**Watkins Glen, June 5-6, Immediately after Carlisle**

[John Brennan]

Great stuff! How cool is that?!

[AnHonestCitizen]

Thanks for sharing! Boy that brought back memories. I missed that.
Looks like you had the apexes nailed until you came up on that Vette. Having to pass that Corvette on the approach to the Boot put you on a scary line. If I had tried that in my car the way it was set up, I'd be either standing on the brakes or in the weeds. Probably both. My car loved to drift to the right on the laces of the Boot. It would just skate over all those ruts down in there like they were made of butter. From what I could tell, it seems like you did stab the brakes pretty hard right before that apex. If I had tried that last year, my car would've been swapping ends like a quater in a coin toss.
Good job with your set-up and driving.

[white_2kgt]

Thanks for sharing! Boy that brought back memories. I missed that.
Looks like you had the apexes nailed until you came up on that Vette. Having to pass that Corvette on the approach to the Boot put you on a scary line. If I had tried that in my car the way it was set up, I'd be either standing on the brakes or in the weeds. Probably both. My car loved to drift to the right on the laces of the Boot. It would just skate over all those ruts down in there like they were made of butter. From what I could tell, it seems like you did stab the brakes pretty hard right before that apex. If I had tried that last year, my car would've been swapping ends like a quater in a coin toss.
Good job with your set-up and driving.

haha, thanks. The closing speed pete and I put on most of the cars in our group was unreal. When I would pass somebody I would drop back about 30% of mine and the cars ability, unless I caught them in the exit of the esses, usually I could time that just right so I didn't have to lift. So while that line might have looked 'scary' I had plenty of grip to make those moves stick .

So you think I had a good line hu? I got about 8 laps with an instructor on Monday and that was my first time at that track, ever.

[PDenbigh]

Damn, that's wonderful and painful to watch all at once, given that I wasn't there.

What was upo with that A4? Was he practicing laps at pace car speed?

I trust those were early laps Peter. You're getting out of the throttle way too early!!!

Leave it to the guy that wimped out to dish out some smack talk . Come to the track next year big boy and let me know how my car looks from the rear! Look fast though, you'll only get about 5 seconds before I'm a dot on the horizon!

Those were Monday's laps. Excuses aside, I was not agressive enough on Monday. By Tuesday I was chirping the tires going into nearly every turn. But even still, I have a feeling the actual speed is much greater than the perceeved speed on those videos. Such as the back straight, looks slow but was actually around 130mph.

[PDenbigh]

Here's 1 movie. This is from pete's in car while he is behind me. Not sure when this was taken. Pete what session did I copy from your tape to mine while we were driving back?

Please right click and Save As on the picture

That's session three on Monday. Sesson 4 I had the instructor.

Also, things look a little squished because I record my vids in 16:9 (Widescreen). I'll post up an unsquished version soon.

[PDenbigh]

Pete really got on it later, I think that was stuff from Monday. He has the tape him chassing me down I think.

I'm not nearly as fast as Chad, but we had a good time nonetheless. It was fun to finally have someone faster than me to follow.

Again, I'll get these videos rendered soon.

[AnHonestCitizen]

I think these two Vids really show the differences in the cars more than anything else. I didn't see Peter's Vid until this morning, and I tell you that looked almost exactly like my car...only faster.
Notice how Peter is squeeling the tires at almost every turn. I only heard Chad do that once or twice. Granted, Chad's mic was farther away from the tires and he was in traffic at a lot of the turns. Still, Chad's Vid shows the monstrous capability of the SN95 Mustang. Last year my instructor took me out a few times in his 200? Cobra. (It was the Supercharged IRS version, don't know what year.) That thing was fast. He was eating up the other Group 3 cars and could hold a line anywhere on the track with barely a peep out of the tires. The car was almost bone-stock; just seats, belts, half-cage, race tires and race pads.
Peter's Vid shows just how hard it is to keep an XR on the right line. I only saw two places where I thought Peter let off the gas early, and I wouldn't criticize either decision. Turn One he seemed to let off early, but it seemed like he didn't hit the brakes all that hard either. Track out was still well up on the rumble strips, so I think he was carrying good speed for his car. He floated the car through the Bus Stop in the same way. I totally agree with that stategy. You get too much bite on the front tires and then hit those bumps at the apexes and you are totally messed up. Plus, I like to have more weight on the rear tires in that section so that I can start flooring it halfway through the Bus Stop. You can be all-out going downhill towards the Boot because of the extreme slant in the track.
I find the XR doesn't like to have it's front to rear weight distribution messed with too much. Plus, you have to find the right balance between loading the turbo and bogging it.

