Had a fun weekend at TWS. We had a couple patches of ice on the track Saturday morning, but as the weekend progressed it turned out to be mostly perfect weather. Sunny enough to keep the track reasonably warm, cool enough to not sweat much in the car.
I switched over to my new 18x10 square wheel setup (+34 offset, w/ 10mm spacers on the rear, thanks Travis+Mike for offset info!), and broke in a new set of Hankook RS3's on them. My Saturday sessions were an exercise in traffic management (how fast can you throw out passing signals?), as the brand-new tires were slippery, I hadn't figured out my pressures yet, and I still had to develop some feel and confidence in them to boot. It was definitely a learning experience
My last best time at TWS-CCW was 2:08.49 back in March, and in these good conditions I should've been able to improve on that substantially by now, but, all of the above. My best time Saturday morning was 2:16
, but by late Sunday I had worked it back down to a 2:06. I still wasn't being aggressive enough with my braking, but that will come with a little more time learning to trust how this new rubber feels.
My overall impression of the RS3 is that I wish I had switched up to it sooner. After hearing about how R-comps and slicks have a finer knife-edge of traction, I thought they would be harder to drive than my old high-treadwear Conti DW's, but they were much easier once I got used to it. The breakaway is more linear and predictable, and they don't get suddenly greasy overheating late in the session the way the Contis did. I think I'll end up adding a little more camber all around to keep up with how hard these push out mid-corner, but I want to feel them out for another weekend or so before making any more changes.
Trailer stuff: I ended up adding another layer of 1x12 under the ramps from earlier (so 1x12 + 2x12 + 2x12 for front height), putting 45 angles on them all and a backstop, and also putting in some shorter rear ramps (1x12 + 2x12). Might be my suspension/tire setup, but more likely just my trailer wheel wells are taller than travis's. In any case, this is what I had to do to reliably open the door under all conditions:
Also, strapping the tires to E-track about a foot off the floor (and then another strap through the front of the tires to keep them together) worked out really well:
While I'm at it, random picture of my car+shop+lift. I'd like to say the complete mess in there is temporary, but it's been temporary for a long time now
And video of my fastest lap for the weekend. I think my ego trying to chase down that Audi gave me some extra oomph
(But really, the only reason I caught him is because he lifted to let the silver car that was kicking both our asses pass him).