Final practice before NJ ProSolo - Bumblestook showing her stinger

Yesterday we got the car all sorted and I put the tune and suspension settings back to where it was from when I won the DC ProSolo last year. Today's shake down was among 178 other drivers, many of whom were traveling to NJ to get their cars set up for the Pro as well. This time I decided to have a friend, Hez, hop in as my codriver. I've always knows him to be a smooth driver with lots of potential and boy did he deliver.

Top off and ready to go
NNJR SCCA Autox - 4-26-2015

Hez getting amped for his first run
NNJR SCCA Autox - 4-26-2015

Not only was Bumblestook showing perfect form today but with very little effort we were putting down some very competitive times. All this despite running on old 100+ run tires and being down on power by running pump 93 instead of C85 ethanol. We did a low fuel run and finally discovered the infamous fuel starve S2k issue at 4 bars of fuel. I'm going to have to make sure we're running at least half tank for all future events. I guess I was just lucky all these years to never encounter it. Hez put down this flyer run (see video below) which would've been good for 2nd place in PAX but it was incorrectly recorded as DNF. He did this even though he fuel starved mid-run so a top PAX finish was well within Bumblestook's capacity. Unfortunately for my runs, I just kept hitting cones and when I did clean it up, I think I started overdriving to compensate and just kept getting slower with every run. It doesn't matter though. Today brought the fun back to autocrossing and it was incredible to see Bumblestook show her stinger and put a shocker in some really good drivers. Two weeks left before the ProSolo...can't wait!

Hez's fast run

NNJR SCCA Autocross - 4/26/2015

My fast run (dirty)

Longer than usual to include some funny banter before and after the run

NNJR SCCA Autocross - 4/26/2015

Shaking off cobwebs for 2015

Winter was finally over (well mostly) and it was time to put the wheels back on the car and take her out for her first event with the NNJR Porsche Club. Despite the strong winds and cooler temperatures I was glad to see that everything was working just fine despite being on jackstands all winter and switching to pump gas instead of sweet smelling ethanol. Bumblestook drove strong and remained composed as always and it was a blast to finally get out there and burn rubber again. I was definitely rusty but I had that unmistakable grin inside the helmet is what it's all about!

NNJR PCA Autocross - 4/4/2015

A few weeks later, it was time to get her back to SJF performance for a real pre-season check. We had to verify and adjust the alignment, change the engine oil, tranny and diff fluid. We also put the exhaust I ran earlier last year back on since I kept blowing sound with the shortened exhaust. Tomorrow we give her one last shake down before our first big event of the year, the NJ ProSolo.

Fluid change
SJF Performance - 4/25/2015

Old exhaust back on
SJF Performance - 4/25/2015

Old exhaust back on
SJF Performance - 4/25/2015

Alignment time
SJF Performance - 4/25/2015

SCCA SOLO National Championship 2014

It was finally time for the big show...the big race we've all been practicing and testing for the entire season. I left Bumblestook loaded on the trailer at SJF Performance after the alignment so I could easily just hook up the trailer to make the drive out to Lincoln.

Ready to head to Lincoln - SJF Performance- 9/1/2014

In general, the 1500 mile drive out was uneventful except for that one fuel stop where a pickup truck almost backed into the Touareg and missed it by two inches (NY reflexes FTW). We arrived there on Tuesday early evening just as the sun was setting, perfect for quick unload before heading to the hotel for some much needed grub and shut eye.

Arriving at Lincoln - 9/2/2014

The next day I finished registering and picked up the sweet 2014 Nationals jacket you could pre-order. I thought it was funny ordering a jacket considering how hot Lincoln gets this time of year but it would come in very useful a few days later when the temps dipped drastically into the mid-50s/low-60s. We also got tech inspection out of the way before heading out to the practice course to check for the car's balance on the Lincoln concrete. She felt a tad pushy so I cranked the rear bar up to about 50% and she was much more neutral.

2014 SCCA SOLO Nationals jacket - 9/3/2014

Tech inspection complete - Lincoln, NE - 9/3/20214

Practice Course - Linconln, NE - 9/3/2014
Photo By: Tomomi Uetani

We then went out for dinner and came back as the sun was setting before doing the course walks. Mostly, this was to escape the heat but with most people out to attend the banquet from the previous two days of racing, there weren't a lot of people to contend with to get a nice look at the course which made it extra nice.

