June 13-15 2008

After having missed the first two NASA events of the season in the Rocky Mountain region, I finally got the car ready to go for this one. Miller is truly a world class track, only 3 years young and I wasn't about to miss the opportunity to drive it this year. I missed the only other RM NASA event there 2 years ago. I rounded up the family and we made the 10 hour haul up there on Thursday.

Miller is a 4.5 mile, 23 turn course in it's full configuration. We were going to be running the outer configuration (over 3 miles long and 15 turns) on Friday and Saturday, and the monster full configuration on Sunday.

Friday was a test and tune day, thankfully, as I found I had a few bugs to work out. I went out in the first session and started getting the RA1's and the BP20 brake pads up to temp. Getting though the first few turns you realize just how fast this track is going to be. It's very wide and only has a few really tight turns.

Halfway through the first lap I have a car coming up on me and I'm still not very familiar with the track. I start pushing it a little bit and found myself way off line a few times. As I push through a fast right turn the car dies. I point the car by as I roll to a stop out of harms way. I have no power whatsoever. How I love waiting for a 20 minute session to end so I can get a tow back to the paddock...

When I finally get pulled in after the session I find a blown fuse. I put another one in and it blows right away when turning the key. After about an hour of tracing wires and checking for grounds I find that the ignition coil that I have zip tied to the power steering line looks to be touching the shock tower. I'm hoping this is the problem, as the thought of towing the car 10 hours only to be dead in the water is starting to enter my mind.

I pop in another fuse and turn the key.... car starts right up. YES!!!! I tighten up a few minor water leaks and get the car ready for the next session.

The Track:

Getting out there a second time gave me the opportunity to learn the line, albeit with a few fast cars passing me by that already got their first session out of the way. Turn 1 is a pretty fast left hand sweeper that sends you into a right hand 45 bend that requires little to no braking. You then find yourself setting up for a 70 degree left turn at the upper end of 3rd gear. I was tapping the brake to rotate the car a little and flew through it, having to shift to 4th through the next easy left turn. Coming up to turn 5 you have to get on the brakes hard to bring the car from 120 mph down to about 40 or so for a pretty tight left hand hairpin. It's a tricky turn that I felt I could never figure out the whole weekend. It brings you to a faster right hand hairpin in turn 6. Once you get out of 6 you're wide open through a long sweeping bend to the right head up to turn 16. This is the area where the track transitions to form the outer configuration, hence the gap between turn numbers. You have to drift to the right as you start a slight climb uphill to set up for a very fun left - right - left combo that serves as turn 16, 17, and 18. You go over a small crest and fly out of 18 at the top of 3rd gear with a little bit of banking. It's such a fun section with lots of curbing. You're now finding yourself shifting to 4th with a medium left hander coming up that requires a tap on the brakes - a really good place to overtake if you keep your speed through the last turns. Once you get through turn 19 you're back into 4th gear down a slight bend to the left for turb 20 (which is really almost straight) and back hard on the brakes for turn 21, a hard 90 to the left, followed by a wide 180 right (turn 22) and heavily banked 180 turn to the left (turn 23). Then it's balls out down the 3/4 of a mile straight!!!! I hit 140 mph a couple times but with no aero it gets a little intimidating.

For a better idea of what the track looks like, see here:
http://www.millermotorsportspark.com...FullCourse.jpg

The rest of Friday went pretty smooth, though since I was co-directing the Time Trials program for the weekend, I didn't get as much time on track as I would have liked. The car was running good for the most part at 22psi, but I did start seeing water temps up in the 220 range and oil temsp in the 230 range at the end of the day. And the dreaded fuel tank baffling issue kept me filling the tank every session to keep from getting below half a tank. I also changed out the BP20 pads for some Hawk HT-10 pads - what great pads these are! The car stopped on a dime the rest of the weekend.

Saturday was pretty smooth. I managed to hit a lap time of 2.16, which would have put me in the lower end of the TTU cars, mostly all C6 ZO6 race-prepped Corvettes. Damn those guys were fast. I was a good 16 seconds off the fastest TTU Vette out there. Though I was told he had a 100-120 hp on me and full Moton suspension - he better have whooped on me or he'd be a little embarrassed I'm sure. But since there were no TTS cars out there I couldn't measure myself against any comparable cars.

Sunday was really fun, as we ran the full course. My lap times were in the 3.20's, with 3.22 being my best. I was again near the bottom of the TTU group. It took quite a while to get the line down with all 23 turns. I found myself getting lost a little bit in the first session. But the car ran great and for the first time in a while, I didn't have to work on it for 2 of the 3 days I was on the track.

I still have a bit of body roll that I need to work on. And I'd really like to find some more ways to keep the temps down, as I found that they were getting up higher than I'd like to see. And some aero work is in order. But overall the event was a blast. Well worth the long trip. I really like the track even though there is no real elevation change. I look forward to next year, and hope to see some other DSMs on the track. I was the only one there.

Thanks to Steven Johnson for the tuning, and of course, all my sponsors:

Forced Performance
ExtremePSI
TCE Performance Products
PWR Radiators