The Fontana Nissan Racing Team made the arduous trip to Willow Springs International Raceway. The trip lasted about five minutes including the three minute delay at the gate. It's good to be racing at the home track again!
After completing the paddock set up on Friday morning the team was ready to start testing the improvements made to both the teams 350Z and the 2009 GTR. Mike first laid down some baseline laps in the GTR. Bone stock with the OE tires he ran a quick 132.1. The first change to evaluate was the new 18" CCW wheels and Nitto NT-01 tires. Bolting on this package with no other changes resulted in a 2.5 second improvement with a time of 129.6. The car still suffered from too much under steer. We took the GTR back over to the shop to change to the JRZ shocks.
We started testing the 350Z and after our engine failure at Buttonwillow were extremely cautious and looking for any detail that would indicate trouble. After a few short runs it was clear that the oil pressure was still marginal. We had a larger capacity oil pump ready so we decided to install that pump to insure the reliability of the engine. After installing the pump the pressures were up but still not as designed. We continued testing the 350Z and achieved a time of 122.9. We had high hopes that during the Time Attack sticker tires and a qualifying effort would result in an expected time of 120.5.
During Round 1 of the Time Attack the tires and handling were way below our expectations. The car was struggling to run a low 125.0. We decided the best thing to do was to run a used set of tires and reset the handling. Mike did a good job and ran a 123.8. Our time was way off of what we had set out to do but we did get a lot of valuable data and the engine survived the weekend. We are confident that with some more testing the car will run the expected mid 1.20 laps.
The GTR ran in Round 1 of the Time Attack and ran a 130.6 with the new JRZ shocks. This performance was also disappointing as we felt we should improve 2 seconds a lap with the better shocks. Mike's input tells us that with some spring changes and a bit of tuning we will get the improvement from the JRZs.
Also during the weekend we ran the Cronin's 1967 Firebird vintage race car. The car had not run in about 10 years. We had some battery issues but did get Mike out in a session and the old bird ran some impressive laps, the best being a 130.3. It is interesting to note that the 1967 car and the 2009 car ran about the same time with two totally different approaches to performance.
The team is now back in the shop working through a long list on all three cars to be ready for the next track session.
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