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NASA Championships East 2016 Watkins Glen, Smack Talk, Updates, Results

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#141
Brian Tone

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Mid 19s by the end of the weekend

 

Sunday & Saturday Race would be great, by the end of Sat race I had an OK handle on what I was doing at the track and had settled down into consistent 19/20s



#142
Amy M

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Yeah, anyone who has spoken to Tyler wouldn't have interpreted his post as arrogant. Great job!



#143
Amy M

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Absolutely correct! Tyler is a friendly guy who drove superbly.

#144
Tyler Kicera

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Tyler, 

 

From Fridays video it appears you found the secret sauce sometime after Friday's qual race.  Your car was turning much better than the rest of the field on Saturday.  You had that same push as everyone else was experiencing on Friday.  You hit the sweet spot with the Toyos that everyone else was struggling to find.  It appears that Danny eventually worked his way to it on Sunday also.  

Congrats on a great weekend. 

 

Michael

 

Thanks Michael!  Sorry I didn't really get to chat with you at all.  On top of chasing the setup on test day, we actually hit on another small change that hooked the car up after my 5th place qualifying run.  The fact that I only moved up one position was not indicative of how good the car felt during the Friday race...but then again time and laps were not on anyone's side.  Tom and Danny definitely hit on something that improved his car for Sunday, but they swung at it the complete opposite way.  Also worth noting that we ran on shaved tires all weekend and the Sunday race was only the second heat cycle on that particular set.


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#145
Danny Steyn

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Tyler was very open with what he was doing,  for which I was extremely appreciative, but it wasn't working for me. 

 

For the main tace, Tyler and I had a COMPLETELY different setup, he ran 2HC in the race and I ran 9HC. His setup worked for his tires, mine finally worked for mine. My tires took about 3 laps to come in and were awesome through the first 70% of the race and then I started to grain the right front through T6 (Laces)

 

Amazing that you can get to very similar places from such completely different approaches. 


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#146
Jim Drago

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Is anyone willing to share set up or what worked as the event is over? Or are we holding close to the vest for next season? 

 

Tylers car looked like a nascar race where one guy comes in for tires and all the rest were on 40 lap tires. He seemingly could drive inside, outside, around or anywhere else that he had to go in order to pass, most passes made before track out.  While some portion is obviously talent and track knowledge, a larger portion IMO is his car was clearly handling better than the rest which enabled him to get on the gas and/or roll more mid corner speed than the rest.  It was impressive to watch for sure.


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#147
Tyler Kicera

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Tyler was very open with what he was doing, for which I was extremely appreciative, but it wasn't working for me.

For the main tace, Tyler and I had a COMPLETELY different setup, he ran 2HC in the race and I ran 9HC. His setup worked for his tires, mine finally worked for mine. My tires took about 3 laps to come in and were awesome through the first 70% of the race and then I started to grain the right front through T6 (Laces)

Amazing that you can get to very similar places from such completely different approaches.


My car took two or so laps to come in as well, although I was still a bit tight for about five laps. As the fuel load burned off the car got better and better. One thing I like about race hero is the lap time graph. If you look at mine it generally slopes down. Yours has a dip in the middle...fascinating stuff.

I was honestly shocked to hear how different our setups were after the race - you certainly found something that worked for you. I typically like a lose car but felt like sliding the back end was binding up the car. I opted for a setup that was tighter than usual.

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#148
Richard Astacio

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On the topic of secret sauce, anyone that was in the fast group want to send me a Traqmate data file so I can try to improve myself...?

 

Let me know if you're willing to share.

 

Thanks, 

 

bpt

 

If no one is willing to share their data, the next best thing you can do is hire a driver coach. That has helped me immensely this year to shorten the learning curve.

Elivan Goulart has coach me this year locally and I also hired Justin Hille to coach me at Ohio, although the results were not great for me due to other factors at the runoffs, I know where I am loosing the few tenths here and there. I think Tod Lamb is from the Atlanta area, I could be wrong but I am sure someone on this site can recommend someone.

That is the best investment any new driver can spend their money on...... 


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#149
FTodaro

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Just a few general questions. Does the Glen now that its repaved, like old or new tires in general? We have issues with the RR graining at Mid O, it sounds like that was a factor also. Is that the case?

 

Were the set up changes you all were doing specific for the RR ?


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#150
Brian Tone

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If no one is willing to share their data, the next best thing you can do is hire a driver coach. That has helped me immensely this year to shorten the learning curve.

Elivan Goulart has coach me this year locally and I also hired Justin Hille to coach me at Ohio, although the results were not great for me due to other factors at the runoffs, I know where I am loosing the few tenths here and there. I think Tod Lamb is from the Atlanta area, I could be wrong but I am sure someone on this site can recommend someone.

That is the best investment any new driver can spend their money on...... 

I know some really good coaches and have used it in the past while running big cars, but an easy way to find the gaps is through a data comparison on the same day, I know some/most folks are going to play it closed with sharing data but I'm not willing to concede that some of the really fast guys aren't willing to help out someone clearly not fighting for the win.



