Lisa Devlin's Racing Diary

Mid Summer at Laguna Seca

by Lisa Devlin

The last race was at Laguna Seca July 26-27. We were done prepping, loading and packing early Friday night, so we decided to watch a video. What would you watch if you were about to go to a race? Yep... "Behind the Wheel with Jackie Stewart?" If you haven't seen it put it on your "must see" list. It is absolutely hysterical and is probably one of the best videos produced on high performance driving on the track or the street.

I think it should be required viewing for anyone considering a driver's license (not a racing license, just a plain old driver's license). Driver's ed would never be the same. It was a good selection and it came back to haunt me over the weekend...

What would a weekend be without a little excitement? Ted volunteered his truck to pull the car down to Laguna. Cool. We pulled into the paddock, found a pit space up front, and parked the truck. Ted looked over at me and asked where my truck keys were. They're on the kitchen table... at home... uh-oh. My truck key chain also has the keys to the trailer on them. The trailer keys that unlock the ramps that the car comes off the trailer on. We borrowed some ramps from one of our neighbors and averted a certain crisis.

The rest of the day went well. There were around 45 cars in the class, and it was difficult to get out of traffic. The car was running much better, but my lap times were still slower than I thought they should be. I decided to try braking as late as possible.

This was fun. I went screaming over the top of the hill at Turn 1, going downhill into Turn 2 pushing myself back into my seat as hard as I could with my right foot. OK, let's see how long I can wait. Not yet... not yet... almost... NOW! Yikes! Eeek! Uh-oh, too late, at least it's dirt.

I ended up locking up the brakes, skidding almost off the track and at the last minute, turning and punching it. I managed to keep it on the pavement and to get around Turn 2, albeit not very gracefully. After I did this, my first thought was "Jackie wouldn't have been very impressed with that maneuver."

The car was pushing badly and I noticed some tire wear that I didn't like. I asked Roger Kraus his opinion on the tire wear. He didn't think I had enough negative camber and asked me if it was pushing? Yes. The negative camber should help that. Oh well, it's not like I can align it at the track...

The next morning started with the Sprint Race. I got a good start, but the Mazda's ahead of me pulled away and the Mazda's behind me never got close, so after racing a Volvo on the first lap, I was pretty much on my own for the race.

Things were going pretty well, but early in the race someone went off track and dragged a lot of dirt back on. I saw a dust cloud after Turn 5 and saw a waving yellow at the turn station. I prepared to slow down and then the yellow flag went away. Great. I turned in to the apex of Turn 5 and saw that it was covered with dirt. Not a little. This guy was practicing to be a backhoe. I kind of straightened out and slowed down and still went slideways though the turn. On the next lap a debris flag was out.

At lunch I went over and talked to Roger Kraus about the push. He said that with the camber plates I'm using I could just loosen the adjusting bolts and add some camber. This should change the toe, but he said they'd checked in on the alignment rack and insisted that it wouldn't change the toe and... well... he should know.

I started making precise measurements on the camber plates so we could make precise equal changes to both sides... by pounding on them with a hammer. In the meantime, Ted had gone hunting and returned with a camber measure thing (not a Smart Camber, but something like that).

As we loosened the bolts and started pounding away (you thought I was kidding about the hammer thing, huh?) our ramp benefactor came over and started back seat wrenching with helpful statements like "you're nuts." (I actually say this affectionately. The guy was great all weekend. Besides the ramps, he lent me jumper cables on Sunday morning... but I don't want to talk about that...)

We ended up adding another degree of negative camber, plus I softened the front shocks a bit. The suspension changes made a big difference. The car was handling much better. It wasn't where I wanted it, but it was a start. The car probably needs another 1.5 degrees of camber and to change the toe a bit. Then there's still some adjustment left in the shocks and in the ride height. I've given up on more power - it's just not a V8 and it's never going to put out anywhere near 200hp. I'm not getting pulled in the straights any more, so it's time to work on the suspension set up.

The car was handling better, but the Dirt Pusher was at it again right about the time Ted was giving me the Jackie Stewart "grip the road" hand signal (hand open, flexing your fingers like you're trying to hold a basketball) from the pits. We need to work out a hand signal for "tires grip better when there's not dirt piled at the apex of Turn 2 and at the top of the Corkscrew."

Overall it was a great weekend, and probably the last one with the Mazda. I put the ad in the Wheel and it should come out in September. I've been collecting parts for the DSR and I want to start going full bore on building over the winter. I'll keep you posted as anything interesting happens.

To send a letter to Lisa, email to devlin@thunval.com

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