Optima at New Jersey

[Turbo6inKY]

I made the trek from Kentucky to Millville, New Jersey for the Optima event at the New Jersey Motorsports Park this past weekend.

Big fun. Recently I'd upped the boost on the car from 17 to 20psi, and I'd re-aligned the front end, simply putting as much camber as I could. The results were fantastic. And disappointing.

On the first day, we had the autocross, design and engineering, and a road rally. The car did fine. In fact, better than fine. The first place car ran a 29.7. The second place car ran a 30.7. The 11th place car ran a 31.7. That's ten cars crammed into the next second.

I was ninth. Bumped from seventh on the last of 11 runs. I think I would have been fourth if the event had been capped at 3 or 4 runs like an SCCA event. I had more time to get, but couldn't put all the parts together.

BUT! The car pulled 1.3g on the autocross course. 1.3!

The design and engineering was hard, as it always is. I improved over the last event. Road rally was cake.

Sunday? Sunday was Speed Stop and road course laps. I only got one shot at Speed Stop. Still was way not last.

Road Course? Respectable 1:27 time. But then the engine went. When you watch the video, you'll see where I gave up a ton of time being tentative and also stuck behind that 3rd Gen F-Body. What you won't see or hear is the engine giving up shortly after. I got a tow home, and I'll start tearing the engine down this week to see what broke.

But, I hit 122.3mph at the end of the front straight at the beginning of the lap. Towards the end, heading for the bridge, I was cornering at 102mph and had a lot left. I think the max cornering force was 1.1g during the lap. And the sweeper before the front straight? I was stuck behind that F-body. I could have taken that corner at 20mph more than I did, which should have left me crossing the start/finish at closer to 130 than 110. This thing is just begging for an engine that doesn't give up and some clean air.

 

[Mark T-TB]

I made the trek from Kentucky to Millville, New Jersey for the Optima event at the New Jersey Motorsports Park this past weekend.

Big fun. Recently I'd upped the boost on the car from 17 to 20psi, and I'd re-aligned the front end, simply putting as much camber as I could. The results were fantastic. And disappointing.
it's great that you can still say that you had a good time!

On the first day, we had the autocross, design and engineering, and a road rally. The car did fine. In fact, better than fine. The first place car ran a 29.7. The second place car ran a 30.7. The 11th place car ran a 31.7. That's ten cars crammed into the next second.
Wow - very competitive.

I was ninth. Bumped from seventh on the last of 11 runs. I think I would have been fourth if the event had been capped at 3 or 4 runs like an SCCA event. I had more time to get, but couldn't put all the parts together.
How many cars were in the "Vintage" class altogether?
BUT! The car pulled 1.3g on the autocross course. 1.3!
incredible! Nice work

The design and engineering was hard, as it always is. I improved over the last event. Road rally was cake.

Sunday? Sunday was Speed Stop and road course laps. I only got one shot at Speed Stop. Still was way not last.

Road Course? Respectable 1:27 time. But then the engine went. When you watch the video, you'll see where I gave up a ton of time being tentative and also stuck behind that 3rd Gen F-Body. What you won't see or hear is the engine giving up shortly after. I got a tow home, and I'll start tearing the engine down this week to see what broke.
Ouch.
But, I hit 122.3mph at the end of the front straight at the beginning of the lap. Towards the end, heading for the bridge, I was cornering at 102mph and had a lot left. I think the max cornering force was 1.1g during the lap. And the sweeper before the front straight? I was stuck behind that F-body.
yeah, it really looked like you were holding back there... damn F-bodies! Kind of a shame that you didn't have a clear space to go.
I could have taken that corner at 20mph more than I did, which should have left me crossing the start/finish at closer to 130 than 110. This thing is just begging for an engine that doesn't give up and some clean air.

Thanks for posting the videos and "carrying the flag" for all of the GN crowd.
It was great to meet you and see your car, too.
Good luck with the repairs.

 

[Turbo6inKY]

To answer some questions Mark posted that you can't see in the quoted block:

There were 23 cars in the Vintage class. If you dig into the full results, I'm sitting at 15th overall (out of 113) for the year after two events, and they count your best three. I won't be getting a third, obviously, but I'm not doing poorly. Not winning, though.

In GTV at NJMP, I finished 16th in my class, despite the failure. My speed stop runs were at least three tenths to half a second slower than I think I could have pulled out if the car hadn't broken, and my track lap was at least ten seconds slower than I think I would have ended up with four more sessions of practice. My D&E ranking was a disappointment, but still an improvement over my score at NCM.

Overall, I was 31st of 90 at the event. Top third. With a failure. I'm not ashamed of that at all.

I've already engaged Cometic. We're going to diagnose this failure and put it back together and be back at it next year. Winter plans include taking about 200 pounds off the car and fixing the front suspension and brakes the right way.

 

[Mark T-TB]

^^^ Thanks for the detailed info. (I did learn that if you click the quoted block the whole thing shows)
Seems like you had very good results overall, that is mighty stiff competition.