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| The best investment for 2010 was white tape for the front of the magnets. The car looks much cleaner than 2010. |
With two weeks between events, we selected the Toyo R1R as our tire and this dropped us two classes from Touring 1 to Touring 3. The car was now optimized for Touring 3 and I was positive that it would be the car to beat. I elected to run the car up one class in Touring 2, hoping that I had a chance at a division win and to stay out of Katie’s way in her drive for a championship. As it turned out, I would not have held her up. Once we switched tires she found her groove and I was playing catch up for the rest of the season. Of course, it was not going to be easy. With our Toyo tires on the way we started to relax. With less than a week to go until our third event, we heard that our order got bumped from shipping and was sitting with about 600 other tires still in British Columbia, literally thousands of miles away. Howard at Talon Tire worked effortlessly to get us this tire – 205 50 15 size were selling out across the country – but he burned up the phone lines and the tires arrived at Can-Alignment just in time. Scott agreed to help us out and mounted the tires Friday evening and we were at the track Saturday morning ready to go. There was not time to get them shaved, so we ran them full depth, which was a good choice based upon our final results. It was also our first event running in our new classes and we would need to complete all six remaining events to qualify – as rules require a finish in six class events. Our first two events were run in Touring 1 so would not count towards a lower class championship run.
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| Toronto Motorsports Park in Cayuga is best known for the dragstrip (background) but it has a nice road course also. |
The car was essentially unchanged from the 2009 season, and yet it was vastly different. Routine winter maintenance found that the seven plus year old KYB AGX shocks were done. This also explained some of the unusual tire wear that occurred in 2009. Budget restrictions would not allow the purchase of a dream suspension so the AGXs were replaced with new AGXs. 400 lb Eibach springs were purchased for the front and the 300 lb front Eibach springs were moved to the rear. This GC/AGX setup is old school, but we are finding it very predictable on the track. The battery was relocated to just behind the passenger seat, allowing us a bit better weight distribution. Shrouding was installed to ensure that air went through the rad rather than everywhere else.
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| The fresh AGXs coupled with the 400 lb front and 300 lb rear Eibach springs worked. Combined with the Toyo R1Rs the car was handling like a dream. |
A spare hood was vented to provide better cooling – the cooling system was still all stock apart from this. Carbotech XP10 brake pads were once again providing the stopping power at the front and, upgrading from stock rear pads, Carbotech XP8s were added to the rear. The car is fully set-up with NX2000 disc brakes, see MotoIQ’s A Family Affair: Racing a NX1600 for a listing of modifications. We have also improved our safety equipment. A DefNder neck restraint system and Bell BR-1 SA helmets became a mandatory part of our track equipment.
Warming up at Toronto Motorsports Park it was obvious that the tire choice was right. Fast and predictable with the car feeling very balanced. We both won our division and Katie was 0.6 seconds faster than me and just 0.9 seconds off of the Touring 1 class Mustang GT’s time. The temperature gauge was running a bit warmer than usual, but it was a blistering hot June day. The second day started off with a light touch of rain at sunrise but quickly cleared and turned into a beautiful morning. Katie’s run group was up first and she was putting down some awesome runs on the fourteen corner 1.86 mile (3 km) road course. She was coming up on the checkered flag when a burst of steam blew through the hood vents and over the car – just like a wind tunnel.
Turned out our original OEM rad had passed it’s lifespan – possibly due to the higher pressures allowed by the Nismo rad cap – and our day was over. That one run was all it took for Katie, as she had set a track class record with the first session and that time held for the class win.
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| There was no track side fix for this problem! We needed a rad! |
