Monday, May 19, 2014

Tyler Jago CMS Sponsored Driver SCCA Solo STU - 2014 Race 1

First official race in the books and the season is under way!! This is my first season being sponsored by Circuit Motorsports and I'm ready to start cone crushing!

I spent a ton of time on the car last week getting everything prepped:
  • HP+ Pads
  • Stoptech Rotors
  • Stoptech Lines
  • RBF 600 Brake fluid flush
  • Engine oil change
  • Tranny/diff oil change
  • Cipher Auto racing seats
  • Swapped out RCE Yellows for RCE T2s
Was a ton of garage time to make sure the cars was ready to go, but in the end it was worth it.

Couple pre-race pics. Putting on my 17x10 Enkei RPF1s and installing a shorty exhaust:






This venue is not very friendly to street tires and I was definitely having some front end grip issues. Even peg legging around this corner you can see I'm pretty far off the cones:


I was having a hard time getting the car to rotate for my first two runs and in this vid you can really see how pushy the car was through the finish:
http://youtu.be/BECTDFt30Co

To help rectify the issue I decreased the compression and tire pressure up front to try and find more grip. I also increased the rebound and tire pressure in the rear to lose some grip.
http://youtu.be/EiHICntn_HY

The car was still not rotating as much as I would have liked but it definitely got better. At the end of the day I noticed a fine gray powder and a bunch of OPR on my tires. Could be the culprit of just an easy excuse...

I was in first place out of 8 by over 0.5s going into the last run. Out of nowhere my toughest competition put up a flyer on his last run and beat me by 0.3s...grrrrr. Still did pretty well overall, took 23rd out of 164 and was the 2nd fastest guy on street tires.

Bit more eye candy:


This year is going to be an excellent battle in STU, there will be at least four fast drivers every week so any hesitation or misstep and you'll quickly find yourself out of trophies. Looking forward to some fierce competition and an exciting year.

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-Tyler Jago