Blytheville on
Saturday June 9th after picking up the ESP Camaro from LG
Motorsports in Dallas, TX. LG Motorsports performed a dyno tune on
the Camaro and found issues with the previous tune. This alone inhibited my pace in Lincoln because I was significantly down on power, but I also wanted to improve the
handling balance and reduce the vehicle weight before Blytheville. Before I ran any test n’ tune
runs, I changed to a softer rear ARB, removed the 2-pt. subframe connectors,
and installed a lightweight battery in the right rear corner of the trunk (20lb
weight savings).
After some initial sighting laps on the test n’ tune course, it
was apparent that the engine was much stronger than in Lincoln and that the
handling was improved – better front/rear balance, improved peak grip, and much
better power-on oversteer characteristics. I started with 30psi front and 28psi
rear. Unfortunately, the test n’ tune course had limited hours so I was only
able to run 3 shakedown laps and was not able to perform any tire pressure
studies.
There were 6 competitors in ESP class at Blytheville including 7-time National
Champion Mark Madarash. I started off the year at the Texas National Tour
approximately 1s behind Mark on outright pace on a 60-70s course. My relative pace
dropped in Lincoln due to the car issues so I was looking to improve my pace relative to Mark in Blytheville. He provides
an excellent benchmark because he is consistently fast at each event and is the
fastest ESP car/driver (by a large margin) in the country. Overall, Day 1 went well. I
solidly positioned myself into P2 in class and finished 0.7s back from Mark in 1st. The ESP Camaro felt great and was well-suited to the fast and flowing Blytheville courses. I was having some trouble (especially on Day 1) with some mid-corner understeer especially in long, sustained corners.
It rained over night which made for a green track Monday morning.
Also, track temps were cooler which shifted my car's balance more towards oversteer.
Power-on oversteer was still excellent but I was able to rotate the car more on
entry and exit and modulate the car’s attitude with the throttle. With this balance change, I was able to more
accurately place the car on track and carry more speed through linked transient
elements like off-set gates leading into a slalom. For the first time this year, I set top time for the day in ESP. My 49.913s 3rd run put me 0.017s ahead of the field. With increased tire temperature
and adapting to the car/tire’s balance, I was able to improve my pace relative
to the top ESP cars which I was very pleased with. Also, I was several tenths quicker than the fastest Super
Stock (C6 Z06) drivers which is something I have not done at previous National
Events. Another encouraging note is that my fast run from Day 2 was
the 18th 60+ second run on that set of tires which shows good wear
potential for the Goodyears and that I may have been even quicker with new tires.
Overall, this was my best event of the year in the ESP Camaro.
The improvements I made to my Camaro suited the Goodyear tires well. There is still pace to be unlocked from the Camaro through weight reduction and suspension tuning, so I will be working hard this summer to find a few more tenths for Lincoln in September.
Necesito Mas Rapdio....I need more fast. Well, the 2012 Spring Nationals are in the books. My results from the weekend were disappointing, but as always, I still had a blast racing with Ali, Lane and my parents. We had a great field of fast Solo drivers and racecars for the Lincoln National tour aka "Spring Nationals" aka "The Central States Championship." Whatever you call it, it was a great event with fast, flowing courses and it was a good barometer for Solo Nationals pace.....which tells me that I need more fast!
Ali and I rolled into Lincoln Saturday afternoon after staying overnight in Oklahoma City (San Angelo to Lincoln is a long tow!). The Spring Nationals was a full four day event with a ProSolo on Friday/Saturday and National Tour on Sunday/Monday. I did not have enough vacation to run both, so my Dad and I chose to run the Tour only as practice for Solo Nationals. We unloaded and setup the paddock quickly before heading to the EVO Test n' Tune which was a a separate course from the SCCA TNT. The setup was great and we got a lot of valuable seat time in the car. My Dad and I each ran 10-15 runs with our Goodyear Eagle RS tires. Sam Strano (10-time National Champ and builder of our ESP Camaro) was gracious enough to give us some feedback on the car and our driving. He seemed to be pleased with my overall driving and pace (we were running identical laps around the TNT course), but said I needed to look ahead more which is something that I have been trying to improve on.....but still need some work. Getting better in this area should help me gain valuable time on long, visually confusing National style courses by linking different sections of the course better. He enjoyed taking some laps in his old car and said the diff, setup, and tires felt good, but that the motor felt down on power from what he remembered. I was feeling the same thing unfortunately....our LS1 engine did not seem to be pulling quite as hard from before the ring/pinion failure back in March.
