Scott McIntyre
DSM Wiseman
- 309
- 44
- Mar 15, 2002
-
Halifax,
NS, Canada
Where to begin… ?
This was my first event of the 2007 season. It should have been my third, but that’s another story.
I’ve made a lot of little changes to the car this year, but the major ones are my 17x10 wheels and 275/40R17 Kumho V710 (race) tires. I had test fitted them on the car, but had yet to drive on them. So it was going to be a whole new experience.
Day One:
Arrived at the venue, unpacked the car and mounted the new race wheels. Everyone who walked by the car would stop, do a double take, and say “Holy sh!t!â€. The car looked like an absolute monster with the huge wheels on it. They stick out about 2†on either side. Even I couldn’t get over it.
For the first run my focus was on whether I had set the ride height high enough to keep the tire out of the fender. I had about 1.7†clearance between the two and hoped that was enough. I was also focused on not flat spotting the tires by locking up the brakes.
Did a conservative run, braked early for the stop box and rolled into the box with plenty of room to spare. Made a mental note that I could brake much later the next run, then proceeded to the paddock with a time of 117 seconds, the fastest time of the day (FTD) at that point. Then I realized that I had run the whole course with my emergency brake on… D’oh! And the officials notified me that my time was void because I didn’t come to a complete stop in the stop box… Double D’oh!! I was so preoccupied with my tires, I forgot to stop.
No worries though, I still had three more runs to go. Second run I turned up the wick a little too much and spun 180º on the course. Got going again and completed the run with a 127 second time. Ugh.
Run three wasn’t much better. I entered the course’s two hairpin turns too fast and slid out wide. Plus I was struggling with a lot of understeer in a large switchback section of the course. I ended up getting 118 seconds that run.
Fourth and final run. I needed to make this one count. Push but don’t take big chances. I dialed it back a bit in the understeering sections, ran it hard right up to the timing light and got the car stopped within the box with room to spare. Well, most of the car that is…. Because part of my brand new crankshaft pulley flew off the car and kept on going! The center “weighted†ring separated from the pulley and fell off. The pulley portion was still intact though, so the car was still drivable. I ended up with an improved 116 second run, my quickest of the day.
And that 116 held as the fastest time of the day (FTD), until another competitor squeaked out a 115 on his very last run, robbing me of my FTD. Still, 2nd overall wasn’t too shabby for my first event with the new setup and I was very pleased with the results.
Day Two:
This day they decided to have a test & tune session before the event. So I decided to take one run just to heat up my tires and set my hot tire pressures. Jumped on the course and gave’er hell. Went a little too hot into a transition, let up on the gas and the rear started to step out. Counter steered, got it back and then it swung to the other side. I ended up fish tailing back a forth a few times and gathered it back up by planting the gas. All the while I stayed on course and never hit one cone… Yeehaw!
Pulled into the paddock and adjusted my tire pressures. All set for the big show.
Now the previous day I went too hard too early and never really got a feel for the limits of the new tires. So this time I thought it’d be wise to take a more methodical approach, start out easy and work my way up to the limits over a series of runs.
Went out and did a conservative first run, and came back in 205 seconds, by far the quickest overall time of the day at that point. Second run, ran a little harder and came in with a 203. Nice! Third run, stepped it up a little more and pulled off a 200 flat. No one was anywhere near my times, and I just kept getting faster each run!
By my forth run I was already well ahead of the field, so I pulled out all the stops. Big launch, flying through the course, tires were giving insane amounts of grip, and the car was going exactly where I wanted it to. It was the run-of-all-runs until…. stumble, stumble, . stumble… WTF?!? It felt like the car was running on 2 cylinders! #%^&*
So I aborted the run and limped back to the paddock. As I slowed, the engine died and I started to notice smoke coming from the front of the car… Oh sh!t. Got the car stopped, torn off my harness, popped the hood and opened it up. WOOSH! Fire! I flew around to the passenger door and grabbed my fire extinguisher from its mount in the passenger footwell. Pulled the pin and extinguished the flame.
