Well after spending all this time working on Lizbeth's appearance,
I took her racing again this weekend.
Got up early Sunday morn, packed up the tools, jack, air tank, clothes,
helmet, cooler, some tunes, and headed off to LaCrosse Wisconsin. Now for
those not up on their Wi. geography, that's about 80 miles directly due south.
By back roads. Darn shame. Of course they are mostly Wisconsin back roads
which means straight lines. Except for this one little 2 mile long stretch
into the Misssisipi River valley. It's marked with a squiggly arrow with a
"20" underneath. We had a terrific time. One big sweeping left hander
that just went down and around for what seemed like forever, till you get to the
sharp right hander that followed it....
Once I arrived at the site & unpacked, etc, I got a look at the
course. Like quite a few out here it was being held on a Winston Cup Stock
car track that had been reneted for the day. This one was larger than the other
2 I've seen out here, 3/4 of a mile, with the traditional white & red walls
and fairly well banked turns. But with a little twist, There was a 1/4 mi
oval set in one corner, sharing about 2/3 of the front straight and one turn.
The course was basically started at the junction on the straight, headed
into the first big turn, and offset right in the middle, back to the outside,
a 3 cone slalom down the first half of the back stretch, X box, nuther 3 cone
slalom, highspeed back turn with a kink to the left followed by a sharp right
into the back straight of the 1/4 mi oval. Offset in the middle of that, go
around the 1/4mi oval, and come back in where you made the sharp right earlier.
Then instead of turning left onto the main straight, turn right through a very
set of offets and through the finish.
Again, the track was typically NASCAR with it's imposing walls and
big enormous farm tractor tires set along the inside edge to try to keep
you out of the pond, uh, I mean infield.
My first run was by far the worst. I had the really sticky tires on
the front (A008R's) and the just stickt tires (A008's) on the back to try to
cure the understeer that plagued me last year. Well, the run was going fine,
3rd gear across the back straight!! I came down into the 1/4mi oval, and was
set up for the left hander onto the main straight, started the turn in when
the back end came around fast. Correct, correct, OK, lift a little, snap spin!
The dreaded Trailing Throttle Oversteer! I'm now headed sideways through the
turn, nose to the infield, and headed for the infield. I slid off the pavement,
headed for one of the Big Tires, but was save by a pit of mud and water about
6" deep that I slid into sideways. AAAAAHHHHGGGG! At least I missed the tire.
But how often have you had to wash your car between runs? And have to be pushed
out of the infield?
After that brief excursion, run 2 was really slow due to pure fear. It
was really twitchy an I had to catch the back a number of times. A 1.10.230
to the 1.06.843 of 2nd place. 1st was unatainable ES CRX who also missed FTD
by < 1 sec. For run # 3 I swapped the 8R's to the back, sliced it down to 1.07.?
and felt that there was alot left. The car in #2 wasn't improving much. For the
last run, I managed a 1.0.6.230 and the car in 2nd turned a 1.04.something.
Almost. But with 9 cars in class, I still managed to take home a very neat
trophy. They took pictures 1st run, sent them to the 1 hour photo, and mounted
them on the trophys. Anyone who didn't trophy still got a picture of their
car coming around the turn I spun in. They missed getting me in the mud by
less than a second. That would have mad a serious trophy!
Anyway, back to work!
iii
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