Scott McIntyre
DSM Wiseman
- 309
- 44
- Mar 15, 2002
-
Halifax,
NS, Canada
The 2010 season has begun! Yay!
Every year I tell myself that I'll start working on the car early and have it ready a good month or so before the first event. Well, the Talon never came off its jack stands until the evening before the first event of the year... As usual.
I got most my planned work done, but not all of it. I'm still waiting on some suspension bits, still have to build the roll bar, and I've yet to properly set the ride height & camber / caster. But at least it's back on the road and I made it to the event.
Here's how the day went...
At 7:30am, jumped straight from bed into the car and went out on some back roads to bed-in the new Carbotech brake pads. It was a good time to do it as traffic was minimal. You don't really want anyone behind you as you accelerate up to 100kph then brake hard to 10kph ten times in a row. Got back home at 8:00am, parked the car and let the brake cool down / cure.
A couple hours later I was back on the road and on my way to the event at Scotia Speed World. Arrived at the site, registered, and then got the car tech inspected. "Ummm, your car is leaking coolant..." the tech guy says.
Argh! Just my luck. Obviously you cannot run if your car is leaking fluids, as laying down a slick surface on the track is dangerous to everyone. I had to fix it or drop out. So, I topped up the coolant with my water bottle and let the engine run to determine where it was leaking from. Ah ha! It was a throttle body coolant line. A loose clamp had allowed the hose to back off enough for coolant to leak. I pulled out the battery, reached under and tightened it back up. No more leak. Phew!
Time to get ready. I had brought my video camera, RAM-mount, and MaxQData system with me, so I began setting it all up prior to my first run. It was then I realized that my GPS receiver (for MaxQData) was nowhere to be found. Argh! I must have forgot it at home. So much for datalogging.
On with the event!
Here are a few photos taken at the event. The full album can be found HERE.
Here's one of the two on-board videos I captured (run #2). It demonstrates how to get a 46 second run when the rest of the field is over a minute!
YouTube - 2010 ASCC Club AutoSlalom #1 - Scott - Run 02
And here's run #3 where I got my best time (plus 2 cone penalties). Ugh.
YouTube - 2010 ASCC Club AutoSlalom #1 - Scott - Run 03
Every year I tell myself that I'll start working on the car early and have it ready a good month or so before the first event. Well, the Talon never came off its jack stands until the evening before the first event of the year... As usual.
I got most my planned work done, but not all of it. I'm still waiting on some suspension bits, still have to build the roll bar, and I've yet to properly set the ride height & camber / caster. But at least it's back on the road and I made it to the event.
Here's how the day went...
At 7:30am, jumped straight from bed into the car and went out on some back roads to bed-in the new Carbotech brake pads. It was a good time to do it as traffic was minimal. You don't really want anyone behind you as you accelerate up to 100kph then brake hard to 10kph ten times in a row. Got back home at 8:00am, parked the car and let the brake cool down / cure.
A couple hours later I was back on the road and on my way to the event at Scotia Speed World. Arrived at the site, registered, and then got the car tech inspected. "Ummm, your car is leaking coolant..." the tech guy says.
Argh! Just my luck. Obviously you cannot run if your car is leaking fluids, as laying down a slick surface on the track is dangerous to everyone. I had to fix it or drop out. So, I topped up the coolant with my water bottle and let the engine run to determine where it was leaking from. Ah ha! It was a throttle body coolant line. A loose clamp had allowed the hose to back off enough for coolant to leak. I pulled out the battery, reached under and tightened it back up. No more leak. Phew!
Time to get ready. I had brought my video camera, RAM-mount, and MaxQData system with me, so I began setting it all up prior to my first run. It was then I realized that my GPS receiver (for MaxQData) was nowhere to be found. Argh! I must have forgot it at home. So much for datalogging.
On with the event!
- Run #1: Due to the weather forecast (11ºC w/ 60% chance of rain) and my time constraints, I hadn't bothered bringing my race tires. So I was running on Ventus HRII's, which I quickly learned have zero grip. With the improved brake performance and all-season tires, I was locking up the wheels everywhere! I plowed into several cones and had a terrible run. But wait... a stroke of luck! The timer had malfunctioned, so I would get a rerun at the end of the event. Yay for me!
Run #2: This run I had a better feel for the level of grip and effectiveness of the brakes, so I made it around the course clean, came into the stop box only to be informed that I only did one of the two required laps, so I was O/C. Argh! Brain fade.
Run #3: Ok, so I messed up the last run. I still have three more to get it right. This time I did the proper number of laps but clipped a couple cones in the slalom adding a 4-second penalty to my mid-pack time. Argh!
Run #4: Two runs left... I can do this! Just need a clean run, drop my times a bit, and I should be mid-upper pack where I expect to be with these tires / conditions. However, as I was stagging, the skies opened up and the rain came pouring down. Argh! Just my luck! Needless to say, I did not improve my time. In fact, the slick conditions resulted in a time that was 2 seconds slower than my previous, even with the cone penalties. But it sure was fun! Every time the boost kicked in, the car start power sliding. Yeehaw!
Rerun: Of course, my rerun was in the wet too. I managed to drop my time by a few tenths, but I locked up the fronts and overshot the stop box resulting in an O/C. It didn't really matter though as it would not have been enough to beat my time from Run #3.
Here are a few photos taken at the event. The full album can be found HERE.
Here's one of the two on-board videos I captured (run #2). It demonstrates how to get a 46 second run when the rest of the field is over a minute!
YouTube - 2010 ASCC Club AutoSlalom #1 - Scott - Run 02
And here's run #3 where I got my best time (plus 2 cone penalties). Ugh.
YouTube - 2010 ASCC Club AutoSlalom #1 - Scott - Run 03
