dkmura

iTrader: (64)

Last weekend I finally brought my T3-spec Z out of a long and arduous sojourn to multiple repair shops to race. Testing on July fourth established that repairs to the cabin harness and wiring loom were successful after multiple sessions. Saturday was the first of the Freedom Sprints SCCA Majors at High Plans Raceway and the 2.5-mile circuit would host about 125 cars from 12 states in road racing and time trials. The small-bore group had production and GT cars as well as six T3 entries from BMW, Pontiac, Honda, Porsche and my Nissan. But during practice and qualifying, I noticed my clutch was not releasing cleanly and I sometimes had to resort to double clutching to get a clean downshift. Qualified third, but even bleeding the concentric slave (HR-swapped Z) with fresh RBF600 didn't seem to help much.

With no spare parts and little time to drop the tranny, I knew there was the possibility of clutch failure during the race. I decided to keep the Z in third gear. I qualified third in class (7th out of 27 overall) probably based on my knowledge of HPR. What I realized on the pace lap was I couldn't get the clutch to release at all, and that I'd have to try adapting to using third gear only for this race. Usually, I shift almost a dozen times a lap around HPR, and I wasn't even sure if it was possible to lap the track without stalling out on several of the tighter hairpin turns. As the green fell, I stayed on the inside for the first few turns, but as soon as we hit the back straight it became clear that I had to lift about halfway down to keep from overrevving and possibly blowing the motor!

After that, I focused on modifying my brake points and maximizing corner entry speeds. The older race tires I had heated up quickly in the 90-degree heat and had descent, but not exceptional traction. My usual set up is to keep a neutral car with a touch of oversteer, but with only third gear, I began exploring how much understeer I would manage with no extra pop coming off the corner. Also tried modifying my usual racing line to approach from a wider angle and taking a later apex to keep speeds up. Last thing I wanted to do was hold up the field or ruin anybody's race, but as the laps wore on, I found the gap to the cars chasing me was pretty constant, as they would catch me on the straights, but I would reestablish the lead as we entered the faster turns u and down the hills of HPR.

At the checkered flag, I was amazed to be about eight seconds back of the second place T3 car, and finished seventh overall out of 27 finishers. Had to be pushed on and off the scales in tech, as the clutch failed completely in impound. Still, never before have I been so proud of a measly third place finish! THIS is why I still love SCCA road racing.

Escobar

iTrader: (27)

damn thats super impressive! nice job. How did you get the car rolling out of the pit?

dkmura

iTrader: (64)

With such limited lapping during practice and qualuifying, the clutch still worked in the pits and to start the pace lap. It was freshly bled with new RBF600, so I hoped it would work, but even scrubbing tires revealed it still wasn't releasing cleanly. Coming into the start, I managed to get it into third and decided to leave it there. The nut behind the wheel would have to make adjustments.