Let me first off start by saying what a year! we jumped ship and brought another car, sold off the "Legend of Hero" and competed in our first track day. Finally the season has come to an end and i actually have some spare time on my hands.......Like i promised, ill talk about our first official track day at GrandBend Raceway.....
Hauling the SRT4 almost 4 hours was well worth it. We played it safe and trailered the little turbo charged monster just in case the track wanted to eat us new comers up. Once we had arrived, i can definitely say we stuck out like sore thumbs, being one of only a hand full of domestics. But all the thumbs up came to us. People actually like Dodge Neons! Who would have thought?!
After quickly flying through tech without any problems, the wheels were torqued again, fuel was added, and i hit the track for the first time (previous week was at Cayuga). Not knowing what corners to take, i followed some crazy off the wall monster in front of me the best i could have....About 4 laps in, i started to get a feel for things, then all hell broke loose......Slowly driving into pits, the car was driving straight but my steering was off.....I automatically felt it on the back straight as i would have to fight the steering wheel just to keep the 4 straight....Last weekend at Cayuga the same thing had happened. Not knowing the issues after an alignment, we said to hell with it, lets just run GrandBend and see what happens.
We brought our third member Brandon along and boy did he come in handy. After the front tires came off, he knew exactly what the problem was.... The "centric bolts" or main "strut bolts" had shifted. The bolts were not OEM but were aftermarket allowing you to play with positive and negative camber, nothing crazy but enough to get little adjustments done. Our only option now was to hammer in the knuckle assembly was far back as possible, put the bolts in and see what happens. By doing this, the steering and suspension was changed greatly. Having a lot of negative camber now meant i would have more tire traction, but my breaking would be sacrificed a little. I did feel the difference, but due to the circumstances, i had no choice.
Quickly throwing the tires back on, and old friend of mine came by, Gitano or "G" for short stopped by. Him and his team over at Centerline Motorsports were running a baby blue 240 in the local CSCS Drift competition. After shooting the shit with him, and being a good guy he is, he brought his helmet and got in the passenger seat to show me some pointers. He's no new comer to Grandbend, already running the road course several times in his K20 powered EK Hatch previous years, it seemed i needed all the pointers i could get.
Getting back on the track was a different experience this time around.....The pointers that were given to me came in handy. When to break, when to accelerate, when to lean into the corner and most importantly, being safe. Starting off in the morning not knowing what the hell i was doing, to having a big help from G in the afternoon was like a night and day difference. By the time the afternoon did show up, i was passing people (yes, that's rite, me!!) taking corners like i knew what i was doing, and pushing the little SRT for what it was built for. We managed to spend 45 minutes on track for the second session. After the hour lunch break, we hit the third session like worriers. By then the track was sticky and nice n' hot.
The day however was shorter than expected. Coming into pits again, the steering was off. The centric bolts had shifted a again, and everything was off. Pulling the tires again, you can feel just how hot the Hawk HPS Plus Pads and Stop Tech Rotors were! We did notice that the tires had already worn, and badly. inside the fender, there was a pinch weld that ran from one side to the other. Every time the car leaned into a corner, you could hear the tires rubbing on the inner part of the fender. In all honesty i never thought anything of it while out on the track. the Fronts were pretty much totalled and the rears could have seen better days. Instead of chancing it and blowing a tire out there, we called it a day. Checking the stats on the big screen at the paddock, we were placing tenth. Out of 13 people in my class and being out there for a first time, thats not bad!
As the sun set, we were happy and proud of ourselves for the accomplishments we achieved. Writing this story now several months after our experience at the track, i can that 2014 is going to be a big year. The Charger has now been stored for the year, along with a new friend. Both cars will experience the track heavily next year.
Thanks to all who take the time to read this, stayed tuned…….
Chris.
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