#151
Strongbad

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Have any dyno numbers been posted from this event?



#152
chris haldeman

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Dyno numbers were emailed out too competitors yesterday
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#153
Preston Pardus

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Finally got the second qualifying race and the feature race uploaded. :D

-Qualifying Race 2, I had a pretty fun time coming back through the field after the lap one/bus stop contact. 


-Feature Race, pretty uneventful for me after losing the main pack early...


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#154
MPR22

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Now that I have had time to catch up on work and family duties I have time for a recap.  

 

We rolled off the truck in really good shape, don't know how Chris knew what setup to put on the car but we had the right one,  which in my opinion is very important to a big events like the NASA Nationals or SCCA Run Offs.  Only one of the four X-Factor team members had driven Watkins Glen before, so we did the next best thing and spent time on I-Racing.  I had never done this before but I can honestly say I felt like I had been to the track by the time I made my first lap around.  Session 1 by lap 6 we were in the 2:18s by session 4 (about 20 laps in all) I was down to 2:16.5.  Only problem was two of us were on Hoosiers and two were on Toyos.  We made the mistake of letting a vendor bring our Toyos since they said they would be there Tuesday morning.  We figured 2 sessions on junk Hoosiers to learn our way around then the rest of the sessions on Toyos and we would be fine.  4:00 pm and no Toyos so we were stuck without any true data.  Once we got the Toyos mounted it was back to relearning the track.  The difference at turn in was huge.  I knew it would be different from experience but at this track it was an even bigger issue. I did the second session on the official test day and ran a pretty good time 17.8 or something like that.  Went out in third session trying to see how hard I could push the tires and managed 16.9 which to that point was quite a bit faster than anyone else had turned, although for some reason NASA wasn't picking me up in timing and scoring.  I decided to sit out the last session as I was happy and didn't want to risk the car.   I had a big scare on Wednesday at the Povoledo Test day, Burras and Pardus got tangled up at the exit of 9 and we came around the corner and almost had a moment like Amy, would have if we had not slowed up a bit right before entry.  So with the idea that survival was more important than absolute speed we put the car away.  

 

NASA didn't want a huge pre grid line so they decided to send out a list of qualifying order.  Luckily John Babot and I were together and decided that I would lead and he would push  Qualifying was a disaster, 1st lap full course yellow which I really don't like.  Second lap had to pass the 6 cars or so in front of us, by the time we got through we were already into the slower cars that left grid last to stay out of the chaos.  Lap 3 would have been the good lap but I blew the entry into the toe and cost us big and John had to pass.  I had spent very little time following and that showed as I couldn't pick up the line in the bus stop at close range so I was never able to push.  With time running out I decided to back up and run the lap by myself and see if could run John down.  I was on a good lap, predictive had it in the 17.1 range going into turn 10 so all I had to do is make it through 11 at pace and i would be in the top 8 or so.  An off pace car was in front of us and he pulled right to get out of the way but then proceeded to race me to the apex and took away my line and i had to check up.  The single finger salutes were justified especially since the guy had already committed to giving up the lap.  Oh well my fault for choking on lap 3.  Welcome to P18.  WTF! this weekend had gone all wrong in 15 minutes.  Will start another thread about lappers and moving over to make way for faster cars.

 

More later. 


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#155
Preston Pardus

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Ladies and gentlemen, Todd Buras  :spin:


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#156
MPR22

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Ladies and gentlemen, Todd Buras  :spin:

Wow, not sure how you carry any speed around with that group as they don't seem to understand the concept of an apex.  Thanks for sharing, glad you kept it safe Todd. 


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#157
jedd fahnestock

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I had been toying with the idea of building a low cost just for fun 200hp 1900#(estimated) Miata with parts I have laying around but after watching this video I see the problem with that idea, some of these guys in these faster classes with the big wings and expensive aero have no idea what they are doing in the turns or on the straights. What are the specs (hp/weight) on Todds car? That thing looks pretty quick.



#158
Danny Steyn

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I had been toying with the idea of building a low cost just for fun 200hp 1900#(estimated) Miata with parts I have laying around but after watching this video I see the problem with that idea, some of these guys in these faster classes with the big wings and expensive aero have no idea what they are doing in the turns or on the straights. What are the specs (hp/weight) on Todds car? That thing looks pretty quick.

 

Jedd. In Spec Miata we are privileged to run with a bunch of drivers that are predictable and fully understand how to share the track in wheel to wheel racing. I have run my 210HP MX-5 in mixed class racing in both NASA and SCCA, and lets put it this way, you really have to pay attention for the unpredictable erratic moves. Lots of drivers in these classes have very high horspower cars and are not used to cars running side-by-side through corners, so you will DEFINITELY have to adjust your driving style. I wish Todd had a throttle trace on his video, as you would have see how he had to get out of the gas so many times, just because he could not predict what the guys in front were going to do. Its NOT commitment to WOT like in SM....

 

PS - Todd - Love the car, and watching this car run in real life, it just does what it does so effortlessly. But seeing it mix it up with the NASA prototypes and large German saloons is a treat.


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