Kurt R

Actually that was his second time in the car.

He ran at Road Atlanta, qualified 4th I think, but was under weight and had to start at the back of the grid. Finished 8th in the race.

Kiko

I entirely subscribe Flying Finn's (and Sundaydriver's) input on this. Specially in the 911's where you can use trailbraking on slow corners to help the rear rotate and leave the neutral-to-understeer behaviour as a safety net for the fast sweapers. To get this "neutral-to-understeer" handling
- I play with the shocks and front wheels toe if the understeer/oversteer is present from the turn-in to apex.
- I play with cambers and rear toe if the US/OS issue is from the apex to exit
- I play with swaybars to fine tune the cars handling specially in fast sweepers.

Veloce Raptor

Thanks, Kurt. I stand corrected!

JackOlsen

Assuming it's the same one, the Grassroots Motorsports article is on their website:

LINK TO ARTICLE

Larry Herman

Boy, they seemed to say a lot without really saying much at all. Nothing about shock set up at all, how it really affects handling, which is what the title said the article was about.

M758

Jack that was NOT the article.

The article featured Joe Stimola (or something close to that). He is apparently and Eastern Shock expert and brings a Shock trailer to many SCCA National events. Sells Penske racing shocks.

M758

Issue is the May 2006



Article is

Special tech report... tune your shocks for ultimate lap times

Not sure if it online

sjanes

While I'm supprised that Pros like understeer, as a complete hack I found it faster.

I used setup my car for mild oversteer cause I thought it was faster. It made the car feel nervous in fast corners, but I figured I needed to learn how to drive it that way if I wanted to get any speed out it. With this setup on the car last year, I had a couple of lawn mowing moments when I thought my corner entry speed was too high, and decided to cut the grass instead of risk spinning the car into the corner. This year, I setup the car for mild understeer. Although I still though the oversteer was faster, I decided staying on the track was better. Result? I was slower at first, but by the end of the year, I was 1.8 sec faster than I had ever been. I figured it is mostly due to having more confidence in the car on corner entry. Who woulda thunk it?

Seth Thomas

From what I have seen in World Challenge I think Randy is pretty correct. Most of the cars are setup for very slight oversteer during qualifying (where most of us do only one or two laps) and then slight understeer during the race. Driving an oversteering car for any race length can be a hand full and is definitely slower. My car at Road Atlanta went from perfect to oversteer after about 10 laps. From that point on the laps times were about a 1.5 seconds slower than before. At Laguna this past weekend my car developed a very slight understeer and as the grip changed I was able to keep all my lap times in a .5 second difference.

Also something that wasn't mentioned in this thread to take into consideration the tires wearing and the fuel in the car burning off. In Randy's front wheel drive Mazda less fuel weight in the rear puts more weight on the front wheels to help them grip as they wear off. In the BMW I drive as the fuel burns off and the rear tires wear the car tends to go loose.

Veloce Raptor

ClockBoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TonyN

There is another GRM article that has a table for adjusting shocks and their affect on handling. I just don't recall the issue date.

JackOlsen

In the grassroots/fair-use spirit, can anyone scan the May 06 artcle?