Sunset course walk - Lincoln, NE - 9/3/2014
Photo By: Tomomi Uetani

The next day was day 1 of competition. The east course had some very fast sections and I knew I'd run out of gearing. I decided to try 3rd gear in a few spots but I really lost to much time bobbling the downshifts so I opted to just stay in 2nd for my last run to put in my fastest time. I definitely need to address this gearing issue next year. I also just put on the sticker Hoosiers and on the first run the mold release was really affecting grip. I wish I had scrubbed them in at the test course the day before. She was also very pushy and I had to crank up the rear bar to full stiff and decrease the front pressures by 1 PSI to get better balance. After day 1, we had toppled in the rankings just shy of the last trophy spot but with the west course looking like a much better course for Bumblestook's gearing, I was hopeful to jump a few spots on day 2. It was also a blistering hot 94 degrees that day but clear skies all around.

BSP Day 1 Grid - East Course - Lincoln, NE - 9/4/2014

On day 2, the temps had dropped overnight to the low 50s and just above 60 before our first runs. I put in a decent first run but coned it away then the bad news came. I blew sound at 103dB so I popped in the silencer I had put together in Wilmington to try and quiet her down. On the next run, I pushed harder, a bit too hard and spun out. I decided to stay off the throttle passing the sound station this time since I didn't want to use up my last warning in an otherwise throw away run. Before the last run, the skies had opened up and it started to rain. The ground was getting damp. I went out for the last run and lifted slightly by sound just to be sure. I went a tad slower and hit 2 cones anyway in the process and unfortunately was later told I still blew sound at 101dB. My understanding is that if I had tried to go full speed I would had the run disqualified anyway so in the end there really wasn't anything I could do in day 2 to move up and we found ourselves all the way down in 10th spot without a single clean run. Regardless of this though, I have to say the Lee Piccione designed West Course was by far the most fun SOLO course I had ever driven to date!

BSP Day 2 Grid - West Course - Lincoln, NE - 9/5/2014

Bumblestook on West Course - Lincoln, NE - 9/5/2014
Photo By: Tomomi Uetani

When all was said and done, I still had a great time at this year's Nationals. It's unfortunate we couldn't do better but my take away is that I plan on addressing these issues next season:

• The old exhaust is going back in. Not dealing with sound issues any further.
• AP1 Transmission is going in. We need the gearing..stop being stubborn!!!
• I need to stop hitting cones

2014 SCCA SOLO Nationals Done - Lincoln, NE - 9/6/2014

SCCA SOLO National Champsionship 2014

Lincoln, NE - 9/4-9/5/2014

She's a great car with lots of potential and as a driver I have plenty left to grow before I can deem myself worthy of such a beast. Now that the season is over I want to thank everyone who supported me this seasons. Evans Tuning for making this dream of a car a reality over the winter, Steve Farkas at SJF Performance for the countless alignments and suspension advice all season long, Dave Corsaro (now the new 2014 SCCA F-Street Champion) for his superb corner balancing work, Karcepts for the diff and suspension parts, ANZE suspension for the shock rebuild and setup, JoeFis Racing for the aero, Hoosier Racing Tire for the purple crack, Honda for what will always be in my mind the most amazing roadster ever built, my NESTR peeps for making racing more about the people than the cars and lastly to my girlfriend Tomomi for convincing me to stay with it and see the season through to the end when I was mentally just stretched to the limit and on the verge of throwing in the towel. Racing is far from being a single person sport and we wouldn't have accomplished what have we to date without such awesome people supporting us in our endeavors. Looking forward to what 2015 will have in store and hopefully bring home more hardware.

Final Prep for Nationals 2014

Bumblestook remained parked after coming back from both Wilmington events but it was time to get her out again and make her ready for the big show. I was supposed to get everything done two weeks ago but forgetting both the storage and car keys at home made it impossible to actually get her to the scheduled alignment on time. Steve at SJF Performance was able to carve out some time for me this weekend and he mounted the competition sticker Hoosiers to the other set of wheels and we rechecked the alignment.

Sticker Hoosiers for Nats - SJF Performance - 8/30/2014

Sure enough, all that grip in Ohio caused the little tabs holding the alignment washer in place to bend again and she was showing 0.5" of toe in at the rear when it should be no more than 1/16" total (no wonder I had to crank up the rear bar for the Wilmington Championship Tour). The front alignment remained perfect and didn't need to be touched. Steve reset the rear back to where it should be so hopefully we'll be all set this time around.

Final alignment of the season - SJF Performance - 8/30/2014

We also did a bit more fender massaging since I still managed to catch the driver side fender during the Wilmington Tour. We probably added another 1/8" of clearance so hopefully that's all we need to finally not hit the fender at all. She's all loaded and ready for Nats now.

Ready for Nats - SJF Performance - 8/30/2014

It's been one crazy year and looking back she's already surpassed my hopes for the season. Hoping for a solid performance at nationals against the other 15 drivers in BSP this year and bring home some hardware.

