What was up with that NASA guy saying the crossfire couldn't or shouldn't do the chicanes at 100 mph???

What a efin crack smoker. =)

 

not my second instructor, he loved the fact i didn't lift through the first chicane, quote " you have the biggest ***** of any of the guys i have rode with this weekend." those chicanes are so much fun.

 

Remember we are running street tires and John Mathews stated that we SHOULDN'T be going through turns 7 & 8 (first set of chicanes) at 100 mph. Not that we couldn't, but shouldn't at our level on street tires... not enough stop to have a big safety margin.

I have video of me hitting them at 95 mph for sure. I don't know if I got my 100 mph pass on video or not.

Oh... and by the by... John Mathews is the HPDE Director and an excellent course driver, so I'd take his advice any day. I had him drive my SRT6 at Buttonwillow Raceway last November and he knows his stuff... BIG TIME!

Just because we 'can' doesn't mean we 'should'. Now, maybe when we get to level three or have better tires and brakes (I'm half way there) then, he might say you should...

 

I guess I heard him differently. I remember him asking what kind of car you have and not what kind of tires you're using. He really sounded condescending when he heard "crossfire". I bet if you said you had a bimmer, an e46 at that, he would have said you could take that at a buck fifty. ;-)

Actually the fastest car that I saw that took those turns was a red ford focus, easily doing 100 mph.

 

i definitely agree with you, he was condescending. just goes to show alot of people still don't know what an srt-6 is capable of.

 

I've been working 16 hour days since Monday and desperately need sleep, but I had to chime-in on this one before 10 more days of the same.

Matthews runs in TTD class with me in his BMW M3 sedan, he's really quite a good driver and smokes my azz every event and has run the HPDE program for the past few years. That being said, he sometimes is a condescending, cocky SOB even to me. Last Sunday he had a few snide comments to me that were borderline rude !

Oddly enough, one of them was specifically about that chicane 7&8. He said "geezus Derek, you can take that faster than 100, you're driving like a puzzy and slowing us up, maybe you should be back down in HPDE 3"...

Another comment on Saturday was about turn 1. His BMW and I run neck and neck down the straightaway topping at 125 +/- before the entry into turn 1, because of his experience with that track and his car, he only lifts slightly and carries about 120 through turn 1, where me, since I have limited experience on the oval, lift to about 110 thru that turn because I don't know yet what speed the car is going to float out to the wall with catastrophic results.

He made some smart azzed comments during the drivers meeting that he was driving a boxy car with no aerodynamics and having to pass me offline in that turn because I was slowing him down.

He's not normally as grumpy and tactless as he was that weekend, I wonder if he was suffering sleep deprivation all weekend like I was ? Jody will attest to his normal demeanor because he was very friendly at Buttonwillow as Jody's instructor.

Or, perhaps he just hates Crossfires !!! LOL.

 

He was extremely grumpy as he had a few "bad eggs" in HPDE 1B & 2B from Saturday that had to be moved to HPDE 3. They were supposed to sign up for HPDE 3 but it was booked so they signed up for 1 & 2 instead and got out of hand passing on the oval where they shouldn't.

That and all the other HPDE boo-boos that happened on Saturday along with the totally packed schedule had him on edge. He was a lot more of an A-Hole than at Buttonwillow for sure.

Let's put it this way Derek, he was ready to flush (for the rest of the event) anyone that did any more passing in non passing zones in HPDE 1 & 2 by second session Sunday. He was really ticked off... probably a lack of sleep and not enough fun at the event on his part.

I'll state it again, he told me specifically that we SHOULD NOT have been doing that on street tires with stock brakes. He told Derek that he SHOULD be doing that with his setup (race level brakes, tires and suspension setup). This goes back to giving the inexperienced drivers a larger margin of safety.

I still think I need to work on my line consistency and turn entry speed. I got it right over half the time this weekend, but I found at least one instance on my videos where I blew each turn at least once. I didn't on the Chicanes, but those aren't really turns to me.

Derek, I too had a top entry speed of 125 into turn one and only felt I could carry 110 through turn two. I didn't feel the car getting loose, but at those speeds I wasn't sure how the car would react if it did start to track out to the wall and what I should do about it, so I played it safe.