Summit Point Major

Results from Saturday Race. As Al noted, Ron Bartell bettered the existing HP record by about a second. Weather better for the race than the Friday Qualifying in which it rained only when small bore was on the grid and we went out on a damp track both sessions. Sat morning qualifying was great air and track. Hats off to new SCCA racer Graham Fuller, who just completed the WDCR Driver's School in April and has returned a GTL Mini to the track from previous long term storage. Also, there are a couple of our Canadian smallbore friends who made the road trip to Summit this weekend.

EP
Minor Wilox Caterham
Motthew Stutt Mazda RX7
Joe Kelly Caterham
Bill Smith Mazda RX7
Scott Graf Datsun 260Z (As mentioned prior in this string: Eat Crab/Eat Fish

FP
Jerry Hinkle Lotus 7 Series 4
Jeff Norris Mazda Miata
Patrick Krider Mazda Miata (pulled off a few laps early)

HP
Ron Bartell MG Midget
Tom Broring Triumph Spitfire
Ryan Downey Datsun 510
Joe Camilleri VW Scirocco

GTL
Bobby Lentz Nissan Sentra
Kyle Disque Toyota Tercel
Warren Montague Toyota Tercel
Brian Downey Nissan 200SX
Brian Floyd Nissan 200SX
Chris Kopley Austin Mini
Don Walsh Toyota Tercel
Ted Phenix Austin Mini
Graham Fuller Austin Mini
 
Great weekend of racing, a big thanks to the locals for making our first time at Summit a good experience. A bit of a bummer ending with a wounded engine but hit my target time for my first time there. And thanks to vimeo and youtube can compare MY laps with my peers to see what I need to do to improve. Smiles all around AND we missed any real rain all weekend. :applause:

Bryan Floyd
 
Just got home from Summit Point and what a good weekend we had for a change. Dan and I needed one. We just put gas and tires on the car and probably did almost 100 laps without a hiccup. (Shameless plug:The new Hoosier S radials are the real deal and good for maybe a second a lap.)

I got the car back in one piece after Watkins Glen so I could attend Col. Joe's tribute at S.P. It was really nice and a little emotional for me to be a part of the missing man lap for Col. Joe Hauser, since I knew him and raced with him. He and Lois were always friendly and helpful to Jeanne and me, and on the track he was an intense competitor and didn't like those pesky H-cars giving him trouble on the shorter courses. He was a great man and a true representative of the good in our sport. Nice to see and meet Joe Jr. and his son (Col.'s grandson) who said they appreciated my comments about the Colonel from the podium.

The course is a lot of fun for a good handling car, the people are friendly, and even the weather treated us kindly. The DC region did a stellar job of putting on this event. I especially like the corner worker's desire to avoid FCY's at all cost. That is especially appealing to me having lost a runoffs because of one. There were a couple of incidents that easily could have brought out the pace car at another venue.

It was also great to catch up with Randy Canfield and Ray stone as well as meet some of the local racers like Greg N. On top of all that, we were able to return the lap record to it's rightful place with a British roadster :) as it was since the beginning of recorded time except the last few years. Stealing it away from a rice rocket was especially satisfying.
 
Enjoyed the racing sunday,was nice meeting Tom and his wife and Ron.Great racing took lots of pictures.Weather was great sunday!GTL was fun to watch Ron you had that car hooked up on rails ! O_O Tom great race.Sprman :D
 
On behalf of the DC region, thank you to everyone who came to the Majors and Eastern Conference Finalie at Summit Point. We appreciate having people come from all over to race with us. Despite the small (to us) field, there was lots of great races to watch. The GTL freight train at the start of both days races were exciting to watch, wondering what the order would be next lap.
We hope that everyone enjoyed their weekend. With the Majors season over and the Runoffs on the west coast, I'd like to mention that we have 2 more race weekends at Summit Point and all are welcome! MARRS 7 and 8 are Labor Day weekend (August 30 to September 1) and MARRS 9 is first weekend in October. A full run group is a problem we would love to have.
 
Congratulations to Ron Bartell for the new HP track record of 1:25.860. Blistering fast fast.

Question to Ron, are you running Hoosier radials now?

Again, congrats!
 
Okay, so I guess I need to read before submitting. Yes, I see Ron is on the new Hoosier radials.

So a better question, how much work was involved in switching over from traditional slicks? I know you need more camber and deal with the higher pressures of the radials. I understand that with bias plys, you work on contact patch and with radials, you work on spring rates (with air pressure). Did you need to change the car a lot because of the radials?

Thanks in advance.
 
Thank you all for the kind words. Yes, the car was hooked up and fun to drive.

