Set-Up Success

FOLLOW-UP #2 TO: “WHY WE RACE”

A couple years ago at an SCCA Southwest Division National Race one of my top rivals (and good friend) beat me. It’s not that getting beat is unusual or surprising. It’s how my good friend and rival won the main event that Sunday that has always stuck with me and motivated me on to some victories of my own.

The race was the annual “Sunburn Grand-Prix” at Texas Motor Speedway (TMS). I consider TMS my home track. It’s 20 minutes from my house, I have a fast set-up for the track, and I hold the track record for our class. I start each TMS race weekend with more confidence than usual and feel I have a better than normal chance to win.

Like many amateur racers, my friend Cory’s crew is whatever family and/or friends he can line-up for the weekend and convince to work their butts off for food and beer. Some crew may be “regulars” and thus familiar with the car and race weekend routine. Others may be new and needing much guidance. Either way, the amateur racer is often in the role of crew chief, mechanic, and driver. In Cory’s case, “driver” also includes driving the trailer from his home in Memphis to Ft. Worth.

The weather was not perfect, but very nice for racing. During practice the car felt good and I was running within one second of the track record. However, a former dirt tracker named Chris from San Antonia recently joined our class and was very fast out-of-the-box. He was running the fastest laps in Friday practice, .5 seconds quicker than me, and had my attention. Meanwhile, another rival, Jack, from St. Louis was just a couple tenths behind me, promising to capitalize on my mistakes as he had done many times in the past.

As the weekend progressed, I was focused on catching Chris and staying ahead of Jack. This was a classic set-up, strategy, and driving battle to find that extra couple tenths of a second that will make the difference.

My friend and rival, Cory, was several seconds off the pace with a fairly new car and in a near-by garage stall. Sincerely wanting to help, I asked what the problem was. He said the car was well sorted and prepared, the handling felt good, and the engine felt good, but he believed the CVT clutching was not putting the power down.

CVT Transmission is one of the unique characteristics of our small formula cars. They are highly efficient and effective when properly set-up. However, proper set-up is a bewildering exercise of matching spring rates with cam shapes and weights, helix angles, etc. CVT Clutching is so complex, you’re more likely to get it wrong than right. Therefore, many in our class find one clutching set-up that works good (not great) at all the tracks, and stick with it. However, for those who study clutching, work hard at it, practice, test, tune, tweak, repeat . . . it can become a competitive advantage.

Having heard that Cory was chasing a clutching issue, I wrote him off as a serious competitor for the weekend. I assumed there was just not enough track time for him to test the set-up combinations he would need to find the optimum settings. Furthermore he did not have any crew that new a thing about clutching, so he would have to do it all himself. Being my “home track”, I had my best crew with me, but none who knew about clutching since I choose to stick with my “good, not great” clutching set-up and spend wrenching time elsewhere.

When changing set-up at the track in search of a few tenths of a second, you must be careful not to make the car worse/slower by changing a setting too much or by changing too many settings in combination. Minor tweaks were made to carburetor jetting, ride height, tire pressure, etc. With these relatively minor adjustments made and comfortable with our car for the Friday afternoon session, we all went to lunch. Cory was unable to join us because he had too much clutch work to do. When we returned from lunch Cory was still clutch tuning. And so went the weekend . . he worked non-stop on his clutch set-up while the rest of us enjoyed what seemed like a “smooth weekend” with comfortable time to tweak the set-up.

Throughout the weekend Cory made progress on his clutch set-up and went a little quicker each session. We were glad to see his hard work paying off to some extent, but it still looked like he wouldn’t have time to really get it right in time for the Sunday race.

Chris, the dirt tracker from San Antonio, grabbed pole on Sunday with a new qualifying lap record. I was along side on grid in 2nd with Jack in third a few tenths off my Qual lap. Cory was in fourth, but over two seconds back during Qual. There were a few cars behind Cory that ran a similar pace in Qual. I assumed the race would unfold into two battles, the three top qualifiers fighting for the podium spots and Cory and the rest fighting it out for 4th on...

When the green flag fell, Jack got the jump on me and passed me in turn one while Chris sprinted off into the distance. This is the natural order of things . . being a dirt tracker, Chris had tremendous car control and is very fast on cold tires . . and Jack has always been exceptionally good at the start and first couple crowded laps. I’ve always been the opposite of both...a bad starter, slow on cold tires, but fast and consistent when the tires come in. I’ve been able to run both these rivals down in the past, and was counting on doing so again to fight for the win. I was able to catch and pass Jack within the first couple laps and then turn my concentration to running down Chris, who had opened a large gap. I focused hard enough to set a new race lap record in pursuit of Chris. However, Chris was running fast and consistent also, and the gap was no closing fast enough. Then lady luck intervened and handed me the lead...Chris’ crew had made a mistake in refueling and he had run out of gas.

I quickly reassessed my situation. I was now leading the race with just several laps to go. My car was working well. I looked into my mirrors to gauge my lead. I had to look past a white Formula Vee (another class in our race group) to see Jack several hundred yards back on the front straight. After pushing so hard to catch Chris for many laps, I had opened up a comfortable lead over Jack. I relaxed a little to ensure I could cruise home safely to victory. It was only then that I realized I had not recently passed a white Formula Vee, which are much slower than our class/cars! It was already too late...Cory, in his white F500, was inside me in turn 1. Being surprised and now off-line, I lost momentum and fell back. Cory completed his pass before turn two.

I quickly tried to regain my focus, remain calm, and figure out where and how I would catch and pass him back. However, Cory laid down three very fast laps, making my job difficult. He maintained a gap of several car lengths until a double yellow flag came out for a crash in turn 7, which became a red flag, making his victory complete.

We climbed out of our cars at tech , both with a huge grin from ear to ear. I was literally smiling so hard, I couldn’t speak...Cory spoke first...“I got the clutching right!”