Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 09:19:35 -0400 From: "Jon C. R. Bennett" Subject: Story of driving school at Pocono Message-ID: <#36> In this episode of "Driving School of the Week" Jon goes to the Pocono International Raceway with the Performance Drivers Assoc. Info on the Pocono track can be found at http://www.wizvax.net/rwelty/tracks/Pocono.html We were supposed to run two diferent infield configurations not shown in the picture (for those not getting the picture (no pun intended) Pocono is a "Tri-Oval" (thats what they called it), which means it is just like an oval NASCAR track.... except it is missing one turn! (its funnier if you imagine that was just spoken by Tom Lehrer in the same way he says "base 8 is just like base 10... if you are missing two fingers...."). The courses we will run are the "south course" which is "come out of pits in race direction go around first corner, go of main track into infield (in the area to the right of the infield parking) and do a relitively easy 9 turn bike course, renter main track at end of pits. Repeat. And the east course, which uses the pits used by the bike racers which is just east of the infield parking (above the parking in the track map). Which then takes a few turns, enters the main track and goes back into the infield before the turn, and comes around through a not so easy 13 turn bike course which has 2 seperate hairpin turns (my trip to Nelsons will come in handy here) Unfortunately the noreaster which was shuting down the world series was also shutting us down, and we did not run on saturday. So with tears in our eyes we headed off into the sunset to find some racing gas so that the day would not be a total loss.....we didn't find any, but off the side of a side road I found an autoparts store which sold somthing I'd never seen before "Tubo 108 octane boost" !!! 108!!!! and this in not like the 104 octane that says "adds 4 to 7 octane", this stuff says "when added to 22 gallons of 92 octane, produces 108 octane" YES give it to me, give it all to me..... all two measely cans...... anyone know where I can get this stuff I'll order it by the case!!!! Now why you ask do I want this stuff so bad? Well since my trip to Bridgehampton I added a 2.5" downpipe, fuel pump, 1 gen BOV and boost controler (all from Extreme Motorsports, thanks guys stuff works great) (and BTW, despite what someone said recently, their boost controler works fine, just ask the other people in my section... :-) ) say goodbye to 12 PSI say hello to 17 PSI :-) Oh yeah and the Metal Master pads too. So I get my octane boost and show up the next morning and go out to the pit. And I think I am pulling into the right lineup for my section but I am realy confused because there in front of me is an M3 an NSX a old turbo 300ZX (later in the day) a new non-turbo 300ZX a supercharged MR2 and a GT40 RACE CAR!!! no fair, someone I say to myself is sandbaging (little did I know it would be me....). Well the NSX decides that it wants to go play in section II and leave us to ourselves, but I am still not liking the looks of this. Well we start out just like at bridgehampton doing the leapfrog and Im thinking this is realy weird going around the banked turn at only moderate speed the sensation is all wrong, you are being pulled into the turn rather than being pushed out, very strange. But once they let us run one fact rapidly becomes clear, I am blowing the doors of everything else in my group, the MR2 is not even an issue nether is the GT40!!! I dont know how, I dont think they make 2.0 Liter V8??? and one of his back tires looks as big as both of mine put together. The only one which is even close is the non-turbo 300ZX, and eventualy he realizes that he's beat and starts giving the pass signal, in fact by the time we are doing our second run, people are giving me the pass signal before we actualy get on the straight away, they are saying "you again?! go away and leave my poor slow car alone....". However in the turns in the infield the only reason that I am gaining there is that I am willing (and able) to brake very late, the body roll of the car is realy bad, and the tires are explaining how much they are not liking this. But the brakes are putting up a good fight and I am using them for all they are worth. Car needs suspension work.... badly ("Blue Wizard needs food...badly...", just checking to see who got it). So we get done with the second run and I've got the hood up and the 300ZX driver comes over looks under the hood, and starts asking me if I can tell him were he is "losing time to me", I resist the temtation to say "in your engine" and say I'm not sure, and I then ask him how much horsepower does he have, and he says "Well the shop told me I should have about 250, but I must not be getting it, I'll have to take it back to them and have them check it out...." Of course he did not even consider the possibility that he was getting 250 HP, since that would imply that I was getting more than that from my little four banger and that would clearly violate some law of the universe or something..... (of did I mention that I was only running with the boost at 15 PSI becuase I did not have my EGT gauge mounted yet???) Eventualy we moved out the the east course and I mounted the EGT on the hood (gona go mount it inside tonight) and turned the boost up... too much.... (18-19) can you say "fuel cut" boys and girls? I knew you could. And Im like well this suck, EGT never reads above 1400F which is what it reads at lower boost levels, but the ECU has no idea that the fuel pump is better so I'm comming down the infield straight and people in the pits tell me that they can hear the fuel cut, I sound like a bloody buzz bomb, wirrr, cut, wirrr, cut, wirrr, cut, at this point I also over shoot a turn and remembering what they all say about if you are going off, drive off straight, I do, come back on, go pit, check that my tires are still there, and turn the boost down to 17PSI, and go back out, and no more fuel cut, yeah!! The east course is more turn than straight and is taking a terible toll on my brakes, by the end of the day I have almost no brakes and as a result almost no perfomance, time to add a "big brake" upgrade to my list of things for next year. The only car to give me trouble was the turbo 300ZX who was faster then me on the straights but not in the turns, but his buddy told him to just concentrate on driving his car and not worry about other cars so he was not even looking in his rear view mirror, ggrrrrrrrrr! Those PDA guys realy gota learn to use the Blue flag...... All in all I would say that they got a realy good impression of the DSM (in fact that was a guy there with a 95GSX who was talking to one of the organizers about getting some work done on it for next year so it looks like there will be another DSM running at PDA (the guys I met at bridgehampton could not make it because of the rain, but I am hoping to see them next year)