Tires. Are. Done.

Decent course at CCSCC today, and like the first event of the year, I had D. Marx codrive the MINI with me. By the first run, we had determined that the tires are heat cycled out, which I guess is reasonable. I got a pretty sweet drift on them on the back sweeper, but my camera doesn’t handle scrubbing very well at all, so not worth posting. While I personally have 124 runs on them, there’s 152 runs on the tires after today. It’s a little earlier than I expected to need to swap tires, I think a lot in part due to all the codrivers I’ve had this season. I’m probably losing about a half second max out there, but I’m gonna have to tough it out at least for the next 3 events or so – that way i can time it so i’ll have fresh tires at nationals with a couple events to scrub them in. They still have a couple mm of tread on them, though not enough to not hydroplane above more than 50mph.

I think I did a little better with turn in, though not good as my codriver today. I tried to set up wide and turn in early to get close to the cones, and I think it reflects that at a couple of spots. My codriver attacks the slaloms harder than I do, something I need to continue working on. Otherwise, we were only five hundredths apart – and considering he beat me by 1.1s at the first event of the season, I’m happy to take that as a sign of improvement. My fastest time was a 49.394, and his fastest was a 49.340. PAX position (17) was slightly disappointing, especially considering I was 5th at the end of our heat, but I think this is about where I’ve been at CCSCC. I think with fresher tires and better driving I could have climbed up the ranks a little. Still have yet to crack top 10 at any region, and I doubt I will be able to until I get new tires.

Forgot to mention! As we had bled the brake fluid 2 days prior, it was a good course to test out how the brakes felt – and they felt great. ABS kicked in as needed, and the pedal feel was improved. If anything I think the brakes were a touch “grabbier” than they had been before the flush. It’s hard to say with too much certainty, as the tires are done for but, no problems with the brakes! Big thanks again to ljmattox@NAM for helping me out with the flush!

My best:

Codriver’s best:

CCSCC PAX: 17th, 1.662s behind

Pax results here.
Class results here.

Things to work on:

• Still need to get closer to the cones
• Take wider approaches to tight corners
• Unwind sooner/more progressively and get on the gas earlier
• Reemphasize early turn in – get closer to the cones (mentioned it twice because it’s that important)

Run count: 124