Watkins Glenn this Weekend (long)

[Raymond A. Kawski]

I posted this earlier to another list figured I would post here too.

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This past weekend Kieran Lavin, Joe Diminno, MarK Schoenholz,
Mike Pahls, Derik Opdyke, Jim Schumacher and myself went to
Watkins Glenn with PDA.  Matt Hunt and David Evans were also
there for support.

Joe and I drove up together he with his SE-R in tow me
driving the turbo car.  I had just put on my new B13
front B14 rear AGX's and GC's with 350/300 springs and
rear motivaitional plates.  I had just installed this setup
Thursday and I had one strange noise coming from the springs
when I turned the wheel while parked and at slow speeds.  I
discovered that the part I left off was a bearing.  I left
it off because I thought it would make noise not realizing
it was a bearing until I checked it later.

We arrived at the track at around 3p.m. on Friday. We got a
garage space and we pulled my struts quickly and put the
bearings in.  The noise was gone but I developed a
squeak somewhere.  Oh well I'll live with that for now.  We
waited around the track for everyone to show then we arrived at
the hotel Friday night and went to bed hoping the rain would
pass by the morning.

We awoke Saturday morning to dampness but with radar
showing *NO* clouds or rain!

We got to the track and teched.  I put on my new rotors put
on my new Kuhmo Ecsta V700 tires adjusted pressures and
the AGX's.

We went out for our first session.  Joe went along with
me.  I ran 10psi the entire session with the water injection
on just to assist with thermal runaway.  We had a lot of
traffic and the session was fairly uneventfull except for
we found Kieran on the side of the track then then we got a
full course black flag.  A Porcshe blew a turbo as did a
MX6 with a turbo rotary engine in it.  Kieran came in and
it turns out his car was fine except his lugnuts had come
lose.  We don't know why they came lose but I torqued them
down before he even went out on his first session?

Next our second session.  MarK Schoenholz, Mike Pahls
and myself grid next to each other at the front.  This was
the best session of the day.  We had clear track the
entire session!  The 3 of us played the entire time.
I started the session at 10psi and then switched over
to 14psi.  I was clearly the faster car in the straights.
Mike with his Shocktek setup could clearly take the
turns faster.  I would let him by and let him go a lap or two
then he would let me pass on the straights and we traded
spots.  It was a blast!

Throughout the day people were discussing their speeds on the
front and back straights as well as what gears they were
using.  I didn't really pay much attention to their gear
choices because for the most part they didn't apply to me.
As for speeds on the straights Joe and Mike were only
hitting 120mph into the breaking zone of the back
straight.  Towards the end of the day I was hitting 120mph
before turning onto the back straight.  In my 3rd session
I was hitting 135mph by the middle of the back straight
before the pucker factor kicked in.  I was also seeing
close to 130mph speeds on the front straight.

On our 3rd session I spoke to Joe from PDA and asked if we
could have all the SE-R's grid at the front.  He said sure.
So we had 5 of us at the front this session.  Joe and Jim
where in the Black/Red run group and the rest of us
where in Blue/White.  I went out first with the rest
behind.  After our caution lap I lead the pack for a lap or
two then pointed everyone by on the short straight before
turn 7.  This was a fun session as well.  On this session I
was able to play around with a C5 Vette.  He was a little
quicker in the turns but not much and we were about equal
on the straights.  I lead for a full lap then pointed him by.
After the session the corvette owner came up to me and said
that he thought he would easily pass me and then was
like WTF!  He looked under the hood and said I knew you had
something done to this car.  Matt told me he heard some
mustang drivers say that 67 was fast.  He first thought
they meant a 1967 turns out my car # was 67 and they were
talking about me.  :)  Kieran was talking to someone I
forget what car he had and was saying Kieran was quick
and that there were "a lot of rice rockets" out there and
one of them had a supercharger he heard it as it went by.
Funny!

Our last session I asked Rick Lapure if he wanted to go for
a ride.  He had forgotten my car was turbo.  He gave me some
pointers.  At one point he had said I doin't need 5th gear
here then the next lap he relaized I was going much faster
on the back straight then he normally would have been.
And said you do need 5th gear.

That night we went to dinner and I had 5 people in my car
and even with 5 people in the car Jim Schumacher
still said "Oh my God."  He couldn't believe how fast it
was even with 5 grown men in the car.

All in all it was a great weekend.  We all had fun.  No
major mishaps.  The cars ran great.  My new suspension
is *MUCH* better then the Prokit/AGX setup ever was.  The
new race tires have phenomenal grip and the Panther XP's
stop like no tomorrow.

RK
--
Ray Kawski
1998 Sentra SE Turbo, 1991 NX 2000, 340K mile 1991 Sentra SE-R
Poconos, PA