"Bumblestook is my race car. There is nothing like it and this one is mine. My race car is my best friend. It is my life. I must master my race car as I must master my life. My race car, without me, is useless. Without my race car, I am useless. I must drive my race car hard. I must negotiate corners faster than my competition trying to beat me. I must reach the finish before they finish. I will!"

Wilmington Championship Tour

I stayed in Wilmington after the ProSolo because the Championship Tour was the following weekend. I had to take care of one thing before the event. I blew sound at 101.3dB during the ProSolo and while sound rules made it impossible to really get disqualified for sound during a ProSolo, I knew I'd have to come up with a solution if I wanted to not have any issues during the Champ Tour. Bumblestook and the trailer were being stored at Full Throttle Indoor Karting in Cincinnati thanks to Joe O'Gorman who offered up an inexpensive storage solution for those of us wanting to keep our cars in a safe place for the week in between the events. I asked Joe if he knew anyone who could help me weld in a cone silencer into new 3" exhaust tip and I got pointed to Turn in Concepts in Cincinnati. I picked up a Dynatech Vortex 3" cone silencer at Jeg's in Columbus during the week then brought it over to them. They welded it into 3" piping which I planned to then swap into my exhaust if I blew sound again during the Tour.

Dynatech Vortex 3" Cone silencer

Turn in Concepts welded 3" piping with cone silencer exhaust tip - 7/31/2014

On Thursday night, my friend Rad flew in as he was going to codrive with me for the weekend. We arrived on site on Friday after picking up Bumblestook from storage. The first thing I did was work on fitting the silencer just to make sure everything fit right and found that while the piping was the right diameter, I had given then incorrect dimensions so the tip was too long and was hitting the axle. I reinstalled the normal turndown and we did a few runs on the TnT course to make sure the car was feeling balanced. She felt a hair pushy at the ProSolo so I cranked up the rear bar to half stiff and felt an immediate improvement on the practice course.

Practice Course - Wilmington, OH - 8/1/2014

After practice, we stopped by a muffler shop in town and had them chop off a good 3 inches from the back of the silenced tip and it finally fit with no clearance issues. It turned out to sound really good but without knowing how much power the silencer would rob, I opted to leave the normal turn down in unless I got tagged for sound again but this time I was going to at the very least angle the turndown away from the mic.

Shorter silenced tip - Wilmington, OH - 8/1/2014

Saturday was day 1 of competition. There was a 50% chance of rain forecasted for Saturday and sure enough an hour before we were about to run while putting the cars in grid, the skies opened up with lightning and thunder everywhere and they had to temporarily halt the event to let the storm go through the area. This worked in our favor because sure enough as soon as the rain clouds moved on, the sun came out and we started to enter drying conditions before our first runs.

Starting to dry up after the rain - Day 1 - Wilmington Champ Tour - 8/2/2014

BSP Grid - Day 1 - Wilmington Champ Tour - 8/2/2014

Unfortunately, day 1 didn't turn out too well for us. I managed to cone every single run so I was stuck in 4th place, out of trophies, 1.5 seconds off my codriver in 3rd. My head just wasn't in it and I was making plans to skip nationals if we couldn't put in a competitive time on day 2. Day 2 came around and I was mentally much better and more focused. I really didn't have anything to lose and most of my cones from day 1 were due to me hesitating and not trusting Bumblestook completely to stay in it. After second runs I was closing the gap on Rad's combined time but had another coned run. Rad found another 0.1 seconds on his last run but coned it away. On the last run, I went all out and put together a good run. I had managed to get within a couple of tenth's off Mike Lane's time (who went back from a day 1 deficit to win BSP for the event) and we both were able to raw time SSR that day. It also pushed me ahead of Rad, slotting me in for the last podium spot by a scant 0.015 seconds. The course was great, the grip of the lot was fantastic and Bumblestook survived the brutal back to back events on the grippy concrete. With the solid time in the books, Bumblestook made it known that she wanted to go to Nats so we're back on track to go to Lincoln, NE in a few weeks for the Championship. Also, I never went past 96dB during this event without the silencer so I ended up never using the silenced tip anyway.

Wilmington Champsionship Tour - 3rd Place BSP

Wilmington, OH - 8/3/2014

Wilmington ProSolo

We arrived at Wilmington Thursday night so we could take it easy and not feel rushed like almost every other race weekend. The temperature was a bit on the cool side which was a nice break from the recent heat but we were mostly concerned with the weather forecast for the weekend.

