Saleens at Suzuka for 200 A-Spec Points

  • Thread starter Thread starter nualum
  • 1 comments
  • 1,177 views
Messages
64
Finally conquered Saleens @ Suzuka this morning :D

This was going to be a post in the USA One-Make thread in the 200 point sub-forum, but it got a bit long, so I figured I'd make a report out of it and give the extra detail. I'll come back through and add a couple photos to spice it up a bit in the next day or two. For anybody not following the 200 point board, the Saleens are not well regarded for fun 200 point racing. Even at their minimum hp (running the oil for 9000+ miles), they require running on N2 front tires, which are grossly insufficient for the power its putting out. While many people have dedicated their considerable skill to winning races for max points with stock configurations and (more importantly) clean racing, that was NOT my goal. I was after 200 points at any and all cost.

I tried any number of things, ranging from entirely clean racing to entirely dirty, but in the end it was one good bash and a clear run to the finish. I hadn't changed much to the car's settings for the previous races (Sarthe I, Capitan, SSR5, and Infineon), but ended up tweaking it quite a bit for Suzuka based roughly on the advice in the afore mentioned thread to improve the handling (👍 to among others SirBerra, AMG, nige, and bttlefed). Ended up at:

N2/N3 (9100+ miles), NOS 40, Brakes 4/12, Aids 4/10/2, Tranny Trick - Auto 1, Final 4.8
Susp: 15.2, 14.5; Min Height, 5/6 5/6 shock, 3.0/1.7 camber, -2/-4 toe, 5/5 stab.
LSD 5/50/5, Max weight, positioned +50

I was getting extremely frustrated in the race itself, so I ventured out into practice to tune the settings to my preference and see where I stood. After a couple laps warmup, I was running in the 2:21-2:24 range in practice without NOS. Once I had a reasonable feel for the new handling, I brought the opponents back into the mix :scared:

As far as general tactics go, I had originally gone in as aggressively as possible, with fairly disasterous results. Mixing it up with the other cars in the curves left me in the sand much more frequently than it helped. I explored all manner of off-road excursions, but found I was only capable of a three "safe" cuts (red lines below):
1. The first S curve. Coming off the second half of the opening turn, I'd hit the NOS and cut into the grass right at the end of the outer rumble strip, heading straight for the apex of the second S curve (at 85-90 mph). In most cases (see below), I would start braking BEFORE leaving the grass, so the car would be in position for the curve.
2. At Degner, I'd cut onto the grass as soon as the wall would allow, drifting onto the short straight, quickly braking a bit, then cutting again for the second part of the turn. When I hit it well, I'd just miss the inside wall on both cuts and come out right in line with the straights each time.
3. The last chicane (though still very slow and cautious relative to how it can be cut in some other cars)


** MANY THANKS TO AMG FOR THE SOURCE IMAGE!!

In the race itself, I frequently could come off shortcut #1 right behind the 1st place car (NOS through 2nd/3rd gear from the start line, rub inside to 5th place on the first turn, 4th on the second half of that turn, then cut into the grass). Unfortunately, that was generally as close as I got. I would typically wrestle with two trailers for 2nd/3rd/4th, generally ending when one of them knocked me off a turn into the sand. Occasionally I could keep 2nd cleanly, but the struggle let #1 pull away to 3+ seconds every time, and I wasn't closing the gap - with a clear run he'd pull away every time. After many failures :ouch:, knowing I had to somehow get to first before he could pull away, I gambled a bit. Instead of braking in the grass coming off my first cut, I stayed at full speed... knowing that more often than not, the timing worked out so he would be sitting right in front of me. :trouble:

In my more aggressive earlier runs I had tried similar things a number of times, always missing him altogether or hitting on his outside and flinging myself into the sand... but this time I paced it just right so he was squarely in front of me when I hit the tarmac. He went flinging through the curve into the sand, and I was slowed just enough to make the curve (though it was a bit dicey getting it under control). With the fastest car out of the field (I never saw him again) and 1st place in hand for the moment, I just had to run three clean laps.

I lost the lead through the Spoon Corners and 130R on the first lap, but regained the lead briefly in the chicane. Unfortunately I clipped the barrier a bit and had to come to almost a dead stop to avoid the sand. One of the the trailers got past me, but I was able to get up into his slipstream with a bit of NOS. Regained the lead with the first cut, and held it cleanly through the same spot he passed on lap 1. I let him go by without a struggle so I could get a clean line through 130R, and passed him again at the chicane. This time I held the lead through the start line - lap two was my fastest at 2:18 flat - and had about a 1.5 second advantage with one lap to race. The lead stretched a bit by T1, but I lost a second at the hairpin when I got slightly off line. For the third straight lap I lost the lead coming off Spoon and trailed through 130R. Things got VERY nervous here when I got a friendly nudge from the 3rd place car and was sent across the rumble strips on the outside of the curve :nervous:. Thankfully, I had enough NOS left to recover, and the chicane cut set me back into first by a hair. After recovering stability coming out of the chicane, I pushed the NOS to the line and crossed 0.369 ahead!

1000 points in the bank for the tired Saleen.
 
Back