First of all, wow this is a difficult track, much more so than Portland or
Detroit in my opinion. We spent this weekend trying to find some speed in the
AMD/HEB Lola, but in the end, we came up short. Power was definitely not a
problem thanks to our Honda engine. We first started by trying a low drag
setup and easily reach speeds above 210mph on the pit straight as well as
between T1 and T3. Unfortunately, our initial analysis of the track took us
in the wrong direction, and it appears that down force is needed to get around
this place fast.
After wasting a day trying to out-drag every car on the track, we finally
decided to add wing. And then we added some more. It seems that the more
wing you run here, the faster your lap times. Raising the wings from 13/12 to
16/14 resulted in a decrease of one full second in lap times. There's
probably quite a bit more speed in the car, but we're still running high 62s
at the moment. Not quite good enough to make the grid.
This weekend was disappointing after the way the car performed at Portland. It
was also a shame that the spring in our accelerator cracked during qualifying.
Thanks to the our crew chief's ingenuity, we were soon back on the track, but
this one just wasn't meant to be. See you all next week in Toronto.
Clark Archer Speed Tribe
IVGA #3920 1996 Lola Honda Firestone
