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| Photos from BFG Event #4 in Converse, Indiana |
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| Photos from BFG Event #4 in Converse, Indiana |
I show up at the event, register, look at the entry list and WOW, I'm the only entrant in GS. I'm thinking to myself this is too good as I roll through tech and head back to the paddock. Well, after I drop my wheels off with Hoosier Tom to get my new Kumho's, I start unloading the car. Well, who comes up and says "heh"? No other than John McIver. DOH!!! That was the last guy I wanted to see (because he's sooo tough to beat). My only hope at this point was that a bunch of others would show up too. At least we would all look bad together ;-) Well, that didn't happend and it was John and I all weekend. To make matters worse, this was my first event on Kumho's. I decided to switch after only getting 31 runs out of my last set of BFG's, 11 of which were in the wet. Terrible treadwear IMO, and I just couldn't justify the cost to continue using them, hence the switch. I had the Kumho's shaved, but they still weren't heat cycled. Plus getting the pressure right was gonna be another issue. Thanks to Tom Smith out in California for posting some guidelines on the TypeR list, othewise I would have been hunting for the right ones all day. Well, on Saturday, the tires felt greasy and I couldn't get the car to rotate in the long sweeper at the top of the course. I was very slow through there IMO. It was a TypeR course as Jason Saini would say. Lots of full throttle slalom's and we stayed in VTEC for almost all of the course with the exception of one first gear corner. I was fast out of the box and even faster on my second run, but hit a lousy cone in the slalom on the back side. The raw time was 2/10's faster but that's a moot point. My third and fourth run's were DNF's. I was just overdriving the car trying to compensate for the greasy tires. John being the outstanding driver that he is, ended up besting my time by .131 on Saturday.
Sunday I knew what I had to do. I was a little dissapointed with the course because with it reversed, the sweeper was now a high speed decreasing radius turn. Not something I like, since I don't left foot brake (yet). I was slow through there (again), but not because I couldn't get the car to rotate, but trying to keep it from rotating. Yikes, it was very tricky. Unfortunately I made mistakes in that section and the following two sections on each of my four runs. I never get through them with the right line and speed, hence John got me again, but by an even larger margin today (about 2/10's). Oh well, I knew where I was losing time and what I needed to practice on. I'm also a little undecided on tires pressures still too, since the tires gripped much better on Sunday, but I still couldn't get the rotation I'm used to except in that pesky decreasing radius turn. You know the old saying, "loose is fast". Well, I believe it too, and with the current pressures the car is too tight IMO, maybe it's that grippy Indiana concrete ;-) Who knows, but I know what the "loose nut" has to work on. Hopefully I can figure some of this stuff out before September :-) Comments, questions or suggestions can be sent to Jeff Brown |