[PDenbigh]

Good observations AHC.

One thing that I should note, however, was that I was on street tires and Chad is on Toyo RA-1 DOT Comp tires. Comp tires don't squeel.

Race tires are next on my list, as soon as I get this new oil cooler installed next week. I have a lead on some old but unused Victoracers for pretty cheap. I'll shave them and they'll hold me for a while.

My XR doesn't hold a candle to Chad's Mustang in the handling department. He built that car right with a ton of Maximum Motorsports goodies and not one piece of rubber in the suspension. It gives the term "on rails" new meaning.

I have a plan to make the XR handle well though. Next year will be a different story

Peter

[AnHonestCitizen]

Picking those tires up from Kearney Racing, by any chance, Peter?
BTW, I tried calling them a couple times today. They didn't pick up. Do you know if they are out doing a race weekend somewhere?

[PDenbigh]

OK, here's a video from my perspective. This is one or two laps before we got Black Flagged.

Roughly a 2:29 lap with traffic and on street tires. I know I blew a few apexes and I don't have time to find any other laps ATM, so just watch and enjoy as the XR has fun with the rest of the field.


http://www.85xr.com/Events/WGI_06/WGI_01.wmv

[DPDISXR4Ti]

Much better!

Did you mean to go that wide in turn 1?
Was that a funeral procession you ran into going up the esses?
I see that you also start in with a much higher line going through the carosel.
What happened coming out of the toe of the boot?
You also struggle with the heel turn I see - funny how our line and "issues" are very similar.
Please tell me that last Mustang you passed had some sort of brake light issues, and that he wasn't really braking as he came OUT of the turns!

BTW, 2:29 is awesome. The Grand Am Cup cars are only running ~10-15 seconds quicker.

[PDenbigh]

Much better!

Did you mean to go that wide in turn 1?
Was that a funeral procession you ran into going up the esses?
I see that you also start in with a much higher line going through the carosel.
What happened coming out of the toe of the boot?
You also struggle with the heel turn I see - funny how our line and "issues" are very similar.
Please tell me that last Mustang you passed had some sort of brake light issues, and that he wasn't really braking as he came OUT of the turns!

I know I blew a few apexes and I don't have time to find any other laps ATM, so just watch and enjoy as the XR has fun with the rest of the field.

Brad,

Yes, I meant to screw up every thing I did wrong in the video, just to make everyone else feel better.

Do you have any in car vids to show us how it's done?

Peter

[AnHonestCitizen]

Nice one Peter! You took out three or four cars that lap. Just a few little bobbles is all.
That Turn 1 bobble looks worse than it is because the rear left wheel got a few inches over the berm. If a driver rides that ridge it doesn't even feel like a mistake. But if the tire gets sucked over the berm then things start to look ugly. I've done that.
The Bus Stop into the Carousel was just how I like to do it. See how fast Peter comes up on that A4 right before the Laces? Sweet. That pass was set up way back in the Bus Stop.
I saw you throw your hands up after the Toe, but I couldn't tell what was wrong. It looked pretty good to me. There are so many ways to get through the Toe it's hard to say what the best line is.
The Heel is tricky, isn't it?
I think, Peter, that if you had had smoother turn-in at both Turn 1 and the Heel then that lap would have been just about perfect.

[DPDISXR4Ti]

I think Peter may have missed my intent - wasn't mean to be critical AT ALL (well, other than of the other cars out for a country drive - couldn't they have done that outside the gates???).

Given how "friendly" those FIA rumble strips are, I was thinking he may have been purposely tracking out there. I can recall my instructor yelling at me to purposely ride over them - "They're not speed bumps!"

As long as the site move goes good this weekend, we can probably host some of this locally if you want Peter. Just let myself or Paul know.

[DPDISXR4Ti]

Do you have any in car vids to show us how it's done?

As a matter of fact, I do...

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v148/ ... enchgp.flv