mark kibort

What an amazing track. Now that was a LOT of fun. Everyone knows that rush watching the speedo go up with the pedal mashed in 4th or 5th gear.....and holding it there for 30 seconds!
I got there and was a fish out of water for the first session. Got up to 150ish on the straight, and then started the turn, and dropped down to 120mph. It felt like i was still going 150, but when i looked at the speedo, it was saying 120. :confused" Even that felt fast because of all the foreign forces. positive and lateral.... the thing here is learning how the lateral g's are off set/handled by the downforce of the banking. eventually, you realize there is SO much more there. The rest of the track is just getting familiar with braking points and pushing the car hard , but this is a rough and tumble track. Not easy on the car. lots of shifting, lots of bumps that make you pucker and say "ow" when you hit them. (final turn through the "playground" there is a driveway entrance bump you smash into... its ugly)

What a great weekend. Ended up 5th in class and 9th overall. Surprised to see a few listers there and quite a few of my NorCal racer buds came down as well. Great group of drivers and cars. hope to do it again




Bill's lightning fast C5






Tony Gaples WCGT ride that Bob is driving now







amazing amount of "pickup in one session in the front rims


the right front tires take an edge beating due to the banking
. When I stopped feeling sorry for the car, the times started to drop. and of course, with the older tires, The grip was terrible to start. Did some dumpster diving to fix my horrible looseness for the HC'ed out rears, and that helped drop the times to a 1:50...... but was waiting until all the bugs were out to use my new'ish set (5 heatcycle A7s) putting them on, and it was a different car. And, it was much more competitive with all the cars in the infield. However, my lowly 370hp was no match for the 430 to 550 GT2 cars in class down the main straight. eventually, not lifting into , helped a lot and the car handled it no problem.. So did the engine, pegging off the rev limiter down the main straight in 4th gear . with a quick shift to 5th and a few seconds around the turn so i wasnt banging off the rev limiter around the curve.

This track is the absolute worst for braking! wow, I thought laguna was taxing! This was 150mph down to 40mph, then 100 down to 40 and then 115 down to 40 and then 130 down to 40 and then REPEAT. the racingbrakes.com set up was perfect. no issues and i was going to change them out before the race, but the pads were still like new, so im going to see if i can stretch them out for a few more weekends. 3rd season, if you can believe it!

I was a little concerned about this track and the oiling issues we are all scared of in the 928 community. With willow springs, I didnt think it was any different than any other track, and was only a few seconds longer in any high G turn, but this was the worst of all worlds. the engine was up at 6500rpm, being held there, and staying there in the 5500 to 6600rpm range for near 30 seconds. NO PROBLEM!

Ended up i think 5th in class and 9th overall out of 28 or so starters in the race.

Lots of fun. really glad i made the big trip down to this great track. next on the bucket list has to be COTA

montoya

Hi Mark- I should have stopped by to say hello! Yes this is one of the funnest tracks we race on! Just a hoot. In your class I didn't see much drafting, we have to draft to be competitive which adds a whole other dynamic!

Here's my nose after the Sunday race!



Here's how dramatic the speed increase is. First photo is the "bump" (notice the tire smoke from his rear tires- oops!):


This next photo is the impact just a 1/4 mile up the track, 10 MPH!! So much fun!

Laura

Saw you pulling out of the facility as we pulled in to check on one of our drivers. So you will be coming to the Festival of Speed this year?

audipwr1

Just FYI - on that banking I would never run over a few HC tires. A cup car at 190mph blew its outside tire as it was passing me in a SPB at 135 and I had to do an epic maneuver otherwise neither of us would be here today. The amount of kinetic energy at those speeds approach that of a small bomb

Just my 2 cents

mark kibort

yes, that was the spooky part of the thrill. you have to adjust what you think you know about grip and g loading , and understand there are tremendous forces at work due to the centrifugal force pressing the car against the banking, So , like you say, its all in the tire, holding down all sorts of KE... we had a BMW lose a tire on the exit. full budget racer (Jeff and his M4 ), a newer tire and still ended his session
, but the car only spun as it was after the highest banking . I dont know if you need new tires, but i agree, only a few heat cycles is best. When i was pushing harder , it was on the race with my newest set. still 5 heat cycles, and very new looking .

I was talking to M. Anderson and he talked about what a great event the FoS is. Im seriously considering it. Do i run under POC or PCA?

Cory M

Do you have an active PCA race license? Pretty sure you have raced with POC recently so that would be the easier route in terms of licensing and probably classing as well.

mark kibort

I have a PCA license that I have to get renewed, and will probably renew the POC license as well. (or one of the two). what would the class differences be between the two? same run groups I would hope.
Thanks for the info.

mark kibort

The In-Car and rear view cam footage from the race

Cory M

Both clubs race together in the same run groups, they are just scored differently. POC uses a straightforward power to weight classing structure with slight weight adjustment based on tire type. PCA is a bit more complicated using a performance index that considers displacement and engine type in addition to weight. I assume the larger displacement of your engine would be a negative in PCA classing, but I may be wrong so you have to run the numbers to be sure. Might be best to figure out your class for both clubs and register for the one that had more entrants in it last year so you have some good competition. Festival of Speed is a really fun weekend, definitely worth attending.

mark kibort

You are correct.... if you have a V8, even an old 928 with a 4.5 liter making 150hp, you get classed in GT2, whereas in POC, its HP/weight, and much more fair (for that anomaly car.....the 928 ) so, I need to re-new with POC anyway, so that will fix that. I would think, both GT2 and GT3 all run together , but i dont know for sure.

mark kibort

Look who i ran into in the race..... go to 8:45

this is the first race start lap, and then i attach the last part of the 2nd race at the end of this shorter video. All in car footage at Auto Club Speedway.

Thundermoose

looks like a blast. damn your car sounds good!

mark kibort

Again, so many people came over to my little "pit" area to tell me that! thats the best part, running a 928 at near redline for 20 seconds
so funny, how edgy i get just bouncing off the rev limiter when on the dyno for a second, now, im holding it there for 20 seconds a lap during the race! on the track, it seems so normal

fatbillybob

That be me. I was stuck behind the red/yellow NASCAR thing all race. It was a classic HP vs. corner speed thing and I could not get it done. I'm running 2 classes for 2018 which really means underoptimized for both. Runoffs is a very boring week long saga. Sonoma will be my 5th in a row. So plan is running 2 classes for Runoffs. I'm not sure if this is a good plan yet.

Good to finally meet the infamous MKibort.