Regional #6 was an out-of-town event at Silver
Star. I reckoned that if I dumped my regional #5 which I blew and
regional #1 which I was beaten by Guy Ankeny, I should still have
about 1 out of 500 points more than Harry, equivalent to about .4
second lead. Even if Harry won the race at regional #6, I should
still have been leading by just a tiny bit. Harry told me he
would not go to the Silver Star event and probably not able to
make regional #7 as well. So would I be able to walk away with
the champion title? A week before regional #7, the last and
determining race of the season, I prepared for the worst and made
sure my car was in top condition. Oil change, cam timing check,
ignition timing check, brake fine-tune, alignment check, and so
on kept me put everything else aside for the week. Final testing
on Saturday night with race tires showed a bit understeer in big
G-circle. I was a bit worried but lowered the front R1 pressure
for a quick fix.
Sunday morning showing up at Boundary Bay the race site, I was
surprised by two things. First, I found out that Harry was
getting very serious about the championship title because he
showed up not only on that day but also at the Silver Star
regional. Then, after the usual registration and tech, Terence
and I started walking the course. Looked at the course map...
figure-8 twice seems ok... standing at the starting line on the
left side of the runway and look ahead... straight line start...
Good! No disadvantage for our open-diff... walk... walk... 2nd
gear... walk... brake... soft right turn cross over to the other
edge of the runway... rough surface but should be ok while being
a straight... enter right side of the runway at a soft left
turn.. .seems wide open but may understeer or go sideway through
at speed... now towards the end of the runway... Holy #@! a
wide-open 20-or-so miata length straight with 60-80 km/h entry
speed?... definitely a 3rd gear straight... now the usual sweeper
back to the left side of the runway... What! another wide open
straight?... then another soft left turn cross over the runway
center... and yet ANOTHER wide-open straight?... estimated
120-130 terminal speed and hard braking into a pretty tight 50
km/h 90 degree right turn... another pretty tight 90 degree right
turn leads back to the starting route... 2nd loop is the same
except going straight through the 130 km/h straight to the stop
box... Oh man! That was definitely a power course for the
supercharger.
Just these 2 surprises could have turned things over. Later,
the official decided that the course was too fast to be legal for
Solo II and a chicane was added along the 125 km/h straight.
Although the terminal speed was brought down to about 110-120,
the chicane did not seem to provide advantage for great handling
cars. I and many others were still able to full-throttle through.
Quick change to the car for the fast course was to bring down my
Tokico to 2 out of 5. I wish I brought the timing gun and hex key
to dial in some cam retard for a bit high-end since I was running
factory cam timing to prepare for all-around torque.
In the 1st run, I got 72.880 second. Harry screwed up, took a
little bit of the weeds on the side of the runway, probably due
to the great pressure of the .4 second behind. In the last run, I
knew where I could have improved and got a big jump to 71.061s.
That included the little frustration at the end of the 120 km/h
straight. Right after the run, I hardly recalled what happened at
that point. But after more thinking, the following might be what
happened: after hard braking and downshifting into 2nd, I
released the clutch and felt that engine rpm dropped way faster
than normal. I thought I had it in 4th instead of 2nd so I
depressed the clutch again, blip the throttle again to match rev
and re-shifted into 2nd just to found out I was already in 2nd.
The rear brake-bias fine tune must have made the rear wheels
starting to lock up which in turn made engine rpm dropped right
down. I was lucky that the engine did not stall when rpm dropped
towards 0. And even more lucky was that I was able to hold a
steady brake pedal pressure throughout the entire incident or
otherwise I would have been eating all those cones of the
"cone wall". However, time was definitely wasted at the
incident. Harry could not get any closer than half a second
towards my time.
I couldn't believe I did it. I was very excited not just
because I won the race... not just that I won the championship
again... not just that I ran front toe-in instead of front
toe-out... not just that my Tokico against superb Penske
shocks... not just that my flat-spotted 215/50/13 R1s against
245/45/16 Hoosiers... not just that me against a very talented
driver... not just that my Hawk pads on stock rotors against 3rd
generation RX-7 twin turbo brakes... not just that my 103
rear-wheel-naturally-aspirated horsepower against 160hp+
supercharged power... but... it was a chance to show that my
120-or-so NA horsepower was even able to beat 160-or-so SC
horsepower in a 3rd gear power course with no slalom.
I haven't got a final plan on what I'm going to do for next
season yet since I still have about 1/3 of the preparation points
available. But I can predict that competing in CSP next year will
be even tougher.
Regional #6 was an out-of-town event at Silver
Star. I reckoned that if I dumped my regional #5 which I blew and
regional #1 which I was beaten by Guy Ankeny, I should still have
about 1 out of 500 points more than Harry, equivalent to about .4
second lead. Even if Harry won the race at regional #6, I should
still have been leading by just a tiny bit. Harry told me he
would not go to the Silver Star event and probably not able to
make regional #7 as well. So would I be able to walk away with
the champion title? A week before regional #7, the last and
determining race of the season, I prepared for the worst and made
sure my car was in top condition. Oil change, cam timing check,
ignition timing check, brake fine-tune, alignment check, and so
on kept me put everything else aside for the week. Final testing
on Saturday night with race tires showed a bit understeer in big
G-circle. I was a bit worried but lowered the front R1 pressure
for a quick fix.
What
a Bad Season
