Cobra Club Open Track Oct 30 - 31

[TigerBlue]

I participated in the Cobra Club Open Track at WSIR near Lancaster California last weekend. Also braving his first Open Track Event (straight into the deep end!) Ken Mastinik with his gorgeous Mk1a and Wife Judy of Santa Barbara. Buck and Claudia Tripple left the beach for the weekend to get some testing done with the Sports Car Forum race Tiger. John Morton dropped in to do the driving Saturday and Dan Walters turned some fast laps in the car Sunday.

I drove TigerBlue out on the California freeways early Saturday Morning. Two hours plus from San Clemente to the track and I can say it was the most dangerous activity I engaged in all weekend. The road was dry leaving the house but I found the forecast showers within about twenty minutes and it got raining so hard I surrendered and had to exit and park it awhile. Very scary and dumb to drive a near flooded freeway with the windshield fogging up faster than I could wipe a clear spot. Luckily I had paper towels in my helmet bag within reach. Did I say it was very dark; long before the sun would be up! Twenty minutes or so later the rain backed off to something I could handle and I left the shelter of the gas station and found the Fwy again.

I had allowed extra time to deal with the weather and actually arrived at the track in time to dump everything on the ground, clear Tech and attend the driver's meeting at 9:00. Saturday we ran in 5 - 20 minute track sessions and also gave Ken a view of the track and my line in a passenger session. This is the greatest car show. You can check out the cars in the pits and listen to those great sounding engines accelerate out onto the track to run wide open. While driving it is really cool flogging the Tiger and enjoying the view of traffic ahead and behind which includes GT40s and of course Shelbys and Cobras. A highlight was having the Sports Car Forum Tiger behind through turns 2 -6 and blast by on the back straight with John Morton at the wheel.

Sunday was more of the same but to get home at a reasonable time I packed up for home in the early afternoon. Only 2 open track sessions but I did ride and drive some during the mid day passenger session with Ken. Passengers sessions are run at reduced speed and it was good for Ken to get more track time working on the all important "line". The weather was perfect all weekend after the early rain Saturday and the drive home was just the normal highly dangerous navigation of the dry California Freeways.

Rick & TigerBlue

 

[TigerBlue]

DATA plots

The images below were created on racelogic software from the gps data logged on my Performance Box. The track plot shows the "line" TigerBlue traced Saturday afternoon 10/30/10. last full lap of the 5th (last on Sat.) lap of Willow Springs.

The horizontal graph plots some dynamic information logged during the same 1:50.4 lap

Time in seconds along the bottom. Left scale is Miles per Hour.

Red line is MPH

Ragged black plot is lateral G. No scale indicated but max G's are 1+ a little. The first turn is left and G is plotted up, the second long turn two right turn plotted down.

Aqua Blue is acceleration/braking No scale indicated but 3rd and 4th gear accel 3 - 2 G when blue line is in the top half. Braking lower half and the indications are a little over 0.5 G max. I take it easy on the brakes to leave something in reserve if I need it. Also this is the last lap of session, brakes were probably fading a little. TigerBlue is running stock brakes without vacuum booster and Carbotech racing pads/linings.

The left to right diagonal is a plot of time which is of course linear in this time plot based graph

The whole lap had only two shifts. Down to 3rd for turn 3 (37 sec) and back up to 4th (a short shift about 5,000? rpm) prior to turn 6 (65 sec) and the back straight. 3.31 gear.

Next day the VBox refused to turn on? probably the fuse in the cigarette lighter adapter so I got nothing on Sunday.

TigerBlue