February 7th NASA Event @ Firebird International Raceway Main Track “Safe” Config

The morning of Feb 7th started unusual for a NASA AZ track day: raining. I woke up to the sound of rain hitting the pavement and immediately I was not a happy driver. The first thing to cross my mind ... “Crap… my tires are bald.” My only choices were to skip the event or venture out on my well-worn yet “sticky-enough” Nitto NT-01’s. I choose the latter of course.

Wanting to secure TTE and TA-A points, I loaded the race car and head out. Lucky for me the rain subsided by the time I reached Firebird International Raceway. This would be my first time back on the Main track i n nearly a year. It wasn’t long till I saw that the once gray and rainy skies were clearing out into a crisp blue. I was in luck! All I would need is one dry session to lay down a fast lap and possibly get my first track record.

When I arrived, there were puddles of standing water all over the place, including the areas off-line on the track. However, the sun was shining and things were looking great. I prepped the car, said my usual “hellos” and headed to the drivers meeting. It wasn’t long till the track went hot.

HPDE4 started the day, drying up the line for the competition groups that would shortly follow. I mingled with a few friends, and gathered opinions from those who already had time on track. To sum it up in one word: “wet”. I knew this would not be the session to get cute and try anything fancy, unless I wanted to turn my first run into a FWD drifting shootout. Not my style. I simply went out with the mindset of just turning laps and getting used to running FIR Main again.

Session one turned out to be a success. No spins, no offs, no problems. Just really slow lap times. yet the clear skies and positive reports of the following run groups meant things were looking good. As the day continued my thoughts drift towards the track record. As of that day, the FIR Main “safe” config TTE record was 1:13.3. Since FIR Main and PIR are roughly the same distance, lap times between the two are pretty close for most cars. Referencing my two previous events at PIR, I turned out a few mid-1:12’s. I thought to myself, “... beating a 1:13.3 today is possible ... maybe.”

The next session was coming up fast; checked tire pressures and visualized what I needed to do.  The yellow flag was up the first lap out, and to my surprise, there was still a lot of standing water on the track…everywhere except “the line”. Once the green flag dropped I felt comfortable and willing to push the car and myself as if it were dry everywhere. The entire session was fun, which usually means it was fast also, but when the checkered flag fell I was rather unsure as to what my times could be…which is pretty unusual for me. I headed to the download with a big smile on my face because I couldn’t wait to see the times.

Early on I sneaked a peek when Sir Brady wasn’t looking. Sure enough, I did it. I turned a fast lap of a 1:13.06! It’s not by much but I had myself a track record. The rest of the day involved trying to improve upon that time…to no avail.

The conditions started to get a tad warm and I could feel my tires not responding well to the warmth. Even still, I had achieved a goal that I thought would not happen until much later in the year: I had my very own track record.