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Turn 1 is a fantastic switchback. Coming up to the turn the road levels off, allowing the car to go light on the front end and potentially causing some braking issues. No worries about braking for me during the practice run – I barely made it that far.
I always appreciate the marshals, volunteers, and safety crew that keep racers safe. The safety crew are trackside in their full fire gear all day long. When the car pooped out on the first practice run, they were right at my side when I pulled into the Turn 3 plateau. There were no safety issues – maybe a vapour lock? The car simply wouldn't go above 2500 rpm – and that wouldn't work in a hill climb.We had one practice run at the hill. Did I mention that this was a public park every other weekend of the year! Did I mention that the car had not had any type of shakedown, or that there was no place to really warm your car up? Everyone was doing burnouts and near smoke shows to heat up their tires in the 2 or 300 meters that we had for a warm up section. For my warm up, I simply dragged my brakes through the distance. Or once rolling, I stomped the gas. Not very exciting, but I did want to be able to stop and I did not want to damage the drivetrain with an aggressive burn out. Do a Google to see about SR20 stripped gears and toasted axles – I simply did not need that aggravation. There is no question that the spectators were not impressed as I essentially coasted up to the start line and then sat while the light cycled red through yellow and to green. For this event, timing did not start until the timing beam was broken. The green was simply an indicator that it was safe to go. Again, there was no burn out. That is simply to hard on the drivetrain and tires, but once rolling the pedal was to the metal and the Precision 5128 certainly pushed power through the SR20DET to the Toyo RR tires. Rounded the first kink which was not important enough to be numbered and in my imagination the car took off towards Turn One. Reality had a completely different picture in mind as the car essentially died. I toddled up to the turn one switchback where I did not even need to apply the brakes. Shrugged my shoulders at the corner workers and putted up to Turn 3 where I knew there was a large parking area. And there I sat, contemplating how all of my efforts had come to naught.
AES Auto has built some crazy Nissans. While I am occassionally harrassed about being a Nissan owner, it's all in good fun and the shop's support for this run at Knox Mountain has been fantastic.Fortunately for me, Paulo from AES Auto was waiting for me after the run group all returned to the bottom of the hill. He checked over everything and the car was back in running form just in time for my first competition session. When my time came to move up to the start line once again, now with no practice session in addition to no shake down time, my adrenaline levels were simply jumping. With the Green light indicating the car ahead of me was well past turn three, my rolling start was quite aggressive. Around the unnumbered kink and then it was pedal to the metal through third and into the first corner. The car was trying to go left and then right all the way up the straight. It was simply skitterish. That phenomenon continued on every straight that I faced – sometimes so violently that it almost felt like the wheel was going to be ripped out of my hand. With cliffs and rock faces and huge trees it did cross my mind that my car was thinking about killing me. Plus my brakes felt spongy – we had bled them twice prior to the event but I knew it was going to have to happen again.
This sign at Turn 8 caught my attention. Any bears around this weekend certainly were in hiding. That said, wild deer were spotted near the course early in the morning and in the early evening.At the top of the hill, there was a short run before being staged up to head down the hill – so no place to give a nice run to cool down the car. And, it was hot! Engine idling and fans turned on – in addition to the rad fan I have a motorcycle fan pushing air through the oil cooler and then out through vents cut in my hacked up track hood. This run, which I truly hoped was less than three minutes, had raised temperatures more than a 25 minute track session had done in the past. Fortunately, I was near the end of the run group so as soon as the last car was up at the top we were able to head back down and get some wonderfully cool air through the system. The time for my first run of any kind up the course was a respectable 2:15.365.
Coming down the hill was a parade of about 36 cars. There were 73 entered in this event, the 60th anniversary. Wrist straps meant that a big wave wasn't possible, but certainly took the time to express thanks to all of the track workers and spectators.
