MID OHIO SCCA "BUCKEYE SPRINTS" NATIONAL 08-14-04
The sixth H-Production report of the season comes from an SCCA national event at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course, in Ohio, a 2.25-mile, 14-turn track.
This event included two qualifying sessions on Saturday and a 20 lap race on Sunday. The weather was beautiful all weekend, somewhat chilly at times. Very conducive to going fast.
The event had a huge turnout of Production cars, so many in-fact, that they had to adjust the class and pull all of the GT4-GT5 cars out:
12 EPs
15 FPs
15 GPs
6 HPs
We had high hopes because of the work we did recently to the car, including moving from carburetion to fuel injection, adding a distributor-less ignition, and new suspension. We did not receive our suspension pieces until Friday shortly before leaving for the race. We installed the components at the track Friday night. Because of this, we were unable to verify critical chassis measurements and settings, so we just had to wing it for the first qualifying session.
Saturday morning qualifying was a pretty big disappointment. Within the first couple of laps, the car had a bad push. The engine ran strong though with the new Fuel Injection system. 5 laps into the session a GP car blew his engine right in front of me going into Turn 1. Bearings, pillow blocks, everything flying out from under his car. Fortunately I was far enough back to stay out of the oil and made it past cleanly. They black flagged the session. Even with an ill-handling car, we qualified 1st in class.
I decided to play with the suspension some more, and using the track scales. I worked to get my corner weights equalized, and made some major camber adjustments front and rear. I also found that the front strut attachments to the uprights were not completely tight. That could explain some of the flakiness too.
Second qualifying session, the car pushed even worse, the gear shift handle came off in my hand, and then I lost my brakes at turn 13. Hit the pedal twice, no one was home! Fortunately, I slid off into the grass and didn't contact anything. Very strange that so many disconnected problems are happening at once.....
Got back on the track and ran another lap, the brakes felt fine. VERY WIERD. The car was still handling terribly, so i came off the track and went straight to the set-up pad. My first round times held and we were 1st in class for the race.
Marnie and I spent a couple of hours re-setting the chassis back to previous known good settings and hoped we fixed the issue. I had inadvertently upset a few key settings fiddling with the ride-height of the car.
I went out for a 10 minute morning hardship practice on Sunday, and thank goodness, the car felt somewhat normal again. We went back the right direction. No indication of brake problems either.
The race on Sunday was eventful. I sliced and diced with a few FP cars at the beginning of the race, then put myself into a spin about 8 laps in. Recovered the car without losing the lead, went back racing, only to hit an oil slick 4 laps from the end. Me and a GP car both hit it at the same time, and did a couple of loops. He ended up rolling backwards into me and mushed the DS front corner of the car. Fortunately, it didn't hurt the handling any and even with two spins, we never gave up the lead and ended up winning the race!
The Fuel Injection worked very well under race conditions. We still need to fiddle with a few warm up and hot starting parameters, but at speed, the system appeared flawless. Also interesting to note: The mystery brake disappearance did occur during the race, but only on one particular turn! It was not brake fade, it felt like a master cylinder problem.
We'll definitely be checking into that!! Also need to do some body work before the next event.
Next race is in about 4 weeks, a Regional at Mid Ohio that we are going to play with camber, toe, air pressure, etc. and see if we can find some more speed before the Runoffs.
Respectfully Submitted,
Matt and Marnie Brannon
#22 H-Production
Fiat X1/9
Columbus, Ohio