Road America video

[Richard Hudgins]

Morris C.

MAR was my favorite track in the Midwest from a driving standpoint. Good and technical.

The crew liked it best because the women were the prettiest. (Or at least they got the luckiest there)

We had a customer CP Elan in the shop that I used to take out once in a while to MAR to embarrass the Vettes. You will understand what I mean. The only track where 6 lbs per hp would beat 4 lbs per hp every time.

Yeah, "Fitzy" liked em' stiff. (He grew up with whippy chassis's) He always told me that he liked to drive "ON TOP".

He took over VIR School of Motor Racing from me in the early 70's and I guess ran it until the track finally closed for good. E. Paul Rembold was the track owner and a real PITA to deal with for the sanctioning bodies and I guess that is what finally killed the track. (He was great to me.)

By the way, Cendiv is a great region, but the chief stewards were pussies. I got called for aggressive driving at every centdiv track I went to. (I guess they were not used to European driving tactics)



Scott,

First thing. You need to get rid of any toe steer in the rear. The car will never be stable under braking if you do not fix this.

Now, I have looked at your video a number of times. (And I paid attention!)

Please notice that when your car is on "Center" that you have a fairly unstable Yaw motion.

1. This indicates a damper problem. (I know, you don't want hear this, you have done a bunch of work in this area.)

I do not know what sort of dampers that you are running, but my guess would be that you are getting fluid cavitations at short high speed shaft motion. (Very normal in non gas dampers.)

You will notice that this gets worse on the second lap. Once again a indication of cavitations.

I would send this video to your damper guys. If they know their stuff, they will understand the problem and be able to recommend a solution.

OR.

2. It is Chassis flex. (This is the area where it shows itself.)

For this one, you just start running the wheel and damper rates up. You are already pretty high. But maybe you need to go farther. Think like the go kart folks. Or like the LOLA runners. Eric B. was the master of making a flexible chassis go really fast.