Event Report: March 16th Solo, Gulf Coast Region, Grand Bay, AL

Damon, Trigger, Joe, Georgia and I went over to Gulf Coast Region’s Solo today. GCR RE Allen Givens put out a call for help earlier this week, as the club was coming up critically short handed for this weekend’s event. We’ve been in this situation many times, and I’m proud that a few Delta Region members stepped up to help out our neighboring region. I can’t say it was all work, because there was some awfully good racing.

The course was designed a large loop, so a flying start was done. Drivers took two laps after a warm up. Each run yielded two times, so with 4 planned runs, each driver would wind up with 8 times. Cones actually counted on the warm-up lap, but you didn’t need to follow the entire course for warm-up (something I tried to exploit later). The warm-up lap, along with the largest event (45 drivers) I’ve ever seen in Grand Bay, made for a long (but fun) day. Gridding up on the steeply-banked short-track was also very interesting.

Damon came from New Orleans to help out and also co-drive my S2000. Damon has been steadily improving over the last couple years, and put down a great showing at the Dixie National Tour while codriving with Eric Trigg. A Miata is a far cry from Damon’s normal Mustang Cobra, and Eric is usually at or near the top of the Delta and Cenla Solo events. At Dixie, Damon would have beaten Eric and taken home a strong 2nd place CSP finish, had it not been for a cone on Day 1. GCR needed the help, and I wondered how Damon would fair in my car, something that I always considered to be difficult to drive (especially over Trigger’s well-sorted Miata). S2000s have a steep learning curve, and despite my steady development, my car still isn’t easy to Solo. Four S2000s were signed up, spanning 7 total drivers.

Trigger took one look at the usual suspects and discovered he brought an Falken knife to an R-comp gunfight. He promptly went home for his race tires (a smart move). I was looking for a rematch with the Wetzells and their new S2000 CR (Jeff got me a couple weekends ago at Zephyrs), and Joe had the 914 on an older set of RA1s that did surprisingly well back in New Orleans.

Damon took his first runs in my car, and wound up with a 35.9 after his first 4 times. Roberta knocked down a solid 34.9 after a rerun. My runs were surprising consistent: 35.2 (+1 cone from warm up), 35.1, 35.4, 35.4. Jeff put down a blistering 34.6 run, the best of the first heat. Joe and Georgia seemed to be struggling with engine problems, but Joe was still among the faster times (36.4).

Eric ran in the second heat at steadily improved to a 34.2 while practicing his flatspotting technique (he’s getting very good at it). Damon and I clearly had some stepping-up to do. We discussed some strategy: taking a shortcut on the warm-up lap would allow a wider line onto the straight where the timer was, giving a few extra MPH on the first lap. Plenty of smack-talk circulated before the afternoon runs began.

We were already running long, so we opted to save time by letting the remaining 4 times happen during the same run. This would save us 30+ seconds per driver, though probably meant we’d be fighting tire temps at the end. Damon took the shortcut on his warm up lap, but his four runs didn’t improve from the morning. He did, however, add a extra 360* loop at one of the turn-arounds and still managed a 39.X run. Both Roberta, and Eric didn’t improve either, though they ran consistently. Jeff managed a slightly better time, knocking off a few hundredths for a 34.6. I took a much wider flying start and put down two 34.4 second runs before my rear tires (already at the end of their useful life) gave out completely and made my last two laps (same happened to Damon) into a rather embarrassing spectacle. Pulling in, I had nasty cording on the driver’s rear, explaining the sudden unpredictability in the rear traction. The flying start wasn’t a significant advantage: I was able to back up the run with an almost identical time in my second (6th) lap. Joe came down to a healthy 35.7, beating Damon by a few tenths (can’t wait for that smack). The many of the newer drivers usually got faster over their four laps, having the course fresh in their minds (repetition is good), while the drivers running *really* hard often slowed down as they cooked their Solo tires. We packed up the GCR trailer with very little daylight to spare, having done 360 timed runs in 7 hours on a no-overlap course. Final RAW times had A-Mod driver Steve Foshee at 33.5 for FTD in a Formula Vee, Trigger (34.2), me (34.4), Jeff (34.6), Roberta (34.9), Joe (35.7) and Damon (35.9).

The best part of my day was taking a novice S2000 driver (he was co-driving his dad’s car on his first Solo) on my afternoon runs. I shared a couple good runs with him (let’s not talk about my last two), and rode along on his last session. He had a 39.7 after the morning runs in a street-tired S2000, and I scolded him down to a 38.6, 38.0, and 37.8 in the afternoon (his 39.5 final run got loose as his tires faded, but still beat his morning best). His runs gradually got faster and faster as he learned to trust the ABS and get closer to the apex cones. He complained about heavy understeer in the morning (in an S2000? HA!), but in the afternoon runs I didn’t there wasn’t a hint of understeer. It’s amazing what a bit of weight transfer car do (and riding shotgun with the criminally insane).

Overall, a fun day of racing, and you might see some course ideas show up in Delta. I highly recommend GCR events: they aren’t too far, and a lot of fun.

-Benson Young