another day at the track...

I almost miss the track day at Moroso today, as for some reason I was
convinced all along it was on sunday 3/29. When I woke up this morning, a
bit late... I suddenly realized... the 29th was today... rushed to the
track (just over an hour away...) and got there around 10 having missed
about an hour of track time...

Moroso (just outisde West Palm BEach) is better known for its drag strip but it's road course is nice too. a long straight with a kink in the middle for which you dont' have to lift. then a series of turn just and a long back straight with a slow chicane in the middle bringing you back to a 180 on to the front straight. Little runoff, tire walls, off camber runoffs, high curbs, and a canal mean you want to keep it on the pavement. On race prepped BMW ended up within inches of the canal on top of the embankment... probably totalled, driver ok but taken to hopsital just in case...

Car ran great... the carb leaking and missfire in corners is gone.. not
sure why since all they did on tuesday at the shop was pull the 4 carbs and
reset the floats to stock settings.. also drilled a hole in the air filter
housings for the second bowl vent hole, that wasn't drilled but I don' see
how it would affect the oveflow... I also changed the fuel pressure regulator with one that's adjustable from 1 to 6 psi, instead of the holey
that came with pump that wa adjustable from 4 to 10. Not sure if that did
it... time will tell since this has been creeping back up after a while each time...

Only casualty is yet another front wheel bearing... it was a bit noisy before but it got worst yesterday with a louder groan which now changes with steering input. no play whatsoever, just noise.

did about 140 track miles, couple of hours alltogether...

LEarned 2 lessons... first... remember to flush brake fluids more than
once a year / 8 track days ... too much... brake pedal didn't feel
right... I really got the brakes hot in the first session, using worn pads which I guess didn't dissipae heat as well. or I was a bit rusty... Most of the time, I'd have to pump the brakes a couple of time to get a firm pedal...

nr two was .... a 3500lbs V12 E-type on 15" street rubber can outrun a Miata on the straight... but... it will not keep up with it in a corner
especailly if the Miata is on race tires... I had let him by on the front
straight knowing he'de be faster in the 5 or 6 following corners but somehow tried to stay with him in the long 180 left hander at the end of the front straight... didn't work... rear started stepping out, corrected, corrected, till I just ran out of steering into a very gentle spin... back end passing the front end into a 270 deg... let go of the brakes at the very end to back away from the center towards the curb and let traffic thru safely ... some very fast 911 GT3s, etc who all made it thru ok...

Otherwise, it was a ton of fun... as usual. The E-type is so
predictable... I got the rear loose a few times, takes very little opposite steering to bring it back... and it's very stable at high speed, rock solid... consistently hitting 110-/120 on the front straight... no tendency to lift or get light.... does seem that the higher the speed, the most stable the car is!

Peformance is good considering I'm runnning an original 30 year old 130k stock V12 which only had the heads re built 3 years ago... I need more rubber in the corners, the stock 15" wire don't provide enough grip... although I want to believe the driver makes a difference and I was able to stay with some guys using considerable faster cars... like an NSX which was running on toyo tires which showed a 280 treadwear rating on the sidewall... wonder if the harder compound made him slow in corners...

i got some onboard clips will capture and upload... unfortunately I didn't
have the camcorder rolling during the spin...

Next will be Lime Rock... can't wait!

Pascal
72 2+2