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What a great weekend. Went out for just one session on Friday to scrub in the new slicks and bed in the brakes. About half way through the session the abs light came on, and I found out very quickly that I had no idea how to drive the car without it. I didn’t have any time Friday night to look at it, and when I got back to the track Saturday morning and started the car the light went off. So I figured it was a fluke thing and hit the track. 3 laps into the session, I’m passing a car on the inside going into turn one, and the brake pedal gets real stiff and I can feel the abs kinda working. The bad news is that the car is really not slowing down. I did manage to get it slowed down enough to stay on track, but something was definitely wrong. By the time I got to the back straight the abs light was on again – but at least the brakes were working. So I spent the rest of Saturday learning how to drive without abs. I was locking up tires all over the place; I was a mess.
By the last session I thought I had the hang of it, and for the most part I did. Other than locking up all 4 (twice in the same slide) while trying to make an inside pass at the end of the back straight at 140+ mph, the session was perfect. I think I actually saw the corner worker reaching for the yellow flag. It was that bad. I managed to save it though, and ended up running my fastest lap of the day in that session, a 1:41.9 which was a full 2 seconds faster than my PB last year, and good enough for second place in class for the day (by less than a second).
Saturday night I dug into the abs and found that the drivers side front harness had come out of its clip and was laying against the brake rotor. There was a 4” section that was completely charred, so I re-wired it and re-routed it so it wouldn’t happen again. There was a section on the passenger side that was almost cooked through as well, so I cleaned that up on Sunday morning.
Sunday was pretty much uneventful compared to Saturday. The brakes were great, only needing bled a couple of times, the car had gobs of power and the suspension was absolutely amazing. I’ve never driven a more perfectly balanced car. Even the guy that helped design the suspension I am running couldn’t believe how well hooked the car was. Everyone’s times continued to tumble throughout the day, and I was in a heated battle in my class. In the first afternoon session I went out and ripped off a 1:40.1 on lap number 3. It held up for the last session, giving me my first win of the year by 4/10ths of a second!
Starting the season with a 1st and a 2nd is not too shabby. Without the brake problems on Saturday, I probably would have won both days. I dropped my personal best at that track by a total of 3.8 seconds. Lots of thanks go out to my sponsors for helping get the car ready for battle:
State Farm
Jay Racing
Pure Tuning
PIC Suspension
Tracksource LLC
The next event is May 19-20 at Putnam Park in Indiana. I have a couple more tweaks in the works before that event, so a double win should be in order. Pics coming soon.
Greg
'19 Genesis G70 3.3t AWD
'88 Chrysler Conquest TSI
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