Track Day 59 -- Oregon Raceway Park with Skip Day
So I was hoping to make this the 60th event for my car... but it just didn't happen. No worries though, I'll be doing a fun happy 60th birthday party for this car with a cake at the next event!
This even was a big group gathering. We had 5 people and 3 cars between all of us, and we'd be hopping around between cars having fun and shredding around. I like sharing things so it's a good time, and it let me get some feedback from other drivers to help determine direction for the cars in the future.
We all camped at the track, which was nice... except for how friggen chilly it was. With a nightime low of 33 degrees but a daytime high of 65-70... it was a roller coaster both to be present for and to pack for. Fortunately, it all worked ou, especially with the bathroom and shower facilities at ORP probably leading the country for quality.
Modifications to & State Of the Car for the Event
The only modification performed to the car for this event was I added 2 full turns of the spring collar on the front of the Car (since spring collar adjusts ride height on the QA1 Promastars) and 3 full turns to the rear. This improved ride height slightly and got rid of my self clearancing bodywork, reduced tire contact while turning, and in general seemed to make the car a bit happier out there. I really like the car on 305/35R18s so I'm glad I was able to improve ride height and clearance. Did I adjust alignment after raising the height? No... no I didn't. I'm going to hope and assume it's all good though!
A New Personal Best
So while this lap smokes my previous personal best, a lot of that was I have limited experience running clockwise in a car. My previous best of 1:56 something was also on my lapping tires (Continental ECF) so a good 1.5 seconds of capability below my Vitour P1 time CCW of 1:53.3... and then I find I am 3/4 of a scond faster on my Sonic's than with my Vitour P1 and folks find their times are a bit slower in this direction supposedly... so really this can all be chalked up to tire changes. I will say I was able to operate near the limit much better with the revised configuration to the C5 this year and it's perpensity to try and step out on me was nearly entirely cured. The lower rear control arms seem to really do the trick for me now, and in combination with the fixed rear toe... I'm shralping!
Video of my PB (Sorry the audio sucks):
Thoughts Comparing this Car to the Dead to Shred
While I love the Time Attack C5 and it is light years more capable than the Dead To Shred C5, the broad trackable power of the Dead to Shred C5 corvette with it's stock cam profile was amazing for just having fun. It had more power down low, it required less shifting, it was less peaky... you could run an advanced group worthy time and have fun in just 3rd gear if you wanted to, at least here at ORP that is. The Time Attack C5 is far more capable, but the Dead to Shred car was so much easier and low key to drive. I wound up chasing our Lemons car around the D2S car for a few laps, and the laps were far from noteworthy 2:10 laps... but they were all pure low stress fun and I could focus on just enjoying the G forces of hard cornering through the half pipe.
What does any of this mean to you the reader? It's to say that you don't have to build an outright missle to have fun. There's plenty of joy to be had in a modestly modified C5 Corvette... I know it put an ear to ear grin on my face that's for sure, and for more casual local events such as PIR I fully expect I'll be rolling up in the Dead to Shred C5.
Other Driver Feedback
For this event we brought out 3 cars and had 5 drivers swapping between all of them. This was both fun as I like sharing cars with folks, but als useful feedback as I can get outside perspective on all of the cars.
Shane shared that the Corvette was FAR more planted and controllable than previously. He described the oversteer tenancy of the car before as "spicy with a mean bite", which he said was largely not present anymore, so the alingment changes seem to have helped along with the spherical rear lower control arms.
Conner set his best lap time ever and really dug the Time Attack C5. Conner ran a 1:55, taking him into the sub 2 club with several laps to back up that claim for him. He felt the car was capable, confidence inspiring and in general sorted.
Now it wasn't all gold for the car, as Will hopped in the car and struggled to overcome some of it's more "DIY Race Car" aspects, such as the spoiler you can't see through so being aware of traffic is much harder. The experience of the cage and everything else just meant he found the experience overwhelming at first, and with limited seat time he never felt as at home with the car as the Dead To Shred.... which is 100% reasonable coming from mostly FWD cars and then hopping right into a dedicated race car that wants to cook you alive and has junky class specific stuff thrown on instead of GM engineered intentional features.
Fixes and Plans for the Next Event
One lug nut stud snapped off, so I need to replace that with ARP studs. These were the MPI V1 bearings and I have had issues with studs snapping on these, so ARP is the only solution going forward.
I need to change the trans and diff fluid out and do an oil change, just standard year to year maintenance stuff. Possibly change the oil.
I am getting tons of oil blowby. I think I need to get the later model LS valve covers that have the vent drain backs to help reduce oil consumption. If I can pull that off before the next event that would be good.
Otherwise... this car is ready to shred. Maybe rotate the tires before my next time attack event and then send it?
Other note... Vitour is switching these Sonic tires up to be 200tw with a few minor bits of tread pattern added to them... so I am pretty sure I can call these 200tw tires going forward and run them in SCCA Max 2... but I'm waiting to see what SCCA does on allowing or banning the tires this season.