Sunday, May 5, 2019

NJ ProSolo Win - Lessons Learned

Despite what was forecasted to be a pretty soggy weekend, after some Saturday morning early showers we got lucky enough to get a break in the weather and get all our afternoon runs in dry, warm conditions. STU didn't have enough drivers to make a class so we got moved into Bump Class and Kay took the lead early on. Today, with heavy downpour and the course having large amounts of standing water, the 2nd day runs were cancelled securing Kay's first "big event" win. I would've loved to have gone up against a full STU class like the Fingerlakes Tour that I'll be missing in 2 weeks but a win is a win and I'll take it.

Kay's first ProSolo victory - 5-5-2019
More importantly, I finally got decently comfortable launching the car. Turns out I needed to get the car up to 6000 rpms and slip the clutch to avoid wheel hop (though I wasn't successful at doing this each time). I think maybe stiffer engine or trans mounts might help but with no other ProSolos for me on the calendar I don't think I'll bother. The rest of the events including nationals will just be normal starts so I don't need to try and fix that now.

Kay taking the lead day 1 - 5-4-2019
Photo by: SoloMatters

SCCA NJ ProSolo - 5-4-2019

I think now that I've had a few more events in the dry, the car is a bit too stuff. I'm unable to really lay the power down in some spots especially in a wavy lot like the Meadowlands. The balance overall is good but she's too "nervous" and I'm finding myself having to breath off the throttle quite a bit to get her settled. I'm going to see how soft I can take the shocks down too without sacrificing transitional speed but I suspect either a spring rate change or shock valving changes will be required in the future to make it really work the way I want.

NJ ProSolo - 5-4-2019
For now, to make future shock adjustments easier, I finally just took a dremmel and cut out a hole in the front panels to get to my front adjusters. Thankfully, these panels are pretty cheap (under $20) from Porsche new so I can always replace them to put the car back to original condition later.

Accessible front shock adjusters - 5-3-2019
Overall, I'm pretty happy with this event. The car isn't broken and that's always a good thing after a ProSolo and I've learned a bunch. I left a ton of time out there and the my pace needs to be faster if I want to truly be competitive for Nationals this year. I've got 4 months left to close that gap. We'll definitely try out best to make that happen.

Day 1 grid - 5-4-2019