Schaut Speed Racing Blog

After a decent nights sleep, some breakfast and some confusion on getting to the track (looks like most GPS systems have no idea where Circuit Grand Bayou is - perhaps that is why they changed the name from ‘No Problem’?), we arrive at the track to beautiful sunshine and unusually cool weather.  I heard rumors that the high 40’s the night before were a record low for this time of year.

With Dan and Stan prepping the car, I take off for a recon run around the track.  We’ve been here for past One Laps, and little, if anything has changed.  This little road course uses the tail-end of a drag strip as the front straight; where the drag strip stops (and the gravel trap starts), the road course simply turns left and heads out for some twisty bits.  Technical, flat with a fairly rough/grippy surface.  the only thing to note is some wetness and a puddles on the front straight.

With the high attrition rate (the #8 Porsche GT3 RS is also out now, with a blown clutch at Daytona), I line up behind the #4 Porsche Turbo S driven by Rene von Crazyman (he’s a really cool guy - quite the character!) in the second run group.  Brian Hair is behind me in the #47 M3.  After our recon lap, I take the green and head down to turn 1.  The wetness and puddle I mentioned earlier is still present, and right on the driving line.  The idea is to straddle the puddle and wetness, brake and turn and make it through turn 1 at a high rate of speed.

This works great for the 1st 2 laps, but on the 3rd lap, I’m slightly off line to the right, and the left tires touch the wet pavement just as I’m stabbing the brakes to slow the car from 130 MPH to about 85.  Less traction = more pucker.  The car now does not want to slow nearly as well, or turn for that matter.  I manage to get the car slowed down enough to not take out a few cones (man, I must really have it out for those poor little orange things!) and get back on track.  On the next short straight, I look up in the rearview to see the blue M3 much to large in the mirror.  That little mistake cost a bunch in overall time, about 3 seconds for that lap.  Dang.

I finish out my 3 laps with a time of 4:23.052, 19th overall.  Brian on the other hand ran a blistering 4:11.781 good for 5th place!  He was moving, mistake on my part or not, he was going to kick my butt on this one!

Bill drove his Panamara to a 21st place finish.  Followed in class by the S4 in 43rd and the CTS-V in 48th.

Over lunch break we also swapped out the rotors (we had some pulsation starting at CMP, and worsened with the extreme speeds of Daytona).  This gave us a chance to look at the brake pads, which the fronts were worn down to the rivets.  A track day at Blackhawk farms and the events we’ve had so far have done them in.  The inner pads had even started to delaminate a bit.  Time to swap those out as well (and start trying to figure out a brake cooling solution for next year!)