"Next week will be my first time at Panthera in West Virginia. I'm looking forward to trying a new venue and maybe nursing my ego a little bit."
Panthera was great. My ego did not get the reinforcement that I was hoping for! 😃
The trek to Panthera is about four hours for me - 20 minutes or so of that is me taking a preferred route and avoiding DC traffic. 20 minutes well spent, IMO. While on the ride out Saturday afternoon I got a message from a fellow competitor asking if I'd just crossed the Shenandoah river. He happened to be in the river in his boat when I went by and spotted me on the bridge. Funny coincidence. The tow out went smoothly and I arrived on site around 6:00 PM. I checked out the course, got set up to camp, and then enjoyed several hours of BSing around an imaginary campfire. Living on the east coast, I don't often get to spend an evening so far from light pollution - the stargazing is fantastic.
I woke up early ready to celebrate Easter at the Church of Insufficient Horsepower.
We did a sighting lap, and my exhaust heat shield decided to try to leave the chat. I could see from the looks on the corner worker’s faces that it sounded as bad outside as it did in the car. Fortunately, I was able to rip it out by hand with no delay. My first run was my best of the day and was in line with some of the faster drivers in other classes. I felt like it was conservative to feel out the course and I had high hopes for a good day. I then hit three cones on my second run which more accurately set the tone for the day. I just couldn’t get the car to hook and turn the way I wanted it to. I got it right sometimes, so I don’t think that there’s any issue with the car. I’ll look it over before the next event just in case.
There are a few potential contributing factors:
1.) I’m a lousy driver.
2.) From day one, I’ve been intentionally introducing oversteer because it’s fun, and now that I’m (maybe) getting a little faster it’s a habit that I have to unlearn (see #1).
3.) I’ve been using a light touch on the brakes to initiate rotation but not really braking enough. I spent a lot of time yesterday experimenting with harder braking and using that to plant the front into a turn. When I got it right-ish, it was rewarding. When I got it wrong, I hit cones or at least got off the good line (see #1).
4.) I had almost no fuel in the car (I forgot to stop on the way). I’m wondering if the lack of weight over the rear contributed to it not wanting to stay in line.
5.) Snow tires at 40 psi in the Panthera moon dust are lousy. I did purchase some chinesium “rally tires” but they are not legal in SA. There’s still a whole lot more to be gained from driver mods before I can blame it on tires (see #1.) I’ll use the rally tires in the Susquehanna region where I am competing in the PA class this year. It’ll be an interesting comparison.
Due to the low turnout, we got a lot of runs. I think 10 in the morning and 9 after lunch. We were essentially hot-lapping which gave it a “test and tune” feel for me. That, coupled with the fact that the fast guy in the class wasn’t there yesterday let me feel good about screwing up. I just told myself that I was trying new things. In the morning session, that was mostly true. I was consciously trying different lines, braking, brake/throttle transition, etc. It was good.
They flipped the course for the afternoon. There were two places where there was a descending left turn that had cones at the bottom. In the first of the two, you could carry momentum and go to the right of the cones. In the second of the two, it was a tight little downhill left/right thing that very loosely made me think of the corkscrew at Laguna Seca. I made a mental note of both sections during the sighting lap. The guy working start gave me a warning that there had been several off-course penalties on the first lap already and that I should be careful. I thanked him and then promptly forgot which section was which and went hard left on the exit of the first of the two “blind” left turns. I couldn’t get back online and earned an off-course penalty. I also hit four cones in the process. Sigh. It took me four or five runs before I could finally put the afternoon course together in my head. After abusing the corner workers all day by making them chase cones, I decided to slow down and try to drive clean. I managed to make my last four runs with no additional cone penalties. All that said, I’m not complaining – it was technical and a lot of fun. It’s not the course designer’s fault that I drove like a moron.
That reminds me – the elevation at Panthera is really cool. It adds a whole other element to your driving. You have to be wary of downhill corners with moon dust at the bottom and have to plan accordingly for the uphill runs which can do a great job of pointing out your horsepower inadequacies.
The trip to/from Panthera involves some mountain roads that had me a little worried about holding up traffic. The 5.4 in the van suffers from inadequate horsetorques and doesn't love dragging 12,000 lbs up long hills. It does OK, but far from great. Fortunately (?), on the way home, someone ahead of me was struggling and had traffic backed up which took the pressure off of me.
I'm ready for the next event!
