Greg's NX2000

Lime Rock Park Import Challenge, Race 1 and 2

We survived our first race, the Import Challenge at Lime Rock's spectator event. We had what I would call limited success, and we learned a lot. I'll start you off with a foreshadowing of the results: "There ain't no "W" without a BMW."

After Tuesday's initial test and tune session we had some optimism for our chances of success. We were realistic about those chances, understanding we had a new car not totally tricked out, effectively a new driver (not really having competed in the last ten years), and strong competition up here in the northeast from well-prepared BMW 325 and Mazda RX-7 teams. However, we did learn a lot on Tuesday and we had a general direction to go.

On Wednesday and Thursday we completed some general maintenance and repair checks, and found that the car was pretty much ready to go. Minor adjustments, fluid changes, alignment, adding the required decals, and we announced it ready.

Matt was not able to accompany me for the weekend, so my wife, Thea, and I loaded up the brother-in-law's Plymouth Voyager and headed out to Lime Rock, with me driving the NX to the track. We arrived Friday mid-morning for our noon practice session, and our first order of business was trying to find paddock space. We were assigned to the B Paddock, but it was chock-full to the gills. Admittedly, the LRP officials had not done a good job of asking people to remove their unneeded open trailers from the paddock area, but there was a lot of cars there between the SpeedWorld Touring, GT, and Import Challenge cars. We finally bummed enough space from another team to cram in the NX and the Caravan, and started to unload our "stuff."

About this time a Lime Rock employee stopped by and was looking at the NX. I greeted him and he asked me if we actually drove the car to the race (he had seen us pull into Registration. I told him that we had, and he responded as he walked away that "it will make a great story." Shrug.

All I really expected to do was change the tires, check pressures, check the driver, and go off for our first practice session. The goal was to pick up from where we ended on Tuesday, trying to bring home the consistent lap times of the 1:04 Range. The first time on the track I noticed that the minor oversteer was gone and the major push was back, but I decided to go with it and drive. I had given Thea a basic lesson in tire temperature-taking (she did a great job), and I was taking care of my own lap times via the Stack dash. The first few times across the stripe I was getting 1:07 lap times; I drove a little harder and was unable to do better, plus the push got worse. I had to seriously come off the throttle to get the car to make it through some corners, and the times reflected it. I came in and Thea took some tire temps, then I went out again to try and do better. I couldn't; I was stuck in the low 1:07s with one high 1:06 for emphasis.

By this time my buddy John Courtney arrived and we looked over the tire temps and talked about it. The car was pretty much adjusted out at this point; I had full stiff on the rear swaybar, no front swaybar at all, full-available negative camber on the left front, and all the camber out of the car on the right side; the tire temperatures showed I needed more/less of both. In addition the Koni Red shocks were doing a horrible job of controlling the springs at the rates were are running, so it was porpoising and bouncing at any provocation. The only thing we had left to adjust was the rear rebound rate, and although adding more rebound to the rear was not really the "right" thing to do to decrease understeer we did it anyway to try and control the back of the car from bouncing. For emphasis we increased the rear tire pressures in a vain attempt to increase the effective spring rate back there...

The second session wasn't any better, although I was able to get an occasional 1:06. The car pushed like a Zamboni, and I was pretty unhappy and becoming a bit despondent about the whole thing. I reviewed the lap charts and the lead ITS BMWs were doing lap times of 1:01 and change; for comparison the lead SpeedWorld touring cars (also BMWs) were doing 1:02s!!! Kip van Steenburg, the top dog of the day in ITS, was a second-and-a-half slower in his Touring BMW than in his ITS BMW. Yeah, they're on street tires, but they also have wings, camshafts, compression, trick suspension, and a whole lot more...something ain't right there.

Afterwards John and Thea told me they mentioned my name several times over the PA system, describing that I had driven the car to the track! John described the mention as being "optimistic" to think it'll be in one piece for the drive home!

Thea had to go home for the night to take care of our dogs, so she hitched a ride with John and left Woody the Voyager (a.k.a. "Greg's hotel") with me. Woody and I chatted about my problems, and unfortunately he was uniquely unqualified to offer advice. Seeing as I had about 12 hours to burn alone, sitting there wondering what to do for tomorrow, I figured I may as well rotate some tires. Just as soon as I got halfway into the job it started raining...sigh...

Saturday

I slept surprisingly well Saturday night in the Voyager; I had not realized just how tired I was on Friday. My friend Neil Swanson arrived at around 8AM and we walked to the lunch counter to get some coffee and talk about the car. We decided to re-toss that Hail Mary pass and go for Tuesday, undoing all the stuff we had done subsequent to the Tuesday session. We lowered the car back to its Tuesday ride height (we had lifted it 1/4" because we thought it was bottoming in the front), took out some of the rear negative camber we had installed, and as we worked on the car a fellow competitor pointed out that we still had a scooch of negative camber we could put in via the Ground Control upper front spring perches (I don't know how I missed that!). After aligning the front end to 1/16" toe-out (and verifying it was zero to a touch toe-in on the rear) I suited up for the morning qualifying session.

