Sparkleturd Racing

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Getting Ready for the Next Round of Racing!

We have a bunch to do before the next time we take the car out. Honestly the car is not fast but, even if we shaved a few seconds a lap off, it would not have placed us any higher. We simply need to spend more time on the track, then we can focus on knocking down lap times.

Rework the radio setup a little bit
Inspect brake pads and shoes
Check wheel bearings
Flush/Bleed brakes
Oil change
Potentially a rear disc brake swap (Probably no performance gain but ease of maintenance and inspection)
Change the starter, that will speed up our driver changes
Other secret stuff
To be continued

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

'18 Cure for Gingervitis - Weekend Recap

It was a great weekend! We placed 17th out of 33 in class B and 40th out of 75 overall!

Thursday
We arrived Thursday evening and set up camp. We had a couple canopies, my open trailer and tents for sleeping in.

Friday
Friday was a track sponsored testing day. It was really a bargain, 9am-5pm, for $225 per car. Split that cost over 4 drivers, it is really hard to turn down. We each got at least one session in the car. However, it was incredibly hot. The car passed tech without issue, and we were classed into class B with no penalty laps. The rookie meeting was really pretty entertaining, being laced with an appropriate amount of profanity, sarcasm, and humor to keep folks engaged. One thing that did become apparent was there were some REAL rookies to driving on track.

Saturday
The nerves kicked in a bit. The race session was from 10:00am-7:00pm. With anxiety plus heat, there was a decent amount of crankiness becoming apparent but, it was manageable. We decided to limit out time to 30 minute stints. We know these are short for endurance racing, even amateur endurance racing. This was in consideration for a couple things. First, we had 3 new drivers. By new drivers I mean, never having been on track, or very limited track experience. Keeping this in mind we felt it was in our best interest to limit the times. Additionally, the heat was a consideration. We did not want anyone getting loopy on track. The only issue we had with the car was a sticky starter solenoid, otherwise, it worked great all day.

Driver changes
We took a relaxed approach to driver changes. Driver changes lasted about 15 minutes on average. So for any given hour during the race, we were spending about 25% off track. It worked okay, it is something we need to trim down.

Sunday
Sunday was a bit of a shorter day. The session is 12:15 to 5:30. We each got one or more stint on Sunday. The day was a mix of packing and racing. The race wrapped up at 5:30 and we went to the awards ceremony where we ended up receiving an award. The "Straight Outta Walmart" award. The car is stock enough that they said it looked like we were on our way to walmart the entire race. It was a good time and I am happy, if not honored, to have the trophy in the shop.

Next Time
The car is pretty solid. I think areas for improvement next race are going to be increasing our stint durations, shortening our driver changes, and driver development. Probably in that order. The first two are quick and easy tweaks to get more laps. Driver experience comes with time, and all we can do is continue to provide those opportunities to advance their experience, outside of just the races.

The next one should be cooler race. It should allow us to extend each stint by at least more than a few minutes.

On the driver changes, we just need to standardize responsibilities, and standardize the tasks. The standard tasks this time were overkill.

We will get the car to a couple track days so everyone can have the opportunity to get more experience in a less pressured environment. That said, our drivers did really well. They were smooth, predictable, and kept the car together.