Practice day for Koni Challenge

Today's schedule had two practice sessions. The morning was a forty minute session and the afternoon a thirty minute session. The tentative plan for the morning was for Jason to start it, shake the car down some, then hand it over to me. That didn't work out terribly well as Jason had two different flat tires and some very minor contact with the wall that knocked the alignment out. By the time he figured out what he wanted, the session was almost over so he just finished it up.

We made some setup changes in the time in between and decided he should take it out for a few laps to start the second session, too. We also put new tires on it to see what those felt like versus the used ones we started practice on. Things went well and Jason turned the car over to me. Our driver change was fine and off I went...

I drove this track last year in an MX-5 Cup car, so I knew the track okay. Had to refamiliarize a bit and try to figure out the new car. The car seems very good with the exception of being a little unsettled going into turn one, but that's pretty normal for this track, so we'll probably just have to live with it. The bumps tend to make it difficult to trail the brakes into the corner at all without pitching the car sideways, but this car is very easy to keep under you, so it isn't worth bothering with.

I was a couple seconds off Jason's best times, but he has a lot more seat time at this track than me and a lot of talent, so that's not terribly surprising. The good news is that the data showed most of the time was being lost in two places, which is good. I can concentrate on those more tomorrow since I'll be the one running the entire twenty minute qualifying session. Then I'll start the one hour and forty five minute race. I'll run for at least thirty minutes and then turn the car over to Jason at the first full course caution or probably around 50 minutes, whichever comes first. Then he'll finish.

That's the plan assuming we have no mechanical issues, anyway.