After some "seat time" laps, Lane and I did a pressure study on the tires. We had been running high pressures (42 Front / 40 Rear) in our Goodyear Eagle RS tires based on some feedback from SoCal Solo drivers. This setup gave really good initial response and good transient response/balance, but seemed to give up some ultimate grip. We decided to try a higher mechanical grip setup and run much lower pressures. We kept dropping pressures until we settled around 28psi front and rear for both my Camaro and his Corvette. Dropping to 28psi yielded higher lateral and longitudinal grip at the sacrifice of gain (more handwheel angle required to make same corners) and initial response. It was getting dark and we ran out of air, so we did not have a chance to re-run our base setup of 42/40. We will need to do a more exhaustive study before finalizing our tire pressures with the Goodyears but for now, we are running in the 28psi range. We are also learning that the Goodyear tire likes heat so we will be tracking tire temps during our future testing/racing and using heat blankets to try and keep the tires in their best operating range.
I started Day 1 of the Tour on my tires from the Texas National Tour (so 12 total runs and two heat cycles). We had a solid field of 18 cars in ESP including most of the trophy winners from the 2011 Solo Nats. By Day's end, I was in P4 out of the 18 cars with a 62.135s run. This put me about 2s behind 2011 Champion Mark Madarash but only 0.2s out of 2nd place. The car still seemed down on power (seemed more like a stock LS1 than our modified/tuned LS1) and I was struggling with power-on oversteer on corner exit. I know that seems contradictory, but I struggled putting power down and then it wasn't pulling down the autocross-sized straights. I had switched to a stiffer rear bar for this event to help the car rotate on entry which it did at the sacrifice of corner exit performance. For Day 2, I decided to run the same setup (except for a new air filter) but switched to fresh tires. In hindsight, I should have switched back to the softer rear bar. I think that would have helped me gain more time on course from the new tires. I clocked a 66.804s run on my 2nd try which I could not best on my 3rd run. Unfortunately, a DSP BMW spun near the finish and took out the timing system for about 30 minutes between our 2nd and 3rd runs. Given how the Goodyears like heat, this did not help my 3rd run performance. My 66.8 dropped me back to 5th place and about 0.5s out of the final podium spot.
BMW Tangled in the Timing Wires
Overall, I finished in the trophies in the 2nd largest field at the Spring Nationals with a car I felt was under-performing. I know our ESP Camaro and it's Goodyear tires have much more potential than I showed in Lincoln so I will be working hard to correct this. The setup changes I have made to the car have been the wrong direction I think, so I will be focusing on weight reduction and having the engine output checked/increased. On the way home from Lincoln, Ali and I dropped the car off at LG Motorsport in Plano, TX for a dyno tune. As long as they don't find any issues mechanically, we will be picking up the car on the way to Blytheville, Arkansas for the next SCCA Solo National Tour (June 10th - 11th) on the schedule.
Ali and I arrived in Lincoln, Nebraska today for the 2012 SCCA Solo Spring Nationals. This event is becoming the largest National Tour and Pro Solo event of the year behind the Solo Nationals and Pro Finale in September. There are 370 entries for the National Tour event which takes place on Sunday and Monday of this weekend. My Dad and I are competing in E Street Prepared class which currently sits at 17 entries making it the second largest class of the event. Big horsepower and wide tires....what's not to like?
After getting settled in this afternoon, my Dad and I run a test and tune event with Junior Johnson and Sam Strano which was put on by the Evolution Performance Driving School. My pace relative to multi-time National Champions in my car was good, but the pace of the car overall was slower than expected. However, Lane Borg, my Dad and I spent a few hours and over 30 runs on our Goodyear Eagle RS tires and we able to make some solid improvement to the ESP Camaro's pace. Test n' tune courses can be deceiving so we won't really know where we stack up until tomorrow's first runs.
.JPG)
.jpg)
.jpeg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
