We were all pumped up to go the NASA Toy Run weekend at Road Atlanta. I had talked a couple of friends into coming to the HPDE events. One was an experienced road racer who is getting back into some track events after spending a few years racing shifter karts. The other friend was a complete rookie and earned the dubious title of Captain Slow over the course of the weekend.
The forecast on Thursday was calling for a 70% chance of snow and rain for Saturday, which was not looking like a happy time for the races. The #35 Acura Integra Type-R was entered in both the road racing group and Time Trials for this event, with 7 sessions on Saturday. I ordered some rain tires from SASCO and hoped for the best.
We made the endless, 10 hour tow starting at 3:30am to make sure we made it for tech on Friday night. We had a few hair raising moments towing the new trailer without a sway controller, especially on the interstate south of Atlanta, but we made it OK.
Saturday morning was cold and looked like great snow weather, but the track had a dry line for TT practice so I went out to bed in some pads. I had always heard that Road Atlanta was an intimidating track, but to drive it for the first time based on reading lap write-ups and watching video was humbling to say the least. I get up some speed for the first time and realize that the steering wheel is about an 1/8 of a turn off center! It immediately flashes into my mind that we made a small ride height adjustment on the front left of the car when we were corner balancing. I know we reset the rear toe, but did we do the front? No, dammit! I figure, ok, won’t take a minute we will fix it after the session.
As an added bonus something went horribly wrong with the brake bedding, or I had a bad rotor out of the box. About the 3rd lap I developed a massive brake vibration, I mean no brakes bad. I stay out coasting around a few more laps while trying to stay off the brakes, no luck getting them to come back after cooling off. Back in the paddock we put our heads down, pull out the spare rotors and trusty old bedded in Hawk Blues. We get the brakes changed and the toe reset on the front in time for the road race group practice. I’m hoping that will be our mechanical disaster for the weekend, but Sunday had a few tricks in store.
We were parked in the outside paddock and had to go out and over the bridge to meet our race group on the inside pits. As we were moving I noticed the sky was starting to clear, could the weather gods be smiling on us? We gridded up for the session and pulled in behind a Spec E30 car 351. I saw the 1 was on with tape and got out to apologize to the guy for taking his car number. He was cool with it and I asked him to show me around the track. Those E30 guys must have a great time because he was driving the snot out of that car. After some lead and follow he waived me by and I felt a whole lot better about being at Road Atlanta.
Despite the forecast the qualifying session was dry and sunny. I managed to qualify 1st in class and 8th overall in the Lightning group. We had a field of 4 for PTD, but I was not feeling good about my almost complete lack of experience at the track. At least we would be staring toward the front. I’m pretty sure I managed to screw up the start by forming on the wrong side of the track, and starting off at least 2 cars behind where I was supposed to start. That little screw up saved my tail, because it kept me out of the pileup that ensued at turn 5. At least 4 maybe more cars all got together and ended up going off in all directions. There were a couple of Thunder roadsters and a V-8 240z I saw spin off. We come out of that with me trailing two Honda Challenge 2 cars. My crew said we proceeded to walk away from the rest of the field until one of the cars in the accident brought out the double yellow when it could not get itself out of the gravel.
The pace car laps had allowed the 4th over all car to close up right on my bumper. Then the bad news came over the radio. Uh, Scott, that car right behind you is in your class. Its an RX-8 and I know I am not going to be able to pull him from the start. I figure my only option is to hope to defend turn one on the restart. The flag dropped and I am right on the bumper of the H2 car ahead. I had a good run going, and The RX-8 did not seem to be able to pull along. Going into one I put a demon braking move on the H2 car to put him between me and the other car. I really ended up killing my momentum and his (I apologize to the H2 driver), but we made it past 3 ok and the race was on. I was locked on the front running H2 car, and driving for my life.
We had one of the cars from the spin come past. I lost my rhythm at that point and began to lose my fox. A few more little bobbles found the RX-8 right on my bumper. Coming down the hill to the white flag the RX-8 is glued to my bumper, can’t shake him. He ends up alongside going into 10A. I didn’t do a very good job of defending the turn, went a little wide, but came out in front going up the hill. Sadly my momentum bubble was burst. The track photographer has an amazing shot of the cars cresting the hill with the RX-8 slipping gently to my inside for the run to the checker. Nothing I could do but watch him win by .2 sec.
We ran a few more TT sessions and called it a day.
Sunday morning was bright and cold. Because of some sternly worded cautions about frozen race tires from Hoosier I decided to sit out the morning sessions. My plan was to get Levi started bleeding the brakes and changing the trans fluid. The trans had been making some unhappy noises and the last time I changed the fluid there were some pretty good chunks on metal in there. I was planning to go to SASCO to pickup my rain tires that we no longer needed, and be at Camping World at 11 when the website said they opened to get a sway controller for the trailer.
So I’m at SASCO, the phone rings, Levi says the stuff I said was Honda transmission fluid is actually power steering fluid. This is a complete disaster because Hondas use special fluid in the gearbox. So I grab up the tires and run to the track vendor. Honda trans fluid?Never heard of it. Meanwhile Capitan Slow wanders up and I send him back to the trailer to get the manual. He’s going to bring it to the vendor to look up the spec for the fluid and see if he has anything.
Meanwhile I haul ass to Camping World and to see if I can find an Auto Zone or something. Auto zone has no fluid; don’t even list anything in the computer for it. On the way to the trailer place Captain Slow calls to say that the vendor does not have any fluid, and Levi has indeed drained the fluid into the same pan with about a pint of brake fluid. No just putting it back in. Camping World is closed on Sunday despite the website, I put a good cussin on them and their mothers and set out to tackle the trans fluid problem. All the import car places are closed. Then I spy a quick oil change place. Honda manual transmission fluid? Of course we have it. $20 and a fiver for the young man and we are back in business.
The toy run race was anticlimactic after the morning, but I got to learn the track some more and dice it up with a few people. By this time I’ve seen Nitti’s times for the morning TT session and know the weekend is a bust as far as winning anything.
I was ready to pack up and go home after the toy race and Nitti’s times, but I had 4 tires that I needed to scrub. I had not been getting any heat in the tires all weekend, so I figured I would do two sessions with 2 new tires on the front. I did the first set in a DE 3/4 session, and did not really get the tire up to temp. I did notice that I was having a very hard time getting the front to slide to build up heat.
I put on the second set and went out in the TT session. I did 3 or 4 laps to warm up the tires, and realized I had a fairly clear track. I got a good run out of 10a and went absolutely flat down the hill for the first time. Dove hard into one, and my group at turn one said the inside rear was higher off the ground than they had seen all weekend. I knew I had something going when I had about an extra 1500rpm up the hill. I said the test pilot's prayer and used my normal braking points and peddle pressure. I hit turn 3 exactly right for the first time and was able to keep flat all the way to 5 where I used every inch plus a bit on the exit. I’m sure that was where I made up a huge amount of time, because the rest of the lap felt about normal. I got out a little too far on the 10b exit curbing and thought for a second that I was going to blow it, but I kept my foot in it all the way past start/finish.
My jaw dropped when I saw the time. I had seen Nitti’s times from the morning TT session, and thought it was already over. I was hoping to maybe manage to catch a second, but that lap was way more that I thought I could ring out of the car or myself. It was a new lap record 1:41.622.
There was one more TT session, but I was fairly sure the time would hold. The late afternoon sun made it almost impossible to see in several of the corners. We went to pack up the trailer and see what happened. The time held, we got our results and headed out on the 10 hour tow. Drove 55MPH all the way home because of the trailer swaying, but with plenty of happy memories from the weekend.