The dip stick had popped out during my run and sprayed oil all over the engine compartment. It caught fire on the exhaust manifold as well as the hood heat shield. Lucky there was no real damage except for the dip stick being partly melted and the heat shield half burnt. Phew!
After things cooled down, I popped the dip stick back in to see how much oil I lost but the dip stick got stuck. The heat had deformed it. I tried to pull it out and the damn thing broke off inside the tube. Double #$&!! With a knife and screwdriver I managed to get most of it out of the tube but a small pea-sized piece of plastic fell down the tube and into the oil pan. Triple @#$^$%&^!!!
Well, I wasn’t quite equipped to drop the oil pan right there in the parking lot, and I was about 250km from home. The best I could do was change the oil and hope that the plastic bit would come out with the oil. So change the oil I did. I was done racing for the day.
As I was attending to my car, the event continued. No one could even come close to my 200 second time. I was beginning to think that, if nothing else, I’ll at least come out of it with an overall win, which is my ultimate goal for this season.
Well, as fate has shown I’m not that lucky. As on day one, that same competitor pulled off a wicked fast last run and just edged me out for overall time of the day (FTD)… again!
So my result for day two was the same as day one. 2nd fastest overall and winner of my class.
Now the car is back home. I still need to run the drained oil through a screen to see if the plastic piece came out with it. If it didn’t I’ll have to drop the oil pan. While I have the oil pan off, I may as well fix my leaky transfer case and do the balance removal. More downtime. My wife is already about to kill me for all the time I’ve already spent under the car this spring.
Anyway, that was my weekend. Next event for me is Canada Day weekend at Greenfield. Hopefully the car will stay together for that one!
Here's some more pics. This one was me limping back the paddock with smoke billowing from the car.
Here's where I first pop the hood to discover flames!
Then I run around to the passenger side and snatch my fire extinguisher from the passenger foot well.
And here's immediately after extinguishing the fire.
I now have a fresh new dip stick, which is nice and snug.
And here's a couple video clips of the Talon on course:
http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g...16-17 Digby/?action=view¤t=2e3f317d.flv
http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g...16-17 Digby/?action=view¤t=d3579da7.flv
This was my first event of the 2007 season. It should have been my third, but that’s another story.
I’ve made a lot of little changes to the car this year, but the major ones are my 17x10 wheels and 275/40R17 Kumho V710 (race) tires. I had test fitted them on the car, but had yet to drive on them. So it was going to be a whole new experience.
Day One:
Arrived at the venue, unpacked the car and mounted the new race wheels. Everyone who walked by the car would stop, do a double take, and say “Holy sh!t!â€. The car looked like an absolute monster with the huge wheels on it. They stick out about 2†on either side. Even I couldn’t get over it.
For the first run my focus was on whether I had set the ride height high enough to keep the tire out of the fender. I had about 1.7†clearance between the two and hoped that was enough. I was also focused on not flat spotting the tires by locking up the brakes.
Did a conservative run, braked early for the stop box and rolled into the box with plenty of room to spare. Made a mental note that I could brake much later the next run, then proceeded to the paddock with a time of 117 seconds, the fastest time of the day (FTD) at that point. Then I realized that I had run the whole course with my emergency brake on… D’oh! And the officials notified me that my time was void because I didn’t come to a complete stop in the stop box… Double D’oh!! I was so preoccupied with my tires, I forgot to stop.
No worries though, I still had three more runs to go. Second run I turned up the wick a little too much and spun 180º on the course. Got going again and completed the run with a 127 second time. Ugh.
Run three wasn’t much better. I entered the course’s two hairpin turns too fast and slid out wide. Plus I was struggling with a lot of understeer in a large switchback section of the course. I ended up getting 118 seconds that run.
Fourth and final run. I needed to make this one count. Push but don’t take big chances. I dialed it back a bit in the understeering sections, ran it hard right up to the timing light and got the car stopped within the box with room to spare. Well, most of the car that is…. Because part of my brand new crankshaft pulley flew off the car and kept on going! The center “weighted†ring separated from the pulley and fell off. The pulley portion was still intact though, so the car was still drivable. I ended up with an improved 116 second run, my quickest of the day.
