Hines Group Motorsports will be racing their T3 350Z at the New Jersey track this coming weekend. Its gunmetal silver and this weekend will have the number 74 on it in yellow. Our trailer is white and the truck is a grey Ford diesel so stop by and say hello.

 

Now they tell us we can have our reserved number so its back to #4.

 

I may stop by since there are no other local autox's going on. Running both days???

 

Practice/Qualifying Sat and the Race on Sunday.

 

How did it go guys?

 

I'll let Rob fill you in on his details - sounds like he was fighting some handling issues all weekend.

We showed up with the same 2 Zs we had at Summit - the Red/Black T2 driven by Randy Tauro and the Blue T3 driven by myself. I was doing coaching and data collection again for Randy.

We got the balance on the T3 car fixed quite nicely and ran a 1:31.7 in the first qualifier which it turns out is really fast for T3. It was quick enough that I decided to sit out the second qualifier and instead study the competition Rob got down to 1:34 and John Heinricy, who showed up after Q1, went out and put his T3 Cobalt in P2 with a 1:32 flat.

At the start, Heinricy stayed on the outside through turn one then dropped in behind me as the T2 Mustang took off. We battled for about 2 laps. Heinricy was right with me but at some point must have hit a curb hard because he knocked a front camber bolt loose and was getting significant tire rub (and LOTS of smoke). He dropped back and I was unable to see the rest of the T3 field in my mirrors so I went into cruise mode for the rest of the race. Rob finished 2nd and Kevin Fandozzi in the other Phoenix Cobalt (who started last after posting no qualifying times) finished 3rd.

Randy blew the camshaft up about mid-race, but kept pushing and brought the red/black Z home in 2nd in T2.

All in all I'd say it was a good weekend for the Zs

Brian

 

What are the T2 and T3 track records at NJMP? Congrats on the win, Brian. Are you (or Rob) planning on running June Sprints?

 

T2 Track Record: 1:32.147 (2009 - at the "old" spec weight of 3268)
T3 Track Record: 1:32.704 (2011)

Qualifying times are not official track records so that 1:31.7 doesn't really "count".

I haven't completely gone over the data but based on what we did on worn tires, I bet a T3 Z could run a low 31.x or high 30.x on sticker Hoosier A6s. A T2 Z should be able to get into the 29s on sticker A6s.

We've got a new project in the works so the Sprints are not on our schedule. We plan to be at Road America at least once before the Runoffs though.

Brian

 

Yeah, I know qualifying times don't count, but was just trying to gain some perspective on lap times there.