Pinkley, Harmon and I all pounded the pavement today with our Dak's. Cal
Club held an SCCA Solo2 event at Edison Field (Angel's Stadium in Anaheim).
Harmon had the Dacuda out and Pinkley was there blowing away the field with
the 3.9L that could (only truck in the magic 50 second zone). Harmon is
just testing the water here, he hasn't put together all the mods yet, but
he needed the seat time. He managed to throw down a full second lead over
my wunderSLT. But nobody can make as much noise as my truck can.
Unfortunately, its tire squeal not exhaust note!!!
I was lifting the inside front wheel on a couple of left hand turns. That
always gets my wife's attention. With stock height, stock tires, and stock
alignment, you might as well mount a big steel plate to my front
bumper....All its good for is plowing....
Hotchkis has to be the best bang for the buck on the planet. Why don't I
have this setup again???? Oh well..... I keep reminding myself, its my
tow vehicle, it's my tow vehicle.... I tow 6000lbs with it....ALOT! I put
1500lbs in the bed.....ALOT!!! I do with my Dak what most would say
requires a 3/4 ton RAM.
I did a few good things. Mainly in the straight sections. 4.7L's with
3.92's can get out of their own way, thank-you. Unfortunately, autox is
largely about quick sharp turns and transitions. I like high speed offsets
and slaloms. Mainly, cause I just keep my foot in it, close my eyes, and
make believe that I'm a big purple Miata. 180 degree turns though, usually
require extracation from a field of mangled Orange Cones.
As Gary pointed out.... "Uh, Steve.....SLIP ANGLE??? Heard of it, you
have it....More than anybody here!"
Slip angle for the uninitiated refers to the direction of the tires versus
the direction of the vehicle. The higher the slip angle, the greater the
difference. The greater the difference, basically the LOWER the skill of
the spacer between the steering wheel and the Seatback. In other words,
its racer talk for, "YOU SUCK!!!"
Still it was alot of fun, I did the best starting line burnouts (just
trying to clean my tires and get some heat in em :-)
Hope to see some more of you out there in coming months!
-STE
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 11:54:46 EDT