May Club Loose Event - May 28, 2008
I went to my second Club Loose event tonight. I enjoyed this event a lot more since everyone got about 11 runs throughout the night. There were fewer A and B group drivers and fewer drivers in general (about 30), so that's the reason for the larger number of runs.
The course was essentially the same as last time except for a small kink in the first straightaway. I screwed up my first three runs because I kept trying to shift into third gear at the end of the straightaway and then shift down while drifting through the corner. I kept spinning out when making that downshift. After the first three runs, I realized that I could just floor it in second gear without hitting the redline before the end of the straightaway.
I kept feeling like I needed to shift because the RPMs would climb so fast from 3000 to 5500. But then the car would stop accelerating so quickly from 5500 to redline. So it turns out I could just keep it in second gear.
From my fourth run until the last run, I stayed in second gear the whole time and was able to drift the entire course on every run.
The car performed pretty well. Acceleration and shifting felt much better with the new mounts. Also, the car felt more stable and predictable while drifting due to the new suspension. The characteristics of the car (e.g. understeer/oversteer, how long to pull the e-brake to get it sideways, how fast to countersteer, etc.) were similar to what it felt like before the upgrades, but it was easier to control the car during drifts and transitions with the new parts.
The only problem was that the left front fender was hitting the tire over bumps during the big right turn on the course. I lowered the car about 15 mm before the event, so I might have to raise it up slightly to avoid that next time.
One of the spectators filmed everyone's first runs and a couple more of the A and B group runs. Unfortunately, I spun out on those first three runs, but some video is better than nothing. The video is divided into five parts. My runs are in Part 2.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
I also took some video of a couple of the group A and B runs from the top of the stands.
Here are a few of my pictures from the event.
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