As I rolled away through the warmup lap, the car was about the same although I thought I felt a little more "tossability" with the back end. As I crossed the stripe the first few times John called out lap times of consistent high 1:06s. I didn't really see this as an improvement because it was a much cooler day, and each time I got passed by the BMWs (and an occasionally fast RX-7 and ITA Honda CRX-Si) I was reminded of that. I came in for tire temperatures, Neil checked the fronts and I told him to forget the rears; I just wanted to go out and drive.

I was pretty much unhappy at this point; we were slow, well below mid-pack, and I just wanted the weekend to be over with. I knew I had been over-driving the Kumho tires, so I just wanted to see where the car was good and bad. I backed off quite a bit, not attacking the corners so hard, slowing down to find the point where they'd stop screaming at me. I also decided to stop shifting at the uphill turn and West Bend, instead leaving it in fourth gear to not brake so hard. The car felt slow at those low RPMs, but I had pretty much given up on doing well. I crossed the stripe on the first full slow lap and John calls to me "1:05s". Huh? I drive another smooth slow lap and he says, "low 1:05". I backed off a little more and he calls out "1:04 point 7".

What the hell?

So, I concentrated on continuing to drive smooth and slow, and I continued to be rewarded with low 1:05s and a hit or two at the 1:04s. IN the end, the official qualifying time at 1:04.905, placing us 24th in a field of 40, behind the BMWs, RX-7s, many Honda CRX Si, and an occasional VW and Miata.

Hmmm, maybe there's hope...

As you can imagine, I was fairly nervous. Several friends dropped by beforehand to wish me luck. Other acquaintances that didn't know I was there heard the announcer talking about me during qualifying and dropped by as well. In short order I finally suited up to head to the grid.

The general format was a 12-lap sprint followed by a 10-minute recess; then gridding by order of finish for another 12-lap sprint. As we drove the warmup lap I felt the nervousness melting away, and by the time we took the green flag I was all business. I passed several cars before Turn One, and worked my way into the inside so I could protect myself from other cars. Everyone around me made it through the first turns cleanly. I don't remember much about the details of the race, only that I held my own during the race, not hitting anyone (or vice versa). By the end of the first race I had worked my way up to 17th place overall, and I remember being surprised by the checkered flag.

We all stayed in line on the cool down lap and worked our way back to the hot pits to be gridded for Race #2. As I sat there with the engine idling I noticed that the track announcer was walking down pit lane. I must have caught his eye, as I noticed him heading straight for me; I knew from the multiple prior announcements about how we drove the car to the track that this was the most likely topic. I had my helmet on and the car was running so I don't know exactly what he said to me, but he stuck the microphone through the window net as if he had asked me a question; I replied something generic about how much fun I was having and I was glad to be there (I just couldn't bring myself to recite the NASCAR line about thanking God and all that...) He asked another question about driving the car conservatively to get it home, and I replied about how Thea wouldn't be too happy if I wrecked the car, so I'd had a lot of motivation to keep it on one piece! He seemed satisfied with that and moved on to the next victim. Hey, no such thing as bad press, eh?

There was a delay while one of the front-runners looked for a replacement front tire. We eventually started the race without him, and the second race went almost as smoothly as the first. I say "almost" because there was a nice 3- or 4-car pileup on the outside of the first turn, with an Acura Integra getting popped sideways by a pair of Datsun Z-cars. I tucked neatly inside of them all, quickly picking up 3 or 4 places. The rest of the race mimicked the first one, with my clicking off some consistent (but relatively slow) laps while holding off a few competitors. In the end we finished 13th overall, 11th in class, with no body or mechanical damage at all.

That being done we changed over to our street tires, packed up Woody, and enjoyed the company, beer, and chili of some fellow competitors, eventually making our way home. A fund weekend overall. Here's some digital photos that Thea captured during the weekend.

Things we learned: the car's suspension really needs to be re-vamped. Those Koni Reds are far too light to handle our spring rates, and I suspect our spring rates are far too light to keep the car off the front bump stops. In addition, the chassis to too soft in the back to absorb the spring rates we already have. We'll need to design and build a good triangulated rollcage, increase our spring rates, and re-design the suspension to be able to handle the drop we've designed.

We've also learned that it will be a long row to hoe to be able to catch the BMWs. 1:01s at Lime Rock? Incredible. I can't imagine how far behind we'd be at faster tracks like the Glen and VIR...

IT2, anyone?