Last year, I attended the CAM Challenge East in Peru, Indiana. I wrote up that experience, which was overwhelmingly positive. You can take a waltz down memory lane here.
This past weekend, I went again. Plus more. To say the past four days have been a blur would be a vast understatement. On Friday, I made my way up to Grissom. I had to leave a lot later this year than last due to a well check for my daughter. We got onsite just past six. Even then, I was able to tech, register, and walk the course. But there wasn’t much chumming about.
My daughter came along with me this time, and seemed to have a good time looking at the cars and playing with her stuff and reading. Oh my. The reading. Read three books front to back this weekend. I won the lottery with this kid.
As for the event, it was a repeat of last year. Fast course, lots of awesome cars, everybody having fun. Most of the points I made in my post last year carry forward. The high dollar equipment showed up once again. Once again, nobody cared. We were all there to have fun. And Fun Was had.
I had a co-driver. James Bishir, who I commended last year as an exemplary n00b, had some highly publicized car trouble at Putnam a few weeks ago. Circumstances conspired against him, and his car just wasn’t ready. So in exchange for lodging and breakfast, he co-drove mine. Wouldn’t you know it, the stinker ended up faster than me by the end of the day! I beat him overall at the event due to a quicker morning session, but he’s a quick study. Once he gets his car back together, he’ll be able to hurt some feelings.
But CAM East wasn’t the only thing on my plate. After dinner Saturday, my daughter and I packed up and headed for home. We got back about 9pm. We both got cleaned up and passed out… only to get back up again at 6am Sunday. There was another event at NCM that I needed run in order to earn my regional year end points. My daughter was also slated to make her autocross debut in a friends’s kart.
So, we made it to NCM with plenty of time. The SCCA Targa event was finishing up there. It was interesting. Randy Pobst was there, and his introduction to the Kentucky Region of the SCCA included a demonstration on how to properly perform intercourse with an Exocet by one of our esteemed STR drivers.
Sadly, my daughter was met with some heartbreak. It turned out she was too small to safely operate my friend’s kart. She was crushed, but she’s a trooper. She bounced back quickly, helped me get my tires changed, and the rest of the day went smoothly. Until a good buddy accidentally locked my keys in my car while doing me a solid and rolling my windows up during a cloudburst. Ooops. It was nothing an old Corvette antenna couldn’t fix, though.
And here’s where we get to the car. This was the first event weekend since installing a recirculating blow off valve. At the Wilmington Champ tour, I was plagued by lag. Every time I had to lift off the throttle and then get back on it, I could count to two or three in my head before the turbocharger came back. On the Wilmington course, it had to have cost me at least two seconds.
So I put a Tial 50mm ventilator on the car.
For those not familiar, this valve allows pressurized air that gets blocked by a suddenly closed throttle plate to be bypassed around the turbocharger and fed back in the inlet side. This prevents air from reverting backwards through the compressor and stalling it. The result is the wheel keeps spinning while the throttle is closed, and when I mash the gas back down, I have to wait less time for the turbocharger to come back up to speed.
Here’s a datalog chart from the Wilmington Champ tour that clearly shows the problem. After a throttle closed event, the boost takes a long time to come back:
Here’s a chart from Sunday’s KYSCCA event:
As you can see, there’s no more lag. The car is responsive enough to actually drift around corners without spinning. That’s not easy to do with one of these.
The car placed higher than expected this weekend. At CAM East, I was in the top half after the morning sessions. I drove less well in the afternoon and fell to 21st out of 34. I would have been 41st of 67 if I’d been in CAM-C like I was last year, which compares very favorably to my finish from last year.
At the KYSCCA event, It was the same story. I won CAM-T easily, and would have been just a fraction of a second out of a trophy in CAM-C if I’d run there.
All in all, it was a fantastic weekend. Exhausting, but fantastic. The car performed flawlessly. It was a moral victory of the highest order.
And now, the videos. Here’s my best run from Peru:
And my best from the KYSCCA event: