Ken Berdine
New member
Congratulations to Jack Shultz in the h prod mg midget. Jack got the Sunoco hard charger award for moving up so many places at the race on sat. Great race Jack!! And thanks again for feeding us Fri nite.
H prod update
- Thread starter Ken Berdine
- Start date
Chris Schaafsma
Well-known member
So - here's my report.
Test day Sunday - Steve was fast, and I didn't drive in the grass in one session. Actually figured out some good things on gearing and remembered some of the key points on this track.
Monday - we pulled trans, changed destroyed clutch that only had test day hours on it, put the right diff and right final drive in the same trans and put everything back together.
Tuesday - Grid was set by HST points, then other points, then other points. I think I was 14th on grid. Went out and got a decent time 2:15.2 which gave me provisional pole.
Wednesday - Grid was set by times so I went first followed by Steve. I ran up the hill right away to avoid giving him a nice fat draft, but I was a bit cautious while the rears built temperature, and he ended up getting a fat draft up the esses on his way to a pole position time of 2:13.9. I let him by, blew my entry to roller coaster, and slipped behind one of the CRXs where I was not able to run a good fast lap before catching them. So I backed off for another attempt and a Civic caught fire at Oak Tree after I got one lap in - a 2:15.3. I figured Steve would have a low to mid 14, and expected the same myself - but strategy fail on my part changed that.
Thursday - we changed springs again (did so on Wednesday too) because the track was gaining grip. I went out second, let Steve go, and got my tires warm to throw down some good laps. There was a strong SW wind that knocked 4-5 mph off the back and front straights, but I was able to turn 15.3s in those conditions - possibly my best laps of the week. The only people that ran their best times had been struggling earlier in the week, or were drafting me the whole session (Will Perry). I was still able to pull about a half second a lap on Will, so I figured Saturday would be race to keep up with Steve if it was dry. We removed another destroyed clutch and installed a "borrowed" disk made by a different manufacturer for the race.
Friday - it was miserable
Saturday - After deciding 6 or 8 times what tire and setup to run on the car we finally came around to the spring rates we ran all season, and dry tires with a little shock tuning for a green track. Steve and I both got a decent start. My car was a handful on lap 1 with the cold rears, trying to bite me at T4b and Hog Pen. When the car stepped out at Hog Pen Perry lifted and ended up in the grass, doing an amazing job of keeping it going straight and getting back on track. As lap 3 started I still had enough contact with Steve to catch back up when the tires came in, and we proceeded to have a really fun, difficult race. We both made some little errors. I made a big one that I got away with, running all 4 to the left of the left hand ess curbing, and some time past half way Steve ended up spinning across the apex of Hog Pen as we were lapping Kendall. The drizzle had started at Oak Tree a few laps earlier, and that slowly intensified and moved towards South Bend as I focused on running consistent laps without taking big risks in the wet and Steve mounted a furious charge back to the podium.
It was a great week. It was an exhausting week. It was equal parts joy and relief to finally reach this goal. Chuck Mathis built us a motor that everyone wanted to follow up the back straights, G-Loc gave me pads that were the same in T1 every lap, Race Keeper let me test their video/data loger unit that took the footage below (the less than perfect focus is due to the soaped inside windshield) <- I'm definitely picking one of these up this winter. Starts automatically and gives decent basic driving data coupled with video so you can see how/if traffic or other factors may have affected the lap. I think all of the front runners were on dry Hoosiers, but all of us at some point probably had a marker in hand sketching out intermediate patterns on a set of softs.
By the way - no one in HP needed a wavier to start. Everyone was within 115% of pole time. I never saw a yellow flag because everyone did a great job of continuing safely if they had a spin in the variable conditions (onto the super slick grass).
Here is the in car:
https://youtu.be/FzEiF7FGa5A
Test day Sunday - Steve was fast, and I didn't drive in the grass in one session. Actually figured out some good things on gearing and remembered some of the key points on this track.