Wilmington, OH - 7/24/2014

We got on site on Friday to register and to get tech inspection out of the way. This time I decided to forego the practice launches as I was already resolved to launching at redline and didn't want the added stress of additional launches potentially breaking anything on the car before the race. We noticed that paddock was a good half mile to grid so rather than waste time walking back and forth, we went to the local Walmart and picked up a cheap BMX bike that was quickly modded to be what we shall now call "Bumblebike". Walking the course, I knew I was up for another uphill battle. The course this time was much more balanced than Toledo but the distance out of the line was longer than usual and I would be at a disadvantage from the launch being the least powerful car of the group. 

Bumblebike - Wilmington, OH - 7/25/2014

Day 1 kicked off and we got our morning runs in the dry. The grip in Wilmington was very comparable to Toledo but more consistent all around. I was happy that we were able to light up the rear tires again at redline and thankfully I think the 10mm spacers worked and no more crumpling of the fenders occurred. There was a chance of rain in the afternoon so I inflated the Hoosier H20s in preparation of having to switch over to rain tires. I didn't expect to go faster on the wets but I've been wanting to do some testing since I've never run Bumblestook on Hoosier wets before.

Hoosier H20 - 245/45/17 - 7/26/2014

Somehow the rain skirted the airfield and we got dry afternoon runs as well. I was able to move up a few spots but was still too far off pace compared to other BSP cars running in SPA. I knew I was leaving a lot of time out there so I had to drive more aggressively and trust the grip level more. Overnight, the forecast was calling for severe thunderstorms. I had fully expected to have to run in a torrential downpour but again, we were saved and not only did we get to run in the dry but the sun even found its way through the clouds.

Getting ready to run Day 2 - 7/27/2014

I found nearly a full second between the left and right courses and was happy with the raw times but I coned away the fast left side run which would've left me in the trophies. Bumblestook's feeling really good right now though and I'm looking forward to the coming weekend for the Wilmington Championship Tour. The only minor issue is that we blew sound this weekend, getting logged as high as 101.3dB going flat out through the slalom so we'll have to find a way to quiet her down a few dB before this weekend so we don't get disqualified. However I think the position of the sound station, the low clouds and the strong winds contributed to this. Still, better to not take any chances.

Bumblestook at the Wilmington ProSolo

Wilmington, OH - 7/27/2014

Overall I think it was a successful weekend despite not finishing where we wanted. She's running great and handles exactly the way I want and didn't break anything. Being out of the points running, we're going to skip the ProSolo Finale this year and just go to the National Championship to save her from any further brutal launches until next season.

Packed up and ready to battle again next week - 7/27/2014

Wilmington Prep

With back to back races in Wilmington, Ohio coming up, it was time to go over Bumblestook yet again to make sure everything was still ok after surviving the brutal Toledo ProSolo. First up though was having my trailer modified by Steve at SJF Performance so I can carry an extra set of wheels with me. The Touareg is a fine towing vehicle but it's impossible to fit a set of rain tires, an extra set of race wheels and spares and supplies for such a long trip. Steve welded on removable threaded poles to the trailer tongue make let me bring extra race tires on the trailer instead. He did an excellent job and I can now operate the trailer in either configuration (with or without the extra wheels) without too much trouble.

Mount for removable wheel poles added - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014

Poles installed and wheels mounted - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014

Secured wheels - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014

Trailer loaded with extra wheels up front - 7/20/2014

We then put her back on the alignment rack to see if anything had shifted after running on the grippy concrete and sure enough the right rear toe had moved quite a bit with a significant amount of toe in. We suspect this could happen due to the wonky bolt but it also turns out that the forces back there had somehow also slightly bent the little tabs the alignment washers push up against. Steve hammered them back into place so everything is nice and tight and we replaced all the camber and toe bolts in the rear to restore my alignment back to what it was before Toledo except this time I could actually get the rear toe to 1/16" toe in. Steve's new machine can also take additional measurements of the car so we noted those down too for future reference in case anything ever shifts.

Alignment #5 - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014

Frame is nice and square - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014

Frame is nice and square - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014

We pushed the damaged fender out a bit so it looked a bit better and to address this issue, I switched from 15mm spacers to 10mm spacers and now the top of the tire is well within the edge of the fender. As a quick check of the diff health, we drained the fluid and it came out nice and clear with nothing scary (metal or otherwise) coming out. Cheap insurance for the beating we're about to take again in Wilmington.

10mm spacers and new diff fluid - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014

Other miscellaneous fixes included adding some screws to the rear bumper cover so it stops flapping around after I broke the tabs off from contact. We also added a drop of loctite on the nuts holding the throttle cable in the bracket to address the throttle debacle from Toledo. Thankfully there isn't a lot of stuff we have to do for pre-big race prep anymore. Hopefully we can do better in Wilmington and at the very least get some good set up data before nationals.

Ready for Wilmington - SJF Performance - 7/20/2014