Been a really busy season so far. I wound up getting the stock suspension put back on with the help of a couple Great Lakes Z club friends and a brand new tent in lieu of a garage.
(That's me freezing my *** off in the cold rain, thanks to phreakdout for the pics)
Managed to get an alignment JUST before closing at Mufflers And More (MANY MANY Thanks to Kenny and the rest there for helping me out repeatedly). After returning home to pack it started to really pour which slowed the drive to the track quite a bit. I finally arrived 00:30 despite the VDC fault light coming on and the BRAKE fault light beaming at me any time I accelerated.
Thankfully spearfish had experienced this issue before and posted about it on the forums here. Apparently to Nissan MAX brake fluid level really means MIN. I again got lucky and a friend had a bottle of RBF600 that had just been opened so I was able to top off and run. Wet morning, dry afternoon... was a blast.
I had my worst track experience to date at Waterford Hills 6/9. I could not shake a strange feeling of dehydration all day no matter what I drank. I had Great difficulty focusing and looking ahead on the track so I was really rough and slow most of the day. Despite all my troubles I still managed to boil my power steering fluid and clutch fluid for the first time. At the end of my last session the clutch just dropped to the floor. The next day I REALLY felt like a wreck even with 12 hours of sleep. Waterford is already punishing but doing it sick is a real drag on the body.
Last weekend (8/6-8/7) I went to Grattan Raceway with 3Balls racing. Saturday was an incredibly wet mess. We had one sort-of drying session before lunch... enough to make the car feel pretty good but nothing like it was on Sunday. Finally a dry day at Grattan. The weather gave a 60% chance of rain and the radar showed it moving in quickly so I rented a garage to scare it away. After a short shower during the driver's meeting the track dried out quickly and it was a cool overcast morning leading into a beautiful sunny afternoon.
Every session I was getting faster and smoother until the last session of the day. I was the second car on the track behind a white M3 who was very quick. He let me by on the front straight after a couple laps and started chasing me when I had my first instance of fuel starvation at turn 10. I recovered and ran a couple more laps taking care to not go so fast around 10 but when I started getting closer in a few laps I couldn't help myself and ended up causing the issue to reoccur so I just hopped off track and went to pack up. Harry's Lap Timer says my fastest lap of the weekend was that session with 1:36.79 and I think I would have been topping that if I had a full tank of gas! To go along with the fuel starvation I boiled my PS fluid again as well. Good think I have the Z1 power steering cooler ready to install this week before Mid-Ohio with NASA.
At some point I am planning on posting videos.. I just have to find some time where I'm not scrambling with work!
Contemplating signing up for the 3 day Mid-Ohio school next week... That would be 5 days at mid-ohio in one week and they advertise as prepping you for NASA comp school. I wonder how many terrible habits I will have to break?