Midwestern Council class championship

[gsx roadracer]

This past weekend was the final race of the season for the Midwestern Council high speed autocross season. After leading the B-Modified class for most of the season, I found myself trailing by only a few points after having a dissapointing race several weeks previously. Our final race of the season was being held at Autobahn Country Club south track.
In order to capture the season championship I would have to beat the current class leader by about .5 second. That was the challenge that laid ahead.

Practice laps in the morning went very well and the car seemed to stick very good. The unseasonably warm temperatures cut horsepower down a bit, but made for excellent track conditions. This is a track I had ran several times this year and was ready to get through the practice sessions and get to the afternoon timed runs.

After the first timed run I found myself in 3rd place position for the day and 1.7 seconds behind the class leader that I must beat. The second timed run went a little bit better and gave me a .365 second lead over the class leader. Somehow I needed to trim more time off my next run and hope everyone else didn't. On the third run I mis-timed one of the braking zones and scrubbed off too much speed through one of the corners. To my suprise, the third run was a full second faster and I now was ahead by 1.3 seconds. Knowing that there was only one run left, we bumped the boost up about 3 psi and gave it all we could. Everything on the last run went great and felt fast. I had a great feeling about it, but needed to find out what the lap time was before any celebration could begin. My "seat of the pants" feeling was right. I had taken off another .9 seconds. The class leader also posted his best time of the day on the last run, but it was not enough. I had beat him by 1.7 seconds and took second place in class for the day! The BM class championship was finally ours after several years of hard work trying to get the car sorted out. The past several years we had found ourselves always coming up short and taking either 2nd or 3rd for the season. Not this year!!! Chalk another one up for the DSM community.

Monday I ran at the same place with NASA, but we were able to run both the north and south tracks combined. Anyone that gets an opportunity to do this should take advantage of it. A combined length of 3.4 miles and over 20 turns makes for one great experience.

Next season I plan on running NASA TT and also Midwestern Council as well. I am still trying to figure out which class to set the car up for with NASA, but I am leaning towords either TTB or TTA. I may need some help and ideas on how to best prep for either of these classes. Let the planning and work begin.

Jeff Vance
MCSCC -2007 BM Champion


The plan for the off season is to pull the engine out for it's first rebuilt after being raced several seasons on the stock internals.

 

[Slow old poop]

Next season I plan on running NASA TT and also Midwestern Council as well. I am still trying to figure out which class to set the car up for with NASA, but I am leaning towords either TTB or TTA. I may need some help and ideas on how to best prep for either of these classes. Let the planning and work begin..

Congratulations!

If you are planning to run NASA, you'll need to get it dynoed (I assume you are AWD). The Midwest NASA group has the baddest racers in the whole country, so whatever class you choose will be tough. John Slinkard in a Honda S2000 owns TTB. He's the national champ. I beat him once, but he is very tough. TTA is full of Corvettes, mostly Z06es that have not upgraded into TTU or TTS class.

I would not choose a class yet, until NASA goes through its annual rules revisions. The National Director got beat by Slinkard, so you can bet that Slinky's Honda will be upgraded to another class. Rumor has it that he will supercharge the Honda and run TTS next year. So, everything is changing. Subscribe to the NASA forums and keep an eye on the rule changes before you decide.

Luckily, with boost controllers and electronics, you can dyno tune the car to whatever hp/wt ratio you need to make it into the very top of a class. AMS is perfect for this, because they know how to tune the car for road racing (not drag racing, big difference in the tune). You need AMS, because they have one of the only NASA-certified dynos in the Midwest.

For tires, run the new Toyo replacements for the RA1. I just got done running Hoosiers, and I don't see a lot of difference, other than when the Hoosiers let go, there is no recovery. With Toyos, there is more warning and forgiveness, and they last a lot longer.

You also need to pay attention to aerodynamics, especially at tracks like Road America and Iowa Speedway. You will be going much faster, so you need to reduce wind resistance and get some downforce for the 100+ mph turns. Get the car as low as possible, and fit an air dam or front splitter, and a rear wing. Within the rules, of course.

Speaking of rules, download the CCR from NASA and study it. Then study it again. It will be your bible. Good luck, and I hope you become another champion, this time in NASA.