VIR Goblin’s Go
A couple of weekends ago we had our SCCA 2008 kick off race at VIR. I’ve been so busy with trips, the 13 hour, and other stuff that I haven’t written about it but have a few minutes and lunch to put together a post.
The Goblin’s Go weekend is a race packed weekend. If you run all the events you’ll run two 1.5 hour mini enduros (ECRs), one 45 minute Carolina Cup race, and one 30 minute sprint race (SARRC points series). Each race has a 20 min practice and 20 min qualifying for it so you’re looking at a lot of track time in two days if you do them all.
I elected to run ECR1 and the SARRC race for 2008 points. The weekend started off incredibly rainy despite the fact we’ve had a six month extreme drought in North Carolina. Figures. However, by Saturday morning the skies cleared up and the track started to dry out.
On Saturday we had practice and qualifying for the SARRC race, practice and qualifying for the ECR1, and then the actual ECR1 race on Saturday afternoon. Jeff Young and I planned to split the ECR1 race with a driver change at the 45 minute mark.
The old 260Z ran well but both Jeff and I detected a “wandering” feeling from the car on the straights once the speeds got up above 100 mph or so. It wasn’t something we couldn’t deal with, but it did require the driver’s attention. Nonetheless, the car was doing just fine throughout the practice sessions and qualifying.
I qualified the car, but I didn’t do a good job. I think I placed us around 54th, out of 91 starters. My times were poor as I just wasn’t used to driving an ITS car (the class the Z is in) in a mixed bag of traffic from Spec Racer Fords, Miatas, etc.
Jeff started the car when the race kicked off at 5pm and really made up some positions on track, passing around ten cars on the first lap. He continued to drive well and consistently gained positions until we were around 4th in class or so. At about the 40 minute mark he came in for fuel and a driver change where I took over the car. He mentioned the steering had done something “odd” in his stint but that it went away.
I took the wheel under caution and had a couple of ride around laps. Once the course went green I had about 2.5 laps with a “good” car, and then everything went south.
Coming into turn three I tried to turn left and the car didn’t turn much at all. More steering input got the car to turn, but I had to put a full 120 degrees wheel input in to make the turn. This problem continued to various degrees all over the course and for the rest of the race. I seriously thought I’d have to come in but I managed it after a bit. During the uphill esses you’d have to put in about 110-130 degrees left wheel sometimes to make the second left esse. Left turns were far more hairy than right turns, but in either one you never knew what to expect for steering. To make turn four required slightly more than 180 degrees of input, arms fully crossed.
I finished up the race though with the best result I’ve ever had – Jeff and I placed second in class!!! Got a nice $20 trophy for all our years of labor!
We managed to hold on to the lead Jeff won although I couldn’t have managed it long. I saw the 3rd place ITS car gaining on me and he’d have caught me in two more laps as our lap times dropped once the rack “went bad”.
Here is some in car footage of the race while I was driving. It was made with my $50 lipstick camera and solid state SD recorder. The sound is horrible with the aliasing - sometimes it sounds like the motor is off, other times like it is louder than it really is. I think I need some muffling over the speaker input.
Young/Earp ECR1 260Z Goblin's Go YouTube - VIR ECR1 Goblin's Go Earp/Young
If you watch the video you can see how slow it is to get the nose to come around in the twisty bits, especially in the 3,4,5,6 complex that leads to the esses. Not good.
Sunday morning we investigated the car in the light and found a loose jam nut on the driver’s steering arm. We fixed that strung the car for alignment and we thought all was good for the SARRC sprint race.
The SARRC kicked off and I was happy on the pace lap with the way the car felt. However, at Oak Tree on the outlap the problem came back worse than before. Same symptoms, but, the effects in corners was more pronounced and the car was extremely hard to drive. Lap times suffered but I managed to finish the race again. We’re fairly certain the steering rack is loose in the bushings and is sliding back and forth with steering wheel input – not a good thing!!!!!
Anyhow, it was great weekend and the old 260Z will be ready to go for 2008!
Ron
SCCA Goblin's Go at VIR 2007 
Re: SCCA Goblin's Go at VIR 2007 
I'm learning and feel okay where I am now against some guys with as many years race experience as I have had a valid driver's license. But I have a long way to go..............................
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