Monday - we pulled trans, changed destroyed clutch that only had test day hours on it, put the right diff and right final drive in the same trans and put everything back together.
Tuesday - Grid was set by HST points, then other points, then other points. I think I was 14th on grid. Went out and got a decent time 2:15.2 which gave me provisional pole.
Wednesday - Grid was set by times so I went first followed by Steve. I ran up the hill right away to avoid giving him a nice fat draft, but I was a bit cautious while the rears built temperature, and he ended up getting a fat draft up the esses on his way to a pole position time of 2:13.9. I let him by, blew my entry to roller coaster, and slipped behind one of the CRXs where I was not able to run a good fast lap before catching them. So I backed off for another attempt and a Civic caught fire at Oak Tree after I got one lap in - a 2:15.3. I figured Steve would have a low to mid 14, and expected the same myself - but strategy fail on my part changed that.
Thursday - we changed springs again (did so on Wednesday too) because the track was gaining grip. I went out second, let Steve go, and got my tires warm to throw down some good laps. There was a strong SW wind that knocked 4-5 mph off the back and front straights, but I was able to turn 15.3s in those conditions - possibly my best laps of the week. The only people that ran their best times had been struggling earlier in the week, or were drafting me the whole session (Will Perry). I was still able to pull about a half second a lap on Will, so I figured Saturday would be race to keep up with Steve if it was dry. We removed another destroyed clutch and installed a "borrowed" disk made by a different manufacturer for the race.
Friday - it was miserable
Saturday - After deciding 6 or 8 times what tire and setup to run on the car we finally came around to the spring rates we ran all season, and dry tires with a little shock tuning for a green track. Steve and I both got a decent start. My car was a handful on lap 1 with the cold rears, trying to bite me at T4b and Hog Pen. When the car stepped out at Hog Pen Perry lifted and ended up in the grass, doing an amazing job of keeping it going straight and getting back on track. As lap 3 started I still had enough contact with Steve to catch back up when the tires came in, and we proceeded to have a really fun, difficult race. We both made some little errors. I made a big one that I got away with, running all 4 to the left of the left hand ess curbing, and some time past half way Steve ended up spinning across the apex of Hog Pen as we were lapping Kendall. The drizzle had started at Oak Tree a few laps earlier, and that slowly intensified and moved towards South Bend as I focused on running consistent laps without taking big risks in the wet and Steve mounted a furious charge back to the podium.
It was a great week. It was an exhausting week. It was equal parts joy and relief to finally reach this goal. Chuck Mathis built us a motor that everyone wanted to follow up the back straights, G-Loc gave me pads that were the same in T1 every lap, Race Keeper let me test their video/data loger unit that took the footage below (the less than perfect focus is due to the soaped inside windshield) <- I'm definitely picking one of these up this winter. Starts automatically and gives decent basic driving data coupled with video so you can see how/if traffic or other factors may have affected the lap. I think all of the front runners were on dry Hoosiers, but all of us at some point probably had a marker in hand sketching out intermediate patterns on a set of softs.
By the way - no one in HP needed a wavier to start. Everyone was within 115% of pole time. I never saw a yellow flag because everyone did a great job of continuing safely if they had a spin in the variable conditions (onto the super slick grass).
Here is the in car:
https://youtu.be/FzEiF7FGa5A
Matt Blehm
Moderator
It seems almost every story I hear of this year's runoffs is "the same".. It's a wide open gamble with setup changes, exploding parts, wild guesses at what to do for tires, and HOLY CRAP wet, dry, wet, dry, damp, wet, drying, wet, now it's POURING at Hog Pen and dry everywhere else!
I applaud everyone that stuck it out for the week. Moreso everyone that stayed on track in whatever mess the sky was throwing at you!
You guys must all have many more gray hairs.
I applaud everyone that stuck it out for the week. Moreso everyone that stayed on track in whatever mess the sky was throwing at you!
You guys must all have many more gray hairs.