Doug - I don't know what car you have, so what you have to do may vary a lot from what I did. It is not that difficult to make the conversion. I stiffened the front and rear springs about 10 to 15% and tuned it with sway bar settings which also changed of course. I plugged in 3 1/2 degrees of camber in the front but detuned it to 2 3/4 degrees in order to get the balance that I needed front to rear, because I can't easily put any rear camber in due to the live axel rear. As for pressures, my staring pressure is only a little higher than before and hot pressure a little higher. I know a lot of other people run different pressures. Remember one of the big advantages of radials is reduced rolling resistance which is improved with higher air pressures, so you run as high as you are comfortable with.

Other than that, it is a question of getting used to the way the radials feel. At first they felt.....different. I can't really tell you what it is but because they are different you are at first uncomfortable with how the car feels so you tend to not push them hard enough and therefore don't get enough heat in them to work right. This may explain why some of the people that have tried them didn't like them. Once you get used to them you need to really punish them as they thrive on abuse. As I was telling Tim from Hoosier I am now to the point where I don't think of them as radials - they are just tires. They feel normal to me, so I am used to whatever it is that makes them feel different.

So. I am living proof that you can get radials to work without putting in any rear camber. If you have a front wheel drive car, you really need to be on radials. I am told that they take less effort to get through a corner and don't fight you at the wheel. They also stay under you for the whole race so if you are having trouble burning your tires off on a front wheel drive car that problem goes away. If you can put in rear camber, you can probably allow the front to stick better than I was able to so they should work well for you.

The new S version is supposed to allow even more camber, but again, work well if you can't. When I said they were about a second a lap faster, that was in comparison to the R version, which for me has been about equal to the cantilevered slicks. The only down side that I can even mention, and it probably doesn't apply to everyone is that I am a fast starter. With the canty's I could really push hard right from the start. With the radials you really need to make sure they are up to temperature and under you before you get after it. The other side of that is that I have had canty's go away on me if I abused them and overheated them. That doesn't happen with the radials.

All in all, it is not a big deal to make the conversion. Make the changes and then spend some time in the gym strengthening your neck muscles because they do stick. Remember, I am just one data point. There are a lot of people running the radials now and they may have different information, so ask around and get the whole story.

Hope this helps.
 
Ron, how many sessions did you typically get out of your cantis? How many do you get now with the S Radials?
 
Tom Feller":3u98h7is said:
Ron, how many sessions did you typically get out of your cantis? How many do you get now with the S Radials?
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Dan tells me that they last a lot longer than his Goodyear canty's did.
 
Thanks for the info Ron. I hope to relocate one of the Mid-Atlantic's "Rice Rocket" to Florida very soon. I think I should make the switch from Cantys to Radials as part of it's re-homing.

I come form a street tire background and I think the radials would be a better fit for me over the bias plies.

Again, congrats on the new Summit lap record. Much deserved.
 
Ron Bartell":155tnvbi said:
Tom Feller":155tnvbi said:
Ron, how many sessions did you typically get out of your cantis? How many do you get now with the S Radials?
Click to expand...
Dan tells me that they last a lot longer than his Goodyear canty's did.
Click to expand...
When I experimented with the radials three years ago, I could get just over 6 sessions on the radials vs 4 sessions on the Goodyear's on my fronts so roughly 50% more life.
Also, the tire wear was even across the tread, vs wearing the inside shoulder of the bias plys, so I found I did not have to flip the tires around on the rim to even out the wear.

If there was any downside to the radials (other than the time required to get your car sorted) the only negative aspect of the tires for me was the higher rotating mass coupled with a slightly larger diameter. I could definitely feel a difference in acceleration and braking with the radials compared to the bias plys.

Ron, are the new 'S' compound tires lighter than the older radials or are they about the same weight?
 
Greg Gauper":3ssyilql said:
Ron, are the new 'S' compound tires lighter than the older radials or are they about the same weight?
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I didn't weigh them but they seem to be similar if not identical to the R series. I keep asking what is different about the S tires but their lack of a clear response probably means that they don't want me to know.
 
James Rogerson":3bhni3uc said:
Greg, have you changed to the radials now? Last we talked you weren't happy with them.

James -r
Click to expand...
It's not that I wasn't happy with them...it was more a matter of me running out of development time to get them dialed in on my car.

For sure I will make the switch in 2015 as I think their lower rolling resistance will be a big plus at Daytona.
 
I ran the S tires at mid-ohio and was very happy with them. I can't tell right off the bat how much faster than the R tire as I'm still working the setup a little bit and learning the track.

With the spitfire it was a natural progression as my car hated the cantilevers.

I am also playing around with the different widths offered 215 and 190. Grip levels are different between the two but there are trade-offs.

aaron
 
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