And that 116 held as the fastest time of the day (FTD), until another competitor squeaked out a 115 on his very last run, robbing me of my FTD. Still, 2nd overall wasn’t too shabby for my first event with the new setup and I was very pleased with the results.
Day Two:
This day they decided to have a test & tune session before the event. So I decided to take one run just to heat up my tires and set my hot tire pressures. Jumped on the course and gave’er hell. Went a little too hot into a transition, let up on the gas and the rear started to step out. Counter steered, got it back and then it swung to the other side. I ended up fish tailing back a forth a few times and gathered it back up by planting the gas. All the while I stayed on course and never hit one cone… Yeehaw!
Pulled into the paddock and adjusted my tire pressures. All set for the big show.
Now the previous day I went too hard too early and never really got a feel for the limits of the new tires. So this time I thought it’d be wise to take a more methodical approach, start out easy and work my way up to the limits over a series of runs.
Went out and did a conservative first run, and came back in 205 seconds, by far the quickest overall time of the day at that point. Second run, ran a little harder and came in with a 203. Nice! Third run, stepped it up a little more and pulled off a 200 flat. No one was anywhere near my times, and I just kept getting faster each run!
By my forth run I was already well ahead of the field, so I pulled out all the stops. Big launch, flying through the course, tires were giving insane amounts of grip, and the car was going exactly where I wanted it to. It was the run-of-all-runs until…. stumble, stumble, . stumble… WTF?!? It felt like the car was running on 2 cylinders! #%^&*
So I aborted the run and limped back to the paddock. As I slowed, the engine died and I started to notice smoke coming from the front of the car… Oh sh!t. Got the car stopped, torn off my harness, popped the hood and opened it up. WOOSH! Fire! I flew around to the passenger door and grabbed my fire extinguisher from its mount in the passenger footwell. Pulled the pin and extinguished the flame.
The dip stick had popped out during my run and sprayed oil all over the engine compartment. It caught fire on the exhaust manifold as well as the hood heat shield. Lucky there was no real damage except for the dip stick being partly melted and the heat shield half burnt. Phew!
After things cooled down, I popped the dip stick back in to see how much oil I lost but the dip stick got stuck. The heat had deformed it. I tried to pull it out and the damn thing broke off inside the tube. Double #$&!! With a knife and screwdriver I managed to get most of it out of the tube but a small pea-sized piece of plastic fell down the tube and into the oil pan. Triple @#$^$%&^!!!
Well, I wasn’t quite equipped to drop the oil pan right there in the parking lot, and I was about 250km from home. The best I could do was change the oil and hope that the plastic bit would come out with the oil. So change the oil I did. I was done racing for the day.
As I was attending to my car, the event continued. No one could even come close to my 200 second time. I was beginning to think that, if nothing else, I’ll at least come out of it with an overall win, which is my ultimate goal for this season.
Well, as fate has shown I’m not that lucky. As on day one, that same competitor pulled off a wicked fast last run and just edged me out for overall time of the day (FTD)… again!
So my result for day two was the same as day one. 2nd fastest overall and winner of my class.
Now the car is back home. I still need to run the drained oil through a screen to see if the plastic piece came out with it. If it didn’t I’ll have to drop the oil pan. While I have the oil pan off, I may as well fix my leaky transfer case and do the balance removal. More downtime. My wife is already about to kill me for all the time I’ve already spent under the car this spring.
Anyway, that was my weekend. Next event for me is Canada Day weekend at Greenfield. Hopefully the car will stay together for that one!
Here's some more pics. This one was me limping back the paddock with smoke billowing from the car.
Here's where I first pop the hood to discover flames!
Then I run around to the passenger side and snatch my fire extinguisher from the passenger foot well.
And here's immediately after extinguishing the fire.
I now have a fresh new dip stick, which is nice and snug.
And here's a couple video clips of the Talon on course:
http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g...16-17 Digby/?action=view¤t=2e3f317d.flv
http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g...16-17 Digby/?action=view¤t=d3579da7.flv
