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| Dan Clarke in the Isringhausen Motorsport Cayman S |
CG made the pilgrimage to Elkhart Lake for a Porsche Club of America club race at Road America. This is his epic writeup, a must read for any aspiring tracktard.
As I do every time I go to a new track, I've watched almost every relevant Vimeo or Youtube in-car video I found to get a good sense of the track and to my surprise on Test and Tune day the track is relatively easy to learn and be fast in a short time (contrary to scary blind corner places like Mosport).
As always, Farnbacher-Loles had perfectly executed on the logistics and the car was immaculate with the tires from the last NASA race, and two new sets ready for raceday (likely need only one but had 4 rear tires thanks to the NASA Hoosier contingency program). It was also great to have Kurt, the F-Loles ALMS crew chief, on board as he has his own very structured (I crave analysis and structure!) methods and made me try different stuff in the setup that ended up paying off. Initially I had the car relatively stiff, working great for the typical 80mph+ LRP. Mosport or WGI fast corners, but Road America is mostly 50-70mph apex corners with some exceptions. Additionally, watching the big ALMS boys qualify on SpeedTV showed the obvious approach "use as much of the track and beyond (as long as it paved)" for faster lap times. Big surprise then when I went a full car-width wide at T5 and almost lost my teeth and couldnt hold the steering wheel in hands; We needed to soften up the car. Softer front sway bar, less rebound and some bump adjustments and the car was a monster in the slow corners but required finesse and smoothness to allow it to take a controlled set on the faster stuff (T1, T7Kink, Carrousel, T11Kink and T14).
Unfortunately, my class (H Stock) was unusually low on attendance, but the run group had some faster GT3-4R cars (fully mod, BIG wing P-Cars in slicks), I-J Stock cars (GT3s, 993 Turbo, modded Cayman) and GTC1-2 Cup Cars (964 and 993). Practice Day went smoothly and set up a decent time in Practice 3 that defines the Very important Qualifying session grid (10th out of 50). Had a lot "fun" in the Fun Race at the end of the day. I love starts and re-starts.. I sneaked by in the starts with "cold" tires and even lead the race by Lap 2, until the big boys tires came to temp and ended up 4th after 5 laps
It was really a complicated Sprint race due to the mix up of cars with very different strengths. The Big Wing modded cars had great corner exit (race gearing, more HP) and where faster in the fast corners (downforce), but I killed them braking into the slower corners (Cayman is fast in - fast out) where downforce is low, and my top speed wasn't that bad thanks to better aero and less drag from the lack of Wing but I had a hard time holding the pace, specially in the back straight where they were faster through the T11 kink.
The Enduro Race day started great. It looked very promising for an overall win until I learnt the bumped I class into our Enduro and a new faster competitor that won his Sprint race in a 944Cup switched classes to run his fast I Class 996 in the Enduro. Wait and see what kind of times he pulls in Quali. Warm Up session objective was to make sure the tires were still up to their max pace. 3 laps, mission accomplished. Qualifying was rougher than expected. Despite having P1 on the grid and planning on having a 2nd and 3rd clean laps and be done; a good portion of the 944 grid decided to come out late and jump in just in front as I was crossing the finish line. Arrrggghhhh!!! Agony! 2-3 laps of frustration, whenever I thought I had 500-800yds of clean space ahead, it prooved not sufficient around this 4.1mi monster track. Calmed down and went into the pits to calibrate tire pressures and time the best exit possible. It worked. Got 2 clean laps and down almost to my PB with a 2:31.655 (check the video), good for P2. The I class 996, very well driven, qualified P1 with a 2:29.9 and he obviously chose the inside line for the start.
The car looked GREAT!! Farnbacher did a great job with a quickish color change in 2 weeks and the candy red contrast of wheels, mirrors and wings looks good but still misses proper race car livery that will come soon.
Finally fantastic weather at LRP. First two sessions started really driving the car and got down to high 1:00.x. A second off the prior owners record, but I'm having brake bias problems after 5 hot laps, where it goes into ABS and the car brakes mostly from the rear. Need to ease off for a lap for cooling to get them back to comfort level where it doesnt feel like pulling the handbrake when I try to trailbrake! A big confidence destroyer of the entry line into Big Bend.
Diagnostic was that the power steering main hydraulic hose burnt its retaining ring (plastic part) due to the fluid excessive temperature and the hose popped out! We only had 45mins before the race start, Spencer and the Farnbacher crew did a magical fix using a 32mm socket with Zip ties to hold in a 1000psi hydraulic hose line in place!!
It worked, but every 5-6 hotlaps it started slipping again, so I either had to baby it using 3rd gear only or with HUGE pauses in between gears with no throttle. Finally made it home 13th with no more battles for the remainder of the race (other than checking mirrors for the crazy fast cars). Spencer thinks it was the steering fluid from the failure we had in qualifying that might have glazed the surface of the